Dave Ingraham New Member Posts:54  
| 09/07/2006 2:21 AM |
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I just bought DMX for my company's intranet and discovered your activation limitations. I'm curious, why do you require your customers to activate DMX, and why do you only give them 2 activation opportunities? We are currently developing our site on a host that we know we won't stay with. Its just a test site to learn DNN. Once we switch ISPs, we will need to continue developing our site before we go live. As I'm not sure how things will work at the new ISP, I'm very leery of installing DMX on our current host because then I'll only have 1 more opportunity to activate DMX. What happens if we decide that this new ISP isn't working out and we switch to another one but we've used up our 2 activations? Would you force us to buy another copy, even though we would be using it on the same domain, just with a different host?
Over the past several months I've purchased several modules but this is the first one that has limited activation. Why is that?
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Peter Donker Veteran Member Posts:4536
| 09/07/2006 12:27 PM |
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Hi Dave,
1. Why activation? Well, because not all people are completely honest in this world. The fact is that DNN is a very low cost platform which attracts a lot of 'low cost' companies. A large part (if not the majority) of my clientele are small IT companies that make solutions for others. It is not very difficult to see how tempting it is to say: 'oh, I already got that module, I'll install it for you'.
2. Why 2 activations? Considering it works fully locally (i.e. through localhost) without activation ... One for staging, one for deployment. I've never made it a problem to add activations if people ask me. This can be for such things as changing providers, crashed servers etc. In my activation scheme, the DMX 'sticks' to the DNN installation and will still work after a restored backup etc. To come to your question 'would I force you to buy another copy', of course not. It suffices to let me know what's up and I'll make it work.
The fact is that most software products use some form of copy protection. I know there are a bunch of modules out there that don't, but maybe these other developers are not making a living out of this. Bring2mind is 100% DNN module developement.
Peter
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Peter DonkerVeteran Member Posts:4536
| 09/07/2006 12:31 PM |
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As a note to that last post:
With a number of other developers I'm working hard to 'professionalize' the DNN module market. That is: quality modules and quality service. You'll hear more about this in the future. Invariably this means higher prices and copy-protection. I started down this road over a year ago and I believe in this future. I am dedicated to see my module continue to improve and grow with my customer's needs.
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Dave IngrahamNew Member Posts:54
| 09/07/2006 3:40 PM |
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Peter,
Thank you for your reply. I apologize if my first post came across as combative. It was not my intent.
In regards to your last post, do you see DNN becoming "profesionalized", or just the module market?
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Peter DonkerVeteran Member Posts:4536
| 09/07/2006 10:42 PM |
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I see movement in the 'commercial ecosystem that surrounds dnn' becoming more professional. This means: module development, skinning, admin and hosting, etc. I cannot speak for the DNN team, but I know they're working hard to create a profitable open source model. Sounds like a contradiction? Well, the benefactor program seems to be quite a success. Maybe some more CT members will be tempted to become 100% DNN developers, I'm not sure. There was a blog post not long ago by Shaun Walker where he noted the importance of the commercial ecosystem for DNN in the long run.
But my turf is the module market. I sometimes operate as a customer, buying stuff from others for my clients. This is not always a pleasant experience. I like spending my clients' money on module developers because I want to encourage the market. It's just dissappointing if the module is badly programmed (I normally buy with source code) or it has limited support.
My 2cts
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