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august 2008: "Our commitment is to maintain an amazing free tool ..." http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/about/news/net-reflector http://www.red-gate.com/our

by jeroen 16y ago

august 2008: "Our commitment is to maintain an amazing free tool ..." http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/about/news/net-reflector http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/about/news/net-reflector february 2011: "Red Gate has announced that it will charge $35 for version 7 of .NET Reflector upon its release in early March" http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet-development/reflector/announcement http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet-development/reflecto...

InclinedPlane 16y ago
From the second link: "As many of you know, our original intention was to maintain .NET Reflector as a free tool. But, after two-and-a-half years of providing it without charge, we realized that we could not make the free model work. We know that this will cause pain for some people in the .NET community, and we apologize for the change in policy. As a commercial company, we need to charge at least a nominal amount to keep .NET Reflector up-to-date and relevant. Without revenue coming in, we cannot dedicate a team of developers to ensure that Reflector remains a valuable part of .NET developers’ toolboxes." They gave it a shot, for 2.5 years, and it didn't work. It's hard to fault them. Consider how ridiculously low $35 is for any tool of this sort, I don't think this is some money grubbing effort on Red-Gate's part.
- mariusmg 16y ago
  If RedGate weren't confident in maintaining a free version why the fuck they got Reflector from Lutz ?! As long as is no free version it is money grubbing. RedGate makes some lovely tools but they fucked up royally with Reflector.
  - profquail 16y ago
    There were confident they could maintain a free version; they tried (really hard, I might add) to make the freemium business model work with Reflector, but in the end, they just couldn't. BTW, have you ever considered that if Red Gate didn't buy Reflector from Lutz, he might've stopped maintaining it for free on into perpetuity? That at some point, he might've realized that he was giving away something that people found extraordinarily useful, and might have tried to monetize it himself? What if, 2-3 years ago, we were instead reading a blog post from Lutz saying that he was going to start charging $200/license for Reflector, effective immediately? Would you still be so morally outraged? If not, why?
    - mariusmg 16y ago
      Yes. Free and unmaintained from Lutz would have been better. There are A LOT of free plugins for Reflector out. Everyone is thinking about Reflector itself and ignore the work of plugin authors who extended Reflector because it WAS a GREAT FREE TOOL for the .net community. Without a free version all those plugins are useless. I see no problem if Lutz tried to monetize. I would have bought a license first and foremost as "thank you". Also, how the fuck they tried "really hard" to maintain freemium ? Since they brought Reflector they basically added the VS debugger integration FOR MONEY. How is that trying really hard for the free version ?! Just to be understood correctly. I don't have anything against RedGate. In fact , as i said, they made some great tools. But grabbing one of the best FREE tools in the .net world and trying to monetize (after pledging for a free version) just makes them seem assholes.
- Shanewho 16y ago
  The money grubbing part is that the existing free version will expire and you will no longer be able to use it. So even if you are willing to use the existing product (which doesn't require a "dedicated team of developers"), you are out of luck.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    If they allowed this old version to float-around, it might tarnish the brand. Also, what stops people from saying "it's money grubbing to have a crippled freebie like this and demand $35 for full version". $35 is nothing. I wrote decompilers and they're pretty damn hard and require constant upkeep and testing.
    - Shanewho 16y ago
      There is a difference in "They still offer a crippled freebie for download on there site" and "They disable the version that I have on my computer that works just fine, and force me to pay money for features I may not be interested in". If they don't want to offer a free/old/crippled version anymore, I don't blame them. But if I already have the software installed on my pc today, and tomorrow it doesn't work, that's really lame.

by jeroen 16y ago

InclinedPlane 16y ago

From the second link: "As many of you know, our original intention was to maintain .NET Reflector as a free tool. But, after two-and-a-half years of providing it without charge, we realized that we could not make the free model work. We know that this will cause pain for some people in the .NET community, and we apologize for the change in policy. As a commercial company, we need to charge at least a nominal amount to keep .NET Reflector up-to-date and relevant. Without revenue coming in, we cannot dedicate a team of developers to ensure that Reflector remains a valuable part of .NET developers’ toolboxes." They gave it a shot, for 2.5 years, and it didn't work. It's hard to fault them. Consider how ridiculously low $35 is for any tool of this sort, I don't think this is some money grubbing effort on Red-Gate's part.

mariusmg 16y ago
If RedGate weren't confident in maintaining a free version why the fuck they got Reflector from Lutz ?! As long as is no free version it is money grubbing. RedGate makes some lovely tools but they fucked up royally with Reflector.
- profquail 16y ago
  There were confident they could maintain a free version; they tried (really hard, I might add) to make the freemium business model work with Reflector, but in the end, they just couldn't. BTW, have you ever considered that if Red Gate didn't buy Reflector from Lutz, he might've stopped maintaining it for free on into perpetuity? That at some point, he might've realized that he was giving away something that people found extraordinarily useful, and might have tried to monetize it himself? What if, 2-3 years ago, we were instead reading a blog post from Lutz saying that he was going to start charging $200/license for Reflector, effective immediately? Would you still be so morally outraged? If not, why?
  - mariusmg 16y ago
    Yes. Free and unmaintained from Lutz would have been better. There are A LOT of free plugins for Reflector out. Everyone is thinking about Reflector itself and ignore the work of plugin authors who extended Reflector because it WAS a GREAT FREE TOOL for the .net community. Without a free version all those plugins are useless. I see no problem if Lutz tried to monetize. I would have bought a license first and foremost as "thank you". Also, how the fuck they tried "really hard" to maintain freemium ? Since they brought Reflector they basically added the VS debugger integration FOR MONEY. How is that trying really hard for the free version ?! Just to be understood correctly. I don't have anything against RedGate. In fact , as i said, they made some great tools. But grabbing one of the best FREE tools in the .net world and trying to monetize (after pledging for a free version) just makes them seem assholes.
Shanewho 16y ago
The money grubbing part is that the existing free version will expire and you will no longer be able to use it. So even if you are willing to use the existing product (which doesn't require a "dedicated team of developers"), you are out of luck.
- mahmud 16y ago
  If they allowed this old version to float-around, it might tarnish the brand. Also, what stops people from saying "it's money grubbing to have a crippled freebie like this and demand $35 for full version". $35 is nothing. I wrote decompilers and they're pretty damn hard and require constant upkeep and testing.
  - Shanewho 16y ago
    There is a difference in "They still offer a crippled freebie for download on there site" and "They disable the version that I have on my computer that works just fine, and force me to pay money for features I may not be interested in". If they don't want to offer a free/old/crippled version anymore, I don't blame them. But if I already have the software installed on my pc today, and tomorrow it doesn't work, that's really lame.