I'm confused about what the new license system means for me

[floyd]

I have a client who helped me with some advertising and seo and so forth. I didn't have any money to give him so I gave him free hosting. 17 years later I am still giving him free hosting even though he hasn't done anything for me for the last 16 years. I honor my agreements.

 

[Richard G]

You have a server, your hosting does not cost you anything extra in development or personel for that client, I even doubt if it cost you extra, I also have such customer. Apples and pears comparison again.

 

[floyd]

What the agreement was for is not relevant at all. The apples to apples part is the fact that I made an agreement with somebody and it did not work out so well for me but I still honored it. DirectAdmin made an agreement with me and it didn't work out so well for them and they reneged on it. Again. It doesn't matter what the service was or what the product is. It can be for anything. Doesn't matter. What matters is a person's word.

I've come to the conclusion that you just like to debate people. I am not in the debate business so I will not see any more of your posts.

 

[DavidK]

You have a server, your hosting does not cost you anything extra in development or personel for that client, I even doubt if it cost you extra, I also have such customer. Apples and pears comparison again.

My man you just defend directadmin, regardless of any logic.
Directadmin is actively developing the newest version RIGHT NOW. It would cost them nothing to include the original customers even if they continue to sell monthly licenses for additional servers to the SAME CUSTOMERS. I already laid out how they have lost hundreds of dollars in sales from me monthly. The other customer mentioning hosting actually had more costs or at the very least the same costs. Hosting cost in bandwidth and server resources. He met his obligation because of integrity, not because he couldn't have pocketed more money to cover those costs. Even if Directadmin had similar resource "costs" they still would have made more money with new licenses by meeting their obligations.

It's not apple and pears. You just don't want to see logic and the truth.
Directadmin stole. They didn't advertise "Lifetime, but we mean lifetime as in whenever we want to kill it.".
No you know why? Because they wouldn't have sold any licenses that way! They happily pocketed millions on a lie and then decided to grab more money, feeling entitled to it later. Instead of having integrity and meeting their original obligations. I don't really care how "cheap" they make future products. I would have paid more on future licenses if they had met their original obligations. But they didn't do that and I don't give more money to people that steal.

And you say my 3 year warranty is apples and pears too. But you know what? IF I was stupid enough to offer a lifetime warranty I would have honored it too, to this day. Because I actually believe in delivering what I sold.. small business and all.

 

[DavidK]

Well then you loose your money at some other place or DA wouldn't have earned any money from you anyway if you choose a free panel.

Keeping up lifetime licenes is not sustainable for a business, there is a reason why they all stopped with them.

You are "assuming" people are using free panels to deflect reality.. when in fact people are using other paid panels as in my case.
Time to admit the truth to yourself instead of lying to yourself. And even if people do move on to "free" panels they probably wouldn't have if Directadmin had integrity, so it was lost sales anyway.

 

[Richard G]

regardless of any logic.

You don't show logic, I try to show you some company logic but you don't see it.

when in fact people are using other paid panels as in my case.

Only few as there are not many paid panels out there, and those who use paid panels will also use DA, as soon as they won't get any updates anymore.
You're really BS'sing about DA. I was also mad. But you should grow some business insight and see something like they did with the lifetime licenses is just not sustainable, no matter what.

IF I was stupid enough to offer a lifetime warranty I would have honored it too, to this day. Because I actually believe in delivering what I sold.. small business and all.

which prooves my point. So you rather go broke than break your "honor". LoL Totally unrealistic.

It would cost them nothing to include the original customers

You're still missing the point that they need enough selling of the monthley licences to keep this up and you just assume this is the case. The fact that they had to change things in spite of the fact a lot of cP users came over (which again used lifetime licenses) shows you have no clue on how this works.
You're just as the rest who keep arguing and complaining, most professional business understand this is not sustainable after so long a period. Trying to get as cheap as possible so you don't use DA but a cheaper panel, good luck with that and hope they are oke and no backdoors anymore, because they had in the past, and not a few. It's not about any honor, it's about irritation that you can't work for fee anymore for much longer.

