Why I won't be upgrading to CommunityServer 2007

16 Comments

• What are some of the changes that you don't like?
  

• The thing that stuck out first was the limits to the number of blogs. Personal edition allows 3 blogs, 10 forums, and 3 photo galleries.
  The first commercial edition limits you to 10 blogs, 25 forums and 10 galleries, not much if you want to run a community website allowing users blogs and photos.
  The "enterprise" addons have always been extra, that I understand and don't have a problem with.
  CS started as a few of free open source software packages. They all did their own thing pretty well, and Telligent did a great job putting them all together into an application, but by going to this restrictive licensing model just opens the door up to other applications to start the way .Text, nGallery and the ASP.NET Forums all started up.
  I run community sites because I enjoy it, not because they pay the bills. I've built them off free or extremely cheap software, I have no inclination of paying for software for these sites when I can use other options that are free to utilize.
  

• I dont think you can blame telligent for going commercial, they have bills to pays and as I am running a business I prefer having a solution where I know to whom to speak when I get an issue and prefer knowing that a company is actually getting and putting resources to make innovations on a regular basis and not based on the free time of developpers which can quit at any time when they have better things to do.
  
  OSS based on volonteers works only until a certain point and it remains to be seen how the whole thing with the DNN Corp. will move on, specially when you see that some people do earn money now with the corp and some other still dedicate their time for free to work on it.
  
  In the end I guess the choice between a free or commercial product is always heavily depended on how much your business relies on the tool.
  

• Ouch, just finished reading the CS 2007 license model! Like you, I think I'll forego the upgrade. Maybe I'll take another look at DNN, I hear the latest version has some nice performance improvements. I'm a VB guy anyway.
  

• They have community license for free. check on Telligent.com
  

• Amen, the line drawn for non-profit orgs to run CS just got a mile wide. (unless you only need 10 forums) I guess we'll have to check out DNN.
  

• Simon, a whole market has grown up around DNN's open source model. There are business that provide support for DotNetNuke, heck, I work for a business who does (guessing) 85% of our business in 2006 based on DotNetNuke. We provide support, development, training etc for the application.
  
  I don't blame telligent for being a business, I realize they have to make money. I do blame telligent for taking a tool that could be very handy for the "little" guy and making it expensive and limited, not the good free tool it once was.
  
  There are still plenty of opportunities for site development and support services as Telligent has shown to do with all their work they do for Microsoft related sites using CommunityServer.
  
  What's telligent up to now? 80 people?
  

• Thank god for blogs!
  
  I have been holding off on a few projects for a couple of months due a number of issues which I was planned on rolling CS.
  
  I have to admit, as much as I understand PROFIT and respect it, I cannot contribute those types of numbers and expect a reliable return for my efforts when using such a packaged solutions.
  
  I use solutions like DNN and CS to cut my costs, but pushing stakeholder requirements against pricing of CS 2k7, I can't validate my time and efforts to rollout CS when DNN is free... Before, I could rationalize it, but at the new pricing, I am not sure I can.
  
  I am glad you blogged this because I can "lift and shift" my energy as opposed to waiting.
  
  Hell, if I worked for telligent, I would be all excited about putting calculating those numbers together... They have a great solution!
  
  DNN, I am coming home! Sorry Telligent...
  
  RA
  

• I started using and contributing when it was "only" ASP.NET Forums 1.0, I upgraded and helped with 2.0 too, then 2.0.1, then also when it became CS 1.0, then to CS 2.0, still thinking if I should upgradeto 2.1, but definitely not thinking about staying with CS anymore with that kind of licensing for CS 2007.
  If you or anyone build some reliable converter/migration app (for Forums, Blogs and Galleries), I will be using them and sending you a nice donation. Will you accept Paypal ? :-)
  

• Mario, I'll take a look at things over the next few months. There's a new forum release coming for DNN, that should fix all the major issues that the current Core Forum module has, and hopefully add some new features as well.
  
  I'll be interesting to see how easy or hard it is to do the conversions.
  

• Guys, I saw this post a few days ago and have a few thoughts:
  
  - CS is a fine product, easy to get up and running, has clean data structures, and is easy to customize. It is a real solid product with some great features. The next version sounds like they are really adding some great features as well..
  
  - The new licensing model is not that different from 2.0 and seriously, this is a cheap commercial product. Yeah you could go OSS - but if you do professional development and need the assurance of having a warranty and backup support you are taking a risk that just isn't worth it for the cost of this product (come on $400 for a entire site framework including membership and themes.. then throw in all the community features on top of that..)
  
  - The free version license is even better than in 2.0.. you can show ads (with a $500/month max revenue restriction before you need to buy it.. umm for $400 one time fee..) Seriously, how cheap and selfish can you be if you complain about that?
  
  - Lastly, they offer a subscription model via their service providers.
  
  Anyway, it seems like the group of devs that set it up are pretty dedicated to serving and working with the .NET community and I feel like the post and some of the comments here are pretty unfounded. Did you even read the licensing and compare it to 2.0?
  
  Regards,
  
  David / Rask
  

• I don't know about "unfounded", but yes, I do know how the licensing model compares for the various versions of Community Server. I also know how the licensing model of DNN works as well, if you'd care for me to cover it I will gladly do so.
  

• I felt the need to throw in my dos centavos,..
  It used to be you got what you paid for, .. DNN has changed that, in a good way.
  
  I never used CS, although I'll admit I wanted to some time ago but I remember going over the licensing agreement and thinking even way back then that it was a bit prohibitive for simple sites/hobby sites.
  
  Chris,
  Long time reader, keep up the excellent work.
  
  

• It's not just Community Server that's like this. I'm of the opinion that ease-of-upgrade is no longer a concern at Microsoft. That's fine with me, but I'm definitely interested in exploring other options.
  
  The most eggregious offender has been Visual Studio 2005/.NET 2.0. It's just not a great product, in my opinion, and all of our .NET 2.0 projects have blown out their schedules and budgets. It's a decision that I was responsible for making and I won't make again.
  
  Every product that gets released decreases my enthusiasm for Microsoft development.
  

• Rob has some new licensing changes, but for me I think it's time to jump off the CommunityServer ship. It won't be a quick jump, but I'll be working on moving my sites back to DotNetNuke for 2007.
  

• Yes, you should definitely check out the updates we made today. 100% based on the feedback of what people told us:
  http://communityserver.org/forums/permalink/567679/567679/ShowThread.aspx#567679