Redirect Pro

There’s a new plugin available at Threshold State, Redirect Pro.

It’s the first in a series of subscriber-only plugins. As an introductory offer, subscriptions are only $9.

More to come, if the concept proves successful.

Comment

Hmm….

I’m not sure I like the current turns of Txp. Pro-plugins? Subscriber-only…?

I guess this is the effect of making plugins and no one is donateing.

But you guys are the core contributors and you should get something for your efforts.

Its a complicated issue and I have no good idea as how to solve it.

Best of luck to you all though!

— Henrik · Feb 21, 09:26 AM · #
Henrik,

If you see paid plugins as a problem, it seems to me the solution is easy enough: write and release free plugins yourself, or support those who do.

— Alex · Feb 21, 01:34 PM · #
I dig the idea: if the price tag remains that affordable I’m looking forward to see more “pro” plug-ins.

— Neko · Feb 21, 02:16 PM · #
Don’t forget RedirectPro is 9 USD, one year support, and it’s under GPL. It’s a good deal for everyone: it keep Alex (Zem) on Textpattern because it cover some of his costs, and it give the community a good plugin.

Textpattern has directly generated thousands of dollars for the dev team, but it was ended some time ago (last year? I can’t find any TXD reference to that deal, now)... and bills are not paid with yesterday’s money.

— Jérémie · Feb 21, 04:14 PM · #
I paid for it. I think it’s well worth it, and agree that the TXP developers deserve a little thanks for all their hard work. Keep it up!

— Nathan Smith · Feb 21, 05:39 PM · #
Hm. Alex deserves support for his efforts. But it does sort of give TxP a negative image, whether it’s deserved or not. I prefer TxP over WP, but obviously all those free mods and add-ons for WP is what has made WP so popular.

— Geoff · Feb 22, 11:11 PM · #
So if it’s GPL can I share it with everyone once I purchase it?

— Walter Reed · Feb 22, 11:18 PM · #
Geoff: I find it hard to believe that the existence of optional plugins that are worth paying for gives Textpattern a negative image.

Walter: you can do anything the GPL permits, as the info page says. Please note that while the source code is GPL, documentation, support and regular updates are available to subscribers only.

— Alex · Feb 22, 11:24 PM · #
I think you have to take these things on a case-by-case basis. I purchased this plugin because it looked useful. I don’t regret it even though I haven’t figured out how I am going to use just yet. Whether I would do it again for Alex or anyone else would depend on whether the plugin was something I thought I needed.

— Michael Pate · Feb 23, 06:01 PM · #
I paid for it. I think it’s well worth it, and agree that the TXP developers deserve a little thanks for all their hard work. Keep it up!

— antisexy · Feb 28, 01:04 AM · #
The plugin is very usefull and VERY easy to use. I didn’t even need to read the documentation twice to understand it.
Amyone who comes accross mod_rewrite and what is the aproppriate syntax, will apreciate, what this plugin is.
As towards the whole PRO or not discussion, considering the Subscriber Price and support, just make me smile.
I’d even go so far to pay more then double the price.

Another way to think about it:

Zem is a very capable and knolledgable programmer, supporting and developinging the TXP core, where it is today on an everyday basis.
In other words:
He knows the Core in and out.

( Something that I deeply admire )

Why would someone want to discuss about 9$ and go the difficult more expensive route , and about wether PRO is right or wrong ?

It seems more like a matter of common sense to me.
Anyone is free to choose what suits their needs best.

As for myself: I think, it is a very generous offer.

regards, marios

— marios · Feb 28, 04:36 PM · #
If I count the numerous times I went to my .htaccess just to redirect an old URL to a new one, multiply these times with the hourly wage of (insert McJob title here), these are 9 USD spent really well. I wouldn’t even think about it, honestly.

And, for those who are not sure if this is a bright move for the product per se: The only thing Textpattern really lacks is an economic aspect. Free software is not necessarily better if built by starving developers. Hoping for donors does – generally speaking – not work at all, as most of the time “free software” is taken as in “free beer”, not as in “free speech”.

