Buying new self hosted licence - how to choose few applications?

[Dreadknux]

On 8/1/2023 at 4:34 PM, Charles said:

@Dreadknux and @Miss_B If you click the "switch" button in the client area on your license, it will show you a lot of information on your options. It does not actually switch you over until you approve it.

Thanks Charles. I just checked this out and I'm very impressed with the offering. I do appreciate the hard work you guys have all done at IPS to repackage this in a way that's enticing for admins like me that want to have it all 😆 I may wait until the new year to jump in on this (funnily enough my loyalty gets me a couple extra months on my plan, but if I jump in now it will push my renewal back to December which... isn't a convenient month for renewal fees! 😅 The offer is almost too good for now in that case, haha!).

I know some of us clients like to whine about this and that sometimes... but the truth is I'm very happy as a long-term IPS customer, and when I get even a flitter of a 'grass is greener' thought in moving to another platform (other forums in the same content vertical as me go for a competing software) I just think about the things I plan to do for my community/site and realise that nothing really touches IPS honestly. Especially in the comms department - people may grumble that this topic or that topic doesn't get replied to, but you guys respond when it matters (tech issues etc) so I wanted to just show my appreciation for that too while I'm here. Thanks for all the hard work!

As @CheersnGears said, I also don't believe that having "just a forum" cuts it anymore if you want to be serious about managing a community/site (although I've nothing against anyone who just wants to run a forum solo), so having all of the apps at your fingertips is the best approach for both clients and IPS (in terms of development I imagine). I know I've had great success in migrating my old Wordpress site content into Pages/CMS, and have lots of ideas of how to use Gallery and maybe even Blogs...

I hope that this new "all apps" structure for Classic allows IPS to spend as much time revamping and enhancing each app as equally as each other... either way, I'm looking forward to jumping in at the right time for me and taking advantage of the offer. Many thanks again!

[Day_]

Meanwhile, myself and fellow Cloud users watching all this pricing confusion unfold 😛

[Joel R]

9 hours ago, Driven 2 Services said:

This "then getting 3 years worth of new software" is a non-sequitur. They weren't using and the benefitting from the new features during those three years, so no "abuse" exists except in the management team's minds. 

Imagine someone someone who left their car uninsured for 3 years, and decided to re-insure being told they must pay the 3 years back insurance because new policies have additional features. Or Microsoft making everyone upgrading to a newer Windows version pay the upgrade fees for all the versions between.

Retroactive update charging frankly, comes across as petty. It is one of the most restrictive licensing terms I've run across in 30+ years of working in the software world.

I hope this post doesn't disappear as other critical posts about the new licensing model have.

The new terms only begin once you opt in to the new terms.  

There's a certain amount of hysteria that these changes are being applied retroactively.  

If you don't accept or want the new terms and want to coast along on v4, then don't accept the new terms.

It's understandable that clients with your worldview will skip renewals, perhaps because of experiences in other forum ecosystems.  It would make sense that you are cautious about continuing to invest in an active license if, for example,your forum developer doesn't release any new features after years of no activity. If you truly and authentically evaluate IPS on its own merits by looking at the Release Notes and the Company blog, however, you'll find a development and release cycle that is robust, monthly, and feature rich.  

The terms by IPS seem more stringent in light of other ecosystems.  I invite you to evaluate IPS on its own merits, instead of imposing the fears from other vendors.

[Ricsca]

@Joel R But if I only need the forum why do I have to pay more?
If I don't want to accept the new terms, I'll stay with v4 but will this be updated at least for security?
If it won't be updated anymore, I'm basically forced to accept....

[Charles]

1 hour ago, Ricsca said:

@Joel R But if I only need the forum why do I have to pay more?
If I don't want to accept the new terms, I'll stay with v4 but will this be updated at least for security?
If it won't be updated anymore, I'm basically forced to accept....

We plan to give V4 security updates and such for years. 

[DawPi]

I'm pretty sure I've seen the answer to this question, but I'd like to make sure. Customers who do not change the license mode to the new one stay on v4 and license renewals work as before? That there is no obligation to renew for a year and after two years of not paying for renewal, the license will still be on the client's account?

[PatrickRQ]

On 7/30/2023 at 12:41 PM, Charles said:

If anyone has questions about your specific scenario, please reach out to us via email.

A question, if I click that button:

Will I get offered first of how my payment will look like and what is the updated EULA?