Since you totally do not go in to my arguments about the other panels stopping lifetime and WHMCS and fact that business can't "honor things" until they are broke, that is missing insight.
Also you're making statements liket he very exaggerated price of 500 which you also did not respond to.

As far as I'm concerned this discussion is over, we're repeating the same arguments and you don't go into decent counter arguments, you just want to be right that DA is not honoring things and they steal and that is BS and slander as nothing is stolen.

 

[Ohm J]

free panel will come with limit update.... Like hestiacp, sometime broken, sometime bugged and required some decade times to fixed the bug
But use with small project is fine, that you don't need the frequency updating.

 

[floyd]

If in the beginning DA had said $300 for a 10 year license I would have been ok with that. If it were for a 5 year license I would have been ok with that. But they said lifetime. I even emailed DA with some questions about it and Mark emailed me back. I still have the email. Lifetime included updates. Richard will try to say that it didn't include MariaDB, exim, and so forth. Maybe I should have asked about all the individual pieces of software. But really a DA update is not much good if it cannot manage the latest software such as MariaDB, exim, and so forth. I can update these myself. I don't need DA for that. I just need DA to be able to manage these which is what would be included in a DA update.

But it doesn't much matter anymore. As soon as I get rid of my one shared hosting server I won't need DA at all anymore.

 

[sysdev]

And you say my 3 year warranty is apples and pears too. But you know what? IF I was stupid enough to offer a lifetime warranty I would have honored it too, to this day. Because I actually believe in delivering what I sold.. small business and all.

I have customers on 2005 prices. They helped me become what I am now.
Honor shows character, respect and higher morals. This is more important than money.

 

[Richard G]

Richard will try to say that it didn't include MariaDB, exim, and so forth.

Don't lay words into my mound or speculate what I will say. I'm here, if you want to ask my opinion just ask it.
And I think it should have included mariaDB and exim and so forth, which is still does, it just stops now with MariaDB and new OS.

What I'm saying there is a reason for this. All who know DA from the beginning know they are not out to steal our money.
Everyone with a bit of good business insight, knowing probably thousends of licenses (mostly internal probably) are sold, knows at a certain point this is not sustainablel anymore.
My good gues is that there was no other way. Lifetime has a limit, always, in software land it's never human lifetime and I gave multiple examples for other software which declared EOL.
Again... this was an option for DA too but they did not, we can still use it and have time to choose something else or make use of the conversion offer they gave us. Correct, a big difference with free, but it's again proove they are not out to steal from us, otherwise they hadn't given us that option and all that fuzz, they just had declared EOL and be done with it.
Be fair once and try doing the math and see where you get.

And that is why I'm defending them, experience in the past and from business point of view knowing something like this is not sustainable.

I have customers on 2005 prices.

Not a fair comparison. DA has customers on 2003 prices... but you still have revenue on these prices. DA does not on the lifetime licenses. Very important difference.

 

[DavidK]

which prooves my point. So you rather go broke than break your "honor". LoL Totally unrealistic.

It's not unrealistic. Let's say I offered a warranty on a product that costs me money. But that customers will purchase other products from me too by being taken care of.
It's taking a long term view over counting pennies. I have loyal customers that have been with me thick and thin.
Frankly directadmin should be worried since there are other free panels that rival them. Throwing away good customers that would have bought more licenses from them was plain stupid.

You're still missing the point that they need enough selling of the monthley licences to keep this up and you just assume this is the case. The fact that they had to change things in spite of the fact a lot of cP users came over (which again used lifetime licenses) shows you have no clue on how this works.

I have a "clue" how business works because I am actively in business and manage to keep happy customers. You don't seem to get that Directadmin violated that basic rule by backing out of their own (stupid maybe) obligations.

As far as I'm concerned this discussion is over, we're repeating the same arguments and you don't go into decent counter arguments, you just want to be right that DA is not honoring things and they steal and that is BS and slander as nothing is stolen.