— wet · Mar 1, 09:15 PM · #
Isn’t this a violation of the GPL? They’re derivatives of a GPL licensed work and must be made available to anyone/everyone.

I think I’ll forward this to EFF, just to be on the safe side.

— Mike · Mar 12, 05:15 AM · #
Mike,

This is entirely within both the letter and spirit of the GPL.

First off, the code is an entirely original work by me, not a derivitive of anyone else’s work.

And second, the GPL has never required that code be distributed to anyone and everyone. That’s true whether the code is original, as it is here, or a derivitive of someone else’s GPL code.

Please see the GPL FAQ for more information. In particular: 1, 2, 3.

The EFF isn’t the right organization to ask about possible GPL violations. Again, see the GPL FAQ. If you’d like to ask the FSF, I have no doubt they’ll confirm that everything is legit here.

— Alex · Mar 12, 05:41 AM · #
Alex, what about this

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. This means the plug-ins must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and that the terms of the GPL must be followed when those plug-ins are distributed.

— Eric · Mar 12, 03:05 PM · #
Yes Eric. And Alex is.

I was distributed the program by Alex. I got the sources, I got the program under a GPL licence.

If I wanted, I could redistribute also the program. For money, or not.

The GPL isn’t against paying for something, it promotes having the source and the liberty to do edit it and redistribute it.

— Jérémie · Mar 12, 07:07 PM · #
Eric,

It’s true that the FAQ says plugins for a GPL’d program like Textpattern must also be GPL. That’s a contentious issue: it’s the opinion of the GNU project, but many people think it doesn’t hold much water. I’ve always figured it’s safer to assume it is true, and release all Textpattern plugins under the GPL.

As Jérémie says, Redirect Pro is provided to all subscribers under the terms of the GPL. This is stated up front on the plugin page.

The text of the GPL itself explicitly states that charging a fee for downloads and/or support is permitted (“You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee” — pretty much exactly what the subscription service is). It has never been the case that authors are required to give away copies of GPL software to the public free of charge.

The GNU project speaks out strongly in favour of selling GPL software, with a few caveats. The Redirect Pro subscription launch is an experiment designed to see whether or not selling GPL’d Textpattern plugins is a feasible business model, given those caveats. If it succeeds, I’ll keep doing it. If not, I’ll find a different way to pay the rent.

— Alex · Mar 13, 12:17 AM · #
One great solution for this problem is to donate to the developers everytime you use the plugins for commercial projects. The idea is simple: I am now developing a web site that will be powered by Txp and Txp plugins. Once its complete, I will be donating 20% of the money to textpattern. Think its a good idea.

— Stergio · Mar 14, 03:45 PM · #
It’s a good idea. But Donation isn’t quite reliable for them I guess.

— Jérémie · Mar 15, 02:44 AM · #
Put it this way: the (very modest) subscription revenue from the first two weeks of Redirect Pro is roughly triple the value of donations received by Team Textpattern in the past year.

Donations are an attractive idea, but charity is not a business model.

The whole subscription idea came out of the donation system I experimented with on Threshold State: if people are going to donate, why not give them something in return that they wouldn’t otherwise have?

— Alex · Mar 15, 04:43 AM · #
These pro-plugins do not put me off Txp, and if there is one that might help me I wouldn’t begrudge paying $9 for use and support.

However, if I was appraising CMS solutions (as I was a year or so ago) and I came across an open source project which was starting to charge for some of it’s plugins, I am certain it would have cast Txp in a negative light for me.

The developers should think very carefully about this.

I wonder whether the pro-plugins should have been developed under an unofficial project, so that the Txp project itself remained a free open source project without any mention of paying for aspects of it on the official site. There is no reason why a collaboration of programmers could not develop their own plugins for which they charge a fee (there are such plugins for phpbb for example). A link from the resources site wouldn’t detract from the open source nature of the overall project.

— tameboy · Apr 30, 06:29 PM · #

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