I ask as I do not want to get upgraded right after clicking the button 😛

[Charles]

3 hours ago, DawPi said:

I'm pretty sure I've seen the answer to this question, but I'd like to make sure. Customers who do not change the license mode to the new one stay on v4 and license renewals work as before? That there is no obligation to renew for a year and after two years of not paying for renewal, the license will still be on the client's account?

Right. 

2 hours ago, PatrickRQ said:

A question, if I click that button:

Will I get offered first of how my payment will look like and what is the updated EULA?

I ask as I do not want to get upgraded right after clicking the button 😛

Yes, it gives you a lot of information first. 

[Marc Stridgen]

The process of switching looks like this, to give you an idea of what you would be looking at once you click that button, if that helps?

 

[Markus Jung]

On 8/5/2023 at 1:23 AM, Charles said:

We plan to give V4 security updates and such for years. 

Will this also apply for Cloud customers? I need to stay on v4 at least until there is a German translation and updated versions of my apps for v5. 

[Robert Angle]

Well I have some mixed emotions.

On the one hand, this is fantastic for my established community. I currently have everything except for Commerce and my 6 month renewals are $105, or $210 per year. I will be converting this license to gain the extra functionality and lower my annual costs.

On the other hand, I am about to start a new community, and was was heading over here to buy JUST the forum and maybe one other app, then was shocked that it's all bundled together for $500 now. I was willing to invest a little bit on an idea that may or may not succeed, but now I'm back to wondering if I should start with a freeware script at first, and convert later. I would rather not do that because I am very fond of and very familiar with the Invision Suite. And if the new community should fail, I would use the license to try again with another one.

It would be nice if existing users got a discount or coupon code for subsequent licenses.

[Lindy]

11 hours ago, Markus Jung said:

Will this also apply for Cloud customers? I need to stay on v4 at least until there is a German translation and updated versions of my apps for v5. 

We cannot guarantee v4 will be supported quite as long as Classic. One of the core advantages of cloud is that we are able to leverage the latest technologies to deliver a better experience than what can be had via the average self-hosted environment. There will likely be a time that updates to the cloud infrastructure will necessitate upgrading from v4, but there is nothing on the immediate horizon and we expect we'll be able to continue v4 support on cloud for some time. 

8 hours ago, Robert Angle said:

Well I have some mixed emotions.

On the one hand, this is fantastic for my established community. I currently have everything except for Commerce and my 6 month renewals are $105, or $210 per year. I will be converting this license to gain the extra functionality and lower my annual costs.

On the other hand, I am about to start a new community, and was was heading over here to buy JUST the forum and maybe one other app, then was shocked that it's all bundled together for $500 now. I was willing to invest a little bit on an idea that may or may not succeed, but now I'm back to wondering if I should start with a freeware script at first, and convert later. I would rather not do that because I am very fond of and very familiar with the Invision Suite. And if the new community should fail, I would use the license to try again with another one.

It would be nice if existing users got a discount or coupon code for subsequent licenses.

Please reach out to sales@invisionpower.com to see if there's anything we can do for you. 🙂 

[Robert Angle]

Hey, I want to quell some speculation in a chaotic discussion taking place in another community regarding the new license arrangment for Self-Hosted clients who opt to adopt them.

Just like under the old license agreement, if a license expires, the software continues to function, correct? Even if more than 24 months elapse, that software will still continue to function, correct?

There is a fear among participants in this dicsussion that if someone doesn't renew their license, or fails to renew it within 24 months, that Invision will pull the plug on their site, and suddenly members of their community will visit and see that it has been shut down. 

Surely that is not the case, right?

Would that community continue to function? Under the old license, services like Spam prevention, Upgrades, Support, etc would be discontinued, but the license could be renewed at any time. The new arrangement only means that if more than 24 months elapse without a renewal, should you want those services back or desire to upgrade, you will have to drop the $499 again.

In summary, renew at $19 to extend the license another month, or renew annually at $199 to extend the license another year. Fail to extend your license for 12 more months (equaling 24 months since previous paid renewal) and you will have to buy a new license at $499 and generate a new license key. But the installations of those who let 24+ months elapse will still have an operational self-hosted community, just no longer supported.

Is this thinking correct?

