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What does free really mean?

(an open letter to those who are disgusted by our desire to make a buck)

So people have started giving us a hard time because every add-on in the marketplace isn't free. I get that. When we went open source in mid 2008, we talked a lot about the importance of freedom of expression and how we wanted to make the world a better place. All this remains true today, the reality is - we gotta eat.

Let's be direct - this "free" thing is new, and open source is an odd conglomeration of different ideas and licenses. To me, the idea is you have control. I don't want to have you driving a car around where you're not legally allowed to open the hood. That's crazy, but that's what a lot of commercial software does today. Does that mean you can have any car you want and I have to build it for free on the off chance you want to pay me to service it? I'm not so sure.

I don't think "we make money on services" is a very fair model for a software company, be it open source or commercial licensed. In my experience, large or small companies following this model tend to put less love into their core product and more love into each gig they win, for unavoidable financial reasons. I don't want to do that. I want us to make our living off of selling software, not fixing it.

So yes. There's a marketplace - and we're building stuff that's for sale in there. Nothings massively expensive for what it does. I say that as a man who has approved many thousands of dollars for license fees around CMS software, and is now selling components for $15 a pop. Moreover, I say that having opened the money machine to you!

You can make money at this. We've taken a lot of the heavy work out of the equation for you here. You've got a great framework to use that's powerful, extendable, and totally free. If you build something YOU want to sell, we'll happily help you do that. If your add-on meets our standards, we'll put it in the marketplace, we'll help you translate it, we'll even make it a featured add-on in our marketplace and across tens of thousands of concrete5 installs in the Add Functionality tab.

So let's get to it. A website should be as easy to use as a pen and paper. That's doesn't mean it's evil if we can actually make a living at this too. Does it?

-Franz Maruna
CEO, concrete5

Comments:

Posted by invader2k7 on Nov 10th, 2009

you make sense, people always want everything for nothing they want high pay don't want to work want to catch fish don't want to buy a fishing pole that's the world we live in. but on the same had people don't like to feel like they are being tricked if you say something is free put behind that statement you have the option to buy bla bla bla well am going get back to making my site thanks Mr Maruna

Posted by saveremreve on Jan 03rd, 2010

I agree and this sounds like a great system, the only comment I have is that there should be more flexibility in the range of pricing. Would $1 or $5 really be untenable?

Posted by frz on Jan 03rd, 2010

We're not the size of Apple so at that scale we'd be losing money on merchant fees.

Moreover good work and ongoing support go into the apps you can buy here, you get what you pay for.

best wishes,
-frz

Posted by mmuller on Jan 30th, 2010

totally agree with your point frz, the framework you guys have created is incredible for the price ;)

I, for certain, am glad that I can support the developers of this cms (and any other developers) by purchasing addon's (when I get to that stage, with my clients needs) and know that this CMS will continue to grow into something marvellous.

regards,

mmuller

Posted by jcolome on Feb 10th, 2010

could not have said it any better. Good job!


Jcolome

Gainesville, FL