Why not charge for RavenNuke?

thoth · Hangin' Around Joined: Oct 15, 2006 Posts: 28

Not for the software, as there'll always be unscrupulous individuals that rip that off unfortunately Sad

Charge for support in the Forums.. just something nominal so as not to dissuade people from joining. You guys work your butts off , and deserve recompense.

Did you like all the big words ?

$5 a month ? For years now I've gone to different support forums, and a lot of people want answers straight away, some even get rude if they don't get answered. Considering it's FREE people should pay more respect, and imo a little something for your efforts to help them.

I've not much money, but I could afford this as I'm sure most others can.

Thoughts?

Raven · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:26 pm

This thread should get lively Wink

. I will stay out of it to see where it leads. We have had several discussions over the years.

sak · Worker Joined: Jul 06, 2005 Posts: 167

I would pay an annual fee for this type of service. Perhaps the best way to make something like that viable would be to have a corporate support option. I use RavenNuke on a corporate level, so having good support available even if it costs a couple hundred bucks a year or something would be fine with me. Getting the software to do what I need it to do helps me bring in revenue, which can easily be passed to the people who do the work.

gazj · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:57 pm

how about regular support and premium support
how this would work is regular members post in the forums requesting help and premium members get regular support plus access to special forums with lists of all know issues and fixes also with the option for (non php minded people) to be added to a que where somebody will fix the issue for them providing the user wants to hand out the ftp info

nextgen · Worker Joined: Sep 28, 2006 Posts: 135 Location: Maryland

Not to be a one of the few to speak against this but most folks use free portal software becaus eit is exactly that "free". I am pretty certain Raven knew the support that would be required by taking on such a task. He is not one to just jump into something with out thinking it through from every angle.

eldorado · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:49 pm

i'm against that Sad

RWS should sell support to it's clients not users.

nuken · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:50 pm

I hate to say it but the way PHPNuke would release the latest to the club only would probably be the best idea. If you charge for support, either another site will offer support in an attempt to gain members or future users will switch to another CMS. It is a shame that people will use and use and never give back, but that is the nature of the beast....

Palbin · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:58 pm

I am against it. I don't want to get into how this might affect a user's choice to use the CMS. I am purely looking at it from a developer / moderator / support person's perspective. Now I want to say off the bat that I like helping people, and will do all I can to try and fix their problems. I am only speaking for myself here BUT I do not want to feel obligated to have to help someone solve there problems.

floppydrivez · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:06 pm

Palbin wrote:

I am against it. I don't want to get into how this might affect a user's choice to use the CMS. I am purely looking at it from a developer / moderator / support person's perspective. Now I want to say off the bat that I like helping people, and will do all I can to try and fix their problems. I am only speaking for myself here BUT I do not want to feel obligated to have to help someone solve there problems.

I can tell you from experience that is a huge factor. You end up supporting your product and many others too. Take Clan Themes for instance. A person buys a theme from us and the first time something fubars up it obviously must be the theme that caused it. Even after you prove them wrong, you have lost a customer.

To keep that customer, you have to help them work through their problems caused by others work.

This happens twice a day on CT if not more. I spend the majority of my time supporting others hard work and if I want to keep my customer base I have too support all their problems. It quickly becomes an obligation and bloodline of your business.

If you plan to charge for anything even if it is just $1. You can expect this to become fact. I am not against of course, but that point is a good one.

I consider my problems a very small scale to problems a move like this might produce. I know what it feels like from both sides of this fence and I can walk away from someone who isn't a valued customer much easier.

Doulos · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:15 pm

I don't like to pay for support. I'll donate plenty, but somehow it seems different.

I agree with thoth, though, it is really annoying to read angry, or rude posts from people who EXPECT something for nothing.

floppydrivez · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:21 pm

I would pay way more than $5 for support. If you say you would never pay for support then you have never been on the other end of that stick. Support is a never ending job, period.

You take a look at some of the other phpnuke communities that have removed or closed their forums claiming stupid stuff like spam. Not even close to the truth. If I closed the CT forums I could spend the majority of my days watching Family Guy reruns.

The problem is until you been a developer and had to support something, you think a support charge is ridiculous. In which lies the problem, that is 99% of this audience.

The best way to charge for support is in the price of the product as a surcharge or separate option. That has always been the case.

alien73 · Involved Joined: Sep 15, 2008 Posts: 352

It all depends on the direction Raven wants to go.. I can say charging for a product that used to be free brings many.. many.. headaches.

"Open Source Matters"

Palbin · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:56 pm

floppydrivez wrote:

Palbin wrote:

I am against it. I don't want to get into how this might affect a user's choice to use the CMS. I am purely looking at it from a developer / moderator / support person's perspective. Now I want to say off the bat that I like helping people, and will do all I can to try and fix their problems. I am only speaking for myself here BUT I do not want to feel obligated to have to help someone solve there problems.

I can tell you from experience that is a huge factor. You end up supporting your product and many others too. Take Clan Themes for instance. A person buys a theme from us and the first time something fubars up it obviously must be the theme that caused it. Even after you prove them wrong, you have lost a customer.

To keep that customer, you have to help them work through their problems caused by others work.

This happens twice a day on CT if not more. I spend the majority of my time supporting others hard work and if I want to keep my customer base I have too support all their problems. It quickly becomes an obligation and bloodline of your business.

If you plan to charge for anything even if it is just $1. You can expect this to become fact. I am not against of course, but that point is a good one.

I consider my problems a very small scale to problems a move like this might produce. I know what it feels like from both sides of this fence and I can walk away from someone who isn't a valued customer much easier.

Doulos · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:25 pm

I am just saying "free" is like a magic word to me. I would never have tried RN or tried to get support here if it wasn't "free". I strongly believe in supporting things I believe in, especially if I partake in them. I am not a developer, don't know PHP, and am barely able to find my way around HTML so, this website and the products distributed here are a life line to me - so far 5 sites I administer use RN - therefore, I support it. End of story.

Raven · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:40 am

I have always contended that regular support should be free. It's not an opensource issue to me and never has been. I have always hoped that donations would make it all worthwhile. There are many who do give and I am very thankful for that. There are a few who give regularly, some even in this thread Wink

Having said that, let me steer the discussion a little to see what you think. I am prepared to release RavenNuke(tm) WebSVN. This will give web access to the RavenNuke(tm) trunk file (our real time development file). This will give you instant access to the latest and greatest code on a real time basis. You've seen this before at many sites where they offer nightly builds, etc. The code may be tested or not. And we will support bug issues to an extent. But, I don't plan on releasing this for free. I haven't finalized anything (yet) and this thread gives me a good forum (no pun intended) to discuss it. My thoughts are along the line of maybe $50/6 months. Theme and script developers who publicly advertise RN developed themes/scripts will get a substantial discount. For those of you who don't know what I'm referring to, see these screen shots.

#1 - Opening screen