 

[Charles]

Nothing is really changing in that regard. We don't have a backdoor or anything like that to shut your community down 🙂 

Of course it would be detrimental to your community success and security to run any software platform that has not had an update in years, but that's up to you in the end.

[abobader]

I update mine as well and get 2 months free.

Sure I do not want the extra app's since I been paying for them many years before, but still it a good deal in general.

[The Old Man]

Today I updated on one of my 4 licences to the new 1 year licence which already had the full suite.

I have 2 licenses with Core and Gallery because that's all they need and warrant. I may close one of them and start a new community which could make better use of the full suite.

For another licence on my larget and all-but dead community that I keep going both for the knowledge contained within and for sentimental reasons, I'm still undecided. We lost some good friends there RIP, and their Profiles and Gallery albums contain sentimental photos and profile messages where people have left their condolences and anniversary thoughts.

I know the thing to do is save up or pay monthly, but I would like to see the 6 month payment option retained, obviously without the 12 month savings, because it makes things a little easier.

Like many struggling with the cost of living, its very hard to plan and look ahead at the moment, and I was informed yesterday we only have savings left for 1 more monthly mortage payment! So it looks like I'll be running my IPS Communities from my car and a tent by next year.

One thing to be aware of if you have more than 1 licence is be mindful of your renewal dates if you opt for the yearly payment. Those £199 licences could soon mount up and all be due in the same month. 

 

[Marc Stridgen]

2 hours ago, The Old Man said:

I know the thing to do is save up or pay monthly, but I would like to see the 6 month payment option retained, obviously without the 12 month savings, because it makes things a little easier.

While 6 month is not something returning, its worth noting we actually do a monthly option. If you did really want to do 6 month, you could add account credit for 6 month of payments, and then choose the monthly option.

[Luis_angel]

"but we will over time likely merge all our apps into a single entity. This is not going to happen with v5.0.0 though."

These means to move to cloud hosting only at some point?

[Charles]

9 hours ago, Luis_angel said:

"but we will over time likely merge all our apps into a single entity. This is not going to happen with v5.0.0 though."

These means to move to cloud hosting only at some point?

That is not at all what that says. It says we will merge all the apps into one product.

[Robert Angle]

11 hours ago, Luis_angel said:

These means to move to cloud hosting only at some point?

I think this inordinate fear of Invision abandoning self-hosted clients is way overblown. This is probably due in part to truly evil companies like Quickbooks who literally forced the majority of their desktop users to the cloud. 

The difference is Intuit/Quickbooks have proven themselves to be greedy bastards. The Invision staff on the other hand have proven themselves to be reasonable and accommodating.

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Robert Angle

[Luis_angel]

3 hours ago, Charles said:

That is not at all what that says. It says we will merge all the apps into one product.

Yes I re-read it. Sorry, english is not my first language. Thank you.

[Marc Stridgen]

On 9/23/2023 at 4:05 PM, Robert Angle said:

I think this inordinate fear of Invision abandoning self-hosted clients is way overblown.

Some clarification here. We can certainly understand why people would feel like that, but that is incorrect.  Indeed we have actually made changes to our classic self-hosted licensing specifically to ensure it remains viable. 

[asd937]

On 8/10/2023 at 4:32 PM, Robert Angle said:

Fail to extend your license for 12 more months (equaling 24 months since previous paid renewal) and you will have to buy a new license at $499 and generate a new license key

Just to confirm, License is permanently lost if not renewed for 24 month? And to update your forum, you have to buy new license?

Edited October 9, 2023 by asd937
Spelling error correction

[Marc Stridgen]

On 10/9/2023 at 7:37 AM, asd937 said:

Just to confirm, License is permanently lost if not renewed for 24 month? And to update your forum, you have to buy new license?

Licenses that are under the new terms that are not renewed after 24 months will be expired permanently and cannot be renewed. 

[Cedric V]

1 hour ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Licenses that are under the new terms that are not renewed after 24 months will be expired permanently and cannot be renewed. 

Which is perfectly normal. Maintaining security and stability in a forum is crucial, and a 24-month renewal policy helps ensure that. So, it encourages users to stay up to date with the latest upgrades and security enhancements, and thus creating a safer and more reliable environment for community members.

Also from a business perspective, it also makes sense for Invision Community to implement such a policy. Think  platform's sustainability, allowing them to continue providing valuable services and support for us. So, while it might seem strict, it's a necessary step to secure your community and ensure Invision Community's future success.