Trying not to cheat the Marketplace
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Hi,
I'm not trying to cheat the system, but the way the current marketplace is setup up, there's one login for the C5 marketplace from which all the blocks you have purchased are available to any install of C5.
So my clients have free access to blocks purchased by other clients.
So I guess you need a unique marketplace ID for each client? I have dozens of clients. That's pretty messy :p
But that's only if you go the extra mile to be fair and honest, which I'm sure we all are, but why create a system that promotes theft by making it a confusing pain in the neck to do things the right way?
Newbies would be prone to think that a single purchase extends to any and all domains. I mean, there's the package, just sitting in the install column, begging to be installed without further payment. I had to double check the fine print to learn that blocks are supposed to be purchased per domain.
So, I hope this problem gets solved to promote a more fair treatment of the C5 team, because I'm hoping to use C5 for a long long time and I want to see them succeed.
I'm not trying to cheat the system, but the way the current marketplace is setup up, there's one login for the C5 marketplace from which all the blocks you have purchased are available to any install of C5.
So my clients have free access to blocks purchased by other clients.
So I guess you need a unique marketplace ID for each client? I have dozens of clients. That's pretty messy :p
But that's only if you go the extra mile to be fair and honest, which I'm sure we all are, but why create a system that promotes theft by making it a confusing pain in the neck to do things the right way?
Newbies would be prone to think that a single purchase extends to any and all domains. I mean, there's the package, just sitting in the install column, begging to be installed without further payment. I had to double check the fine print to learn that blocks are supposed to be purchased per domain.
So, I hope this problem gets solved to promote a more fair treatment of the C5 team, because I'm hoping to use C5 for a long long time and I want to see them succeed.
Why are you giving your customers your marketplace login information? This information is only required to download packages from the marketplace. Once the site is set up you don't need the marketplace. If your customers want to download and install add-ons later they can either create their own login or ask you to do it with yours.
Indeed, I have not provided my customers with my Marketplace login.
But during dev, when I login to a C5 site thru the Marketplace to obtain a purchased block, any "save for later" blocks appear in my install column on the right of the "add functionality" section. And they remain there for whoever logs in to that C5 site, even after I have logged out.
But during dev, when I login to a C5 site thru the Marketplace to obtain a purchased block, any "save for later" blocks appear in my install column on the right of the "add functionality" section. And they remain there for whoever logs in to that C5 site, even after I have logged out.
We've been thinking about this for a while, and now that we're seeing a lot more apps from 3rd party developers it feels like we should really improve it. You're right, as a whole we're making it really hard to do the right thing in terms licensing.
I don't think the situation is quite as bad as you describe in your second post. If you connect a site to the marketplace, it will see everything you've ever purchased giving you the choice to first download and then install them. I guess if you download them but don't install they would stay there on the right when someone else logged in as you describe, but I'm fairly certain that if you just log out and someone logs in they wont see all your addons just because you connected at one time.
That aside.. What we're thinking of in the big picture is doing something similar to the gaming industry. Create value in doing the right thing rather than wasting energy trying to beat crackers. If you want to pirate a game, it's pretty easy to find it these days. If you want to play multiplayer online, an important part of almost every game released, you'll find you need a valid serial code.
So for our model, we're thinking we'll buff out what the concrete5.org community offers. When you connect your website to concrete5.org, there will actually be a page for it and you'll be able to grant privileges to your client or other developers your collaborating with. There might be some workflow management tools, there might be a way to find new work, or connect with a developer if you're a site owner who needs help. There will also be a way to see everything that is installed on your target site. Updates will be improved, and you'll get nags suggesting a newer version of such and such add-on that jives with your current version of concrete5 is available. When you goto install an add-on, it'll check to see if you've recently installed this copy somewhere else, and then it will ask you some pointed questions.
Personally, I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to create DRM because it is very easy to get around and generally annoys people who have weird edge cases. If I'm moving a site, or if I've got a stage or something I don't want to be constantly tearing my hair out over add-ons.. I also get that we don't want to alienate our core customers and evangelists who are at least buying some licenses...
but yes.. it is hard to do the right thing, and you can expect us to continue rethinking the marketplace, update, and connect to marketplace flow so its a lot easier for end site owners, and its also easier to do the right thing.
-frz
I don't think the situation is quite as bad as you describe in your second post. If you connect a site to the marketplace, it will see everything you've ever purchased giving you the choice to first download and then install them. I guess if you download them but don't install they would stay there on the right when someone else logged in as you describe, but I'm fairly certain that if you just log out and someone logs in they wont see all your addons just because you connected at one time.
That aside.. What we're thinking of in the big picture is doing something similar to the gaming industry. Create value in doing the right thing rather than wasting energy trying to beat crackers. If you want to pirate a game, it's pretty easy to find it these days. If you want to play multiplayer online, an important part of almost every game released, you'll find you need a valid serial code.
So for our model, we're thinking we'll buff out what the concrete5.org community offers. When you connect your website to concrete5.org, there will actually be a page for it and you'll be able to grant privileges to your client or other developers your collaborating with. There might be some workflow management tools, there might be a way to find new work, or connect with a developer if you're a site owner who needs help. There will also be a way to see everything that is installed on your target site. Updates will be improved, and you'll get nags suggesting a newer version of such and such add-on that jives with your current version of concrete5 is available. When you goto install an add-on, it'll check to see if you've recently installed this copy somewhere else, and then it will ask you some pointed questions.
Personally, I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to create DRM because it is very easy to get around and generally annoys people who have weird edge cases. If I'm moving a site, or if I've got a stage or something I don't want to be constantly tearing my hair out over add-ons.. I also get that we don't want to alienate our core customers and evangelists who are at least buying some licenses...
but yes.. it is hard to do the right thing, and you can expect us to continue rethinking the marketplace, update, and connect to marketplace flow so its a lot easier for end site owners, and its also easier to do the right thing.
-frz
Making it hard to do the right thing? Sure, but isn't it also bleeding a potential source of income? There's no way of even tracking what is lost. If you owned a bookstore where every customer who bought a $15 book walked out with two or three, it'd be more obvious. I'm not sure why this seems like such a big issue to me.
At any rate, I guess I shouldn't be more concerned about it than you guys. So good luck.
At any rate, I guess I shouldn't be more concerned about it than you guys. So good luck.