It was stolen. They offered "lifetime" but they didn't deliver it. But yes we won't agree.

 

[floyd]

I think what some may be missing is that the development costs are exactly the same if its 10 license or 1,000,000 licenses. To let some of us keep the original lifetime licenses would not have "cost" them anything and they would have had happy customers that would have continued to buy from them under the new license arrangement and we would have continued to recommend DA to others.

 

[sysdev]

Not a fair comparison. DA has customers on 2003 prices... but you still have revenue on these prices. DA does not on the lifetime licenses. Very important difference.

It was no comparison but merely a statement about honoring agreements. My opinion about that will never change.

Honor shouldn't change when it gets tested.

 

[floyd]

It was no comparison but merely a statement about honoring agreements. My opinion about that will never change.

Honor shouldn't change when it gets tested.

Richard doesn't get it so it's pointless to argue with him. I agree with most of what he has said. But what he is wrong about is that DA made an agreement and they didn't stick to it. I don't know how much plainer we can make it. It's not about prices. Its not about sustainability. It's not about most of what he has said. His thought process is classic deflection. Its like a magician getting us to look over here while something else is happening over there. He keeps sidestepping the point.

What I do recognize is that it's not going to change so therefore DA has lost me. They didn't even have the decency to notify us. I came across it by accident when visiting here. DA is still the best deal. But now I just don't trust them. It's a loss for both of us.

 

[Richard G]

I think what some may be missing is that the development costs are exactly the same if its 10 license or 1,000,000 licenses.

What you are missing is the flow of cPanel users coming over with loads of request. Before the costs might be the same, but there were only 2. They had to attract personel like for example fln. What do you think a guy like that costs? So they are risen, while monthley prices are not.
And if what you say is true, then every company could give out 1.000.000 licenses and keep living from the 10 customers they have. Now that is a great business insight. LoL.

Richard doesn't get it so it's pointless to argue with him. I

Again, it's not only development costs. Richard get's it better then you and David.
Like I said, try and to the math yourself, to keep getting revenue and keep alive. You don't do that math so you don't have a clue.
You also totally go passed my arguments about them not stealing and giving out conversion options which no other company would ever do, to try and keep customers happy in some way.
So you guys better like the cPanel way of work. We do this, you accept it or you can go, goodbye, end of lifetime and for updates you pay yearly an amound which is the same price of a DA license. Well great.
You're totally totally are not doing any normal comparison to any other company or any other lifetime licenses I gave an example of, like also WHMCS. You're just bluntly staring at 1 point, not doing math and so not having business insight of sustainability.
You got a point that they did not send a mail to all owners, fully agree to that. And as far as the agreement goes, again, do the math yourself on how many customers you can keep your business alive.
In your case, hand out 1000 vps systems lifetime free and try to keep your company alive with 30 paying customers on the same low price you are using for 25 years.
Next to that, define what -you- think is or should be lifetime in software land.

Honor shouldn't change when it gets tested.

Agree on that. Difference is this is not about honor, it's just business. So how would you do with your honor or promises if.... let me spell it out for all your guys.
What would you do if your business would start to go down the drain because lack of income?
Because I'm sure most of these cPanel users all nicely got lifetime licenses or used available ones. Even people which might have been on monthley licenses took another server with a lifetime on it.

You all forget that the monthley customes are paying for our lifetime licenses. Again, do the math, if you would work this way, how long could you survive? At a certain point it's end of story and you can't deny that DA tried as long a possible.
You can't keep your "honors" if you only loosing money on it.

Knowing DA from almost from the beginning, I can't believe that there is no reason for them doing this. Looking at it this way, there can only be 1 reason in point of logic. Do the math yourself.

Next to that, you all who are complaining, can complaint all you want, nothing will change anymore. It's better to accept and move on.

I was just as mad as everybody, read my older posts. But when I started to do the math, looking at it from a business point of view instead of personal emotional point of view, I've seen the logic, in spite of my angryness.