LawsHosting
Verified User
You are telling me, that (some) people who work at DA have no other job and rely on just being paid by DA? I know jobs are hard to come by these days but relying on an online company to get paid is, well, 
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What is the future for Legacy DirectAdmin License holders?
- Thread starter beansbaxter
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Richard G
Verified User
How can I check in a better way?
I just did a
yum list mariadb* and only 3.10.5.22 appeared and that was in Alma 9.
LawsHosting
Verified User
It will, as it's there for paid licences, just they choose to disable it.
I'm not sure how legacy versus new licences work..... Are there different binaries? Or the same binary, just it checks the licence? Someone educate me.
@LawsHosting
there have some guy trying to manual install 10.11 on legacy license and it's blocked from license check.
forum.directadmin.com
I don't know what's happend in now, it will work or it's not. Or it could damage ours server if not integration correctly.
there have some guy trying to manual install 10.11 on legacy license and it's blocked from license check.
DirectAdmin v1.653 RC
They would happily pony up more, but not if you change the terms one sided on existing contracts. It might not be how DirectAdmin sees this, but it certainly is how my customer will see it (and so do I). I can agree to that, however, it's sold a a yearly license so terms can change every year...
forum.directadmin.com
I don't know what's happend in now, it will work or it's not. Or it could damage ours server if not integration correctly.
@fln why don't you answer @beansbaxter question? It's quite relevant for all of us LLHs, especially the "small" ones (less than 5-10 licenses, for example).
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Sorry @beansbaxter, but this is not going to work. RHEL distros are supported for ~10 years. This is asking to convert legacy licenses to a pay once per 10 year license. That being said, there are still quite a lot of RHEL 6 DA systems out there. This also punishes Debian distro users for no apparent reason. Quick summary:
- Lazy RHEL users would pay $29 / 10 years / 12 months = $0.24/month for a full license.
- Eager RHEL users would pay $29 / 3 years / 12 months = $0.80/month for a full license.
- Lazy Debian users would pay $29 / 5 years / 12 months = $0.48/month for a full license.
- Eager Debian users would pay $29 / 2 years / 12 months = $1.21/month for a full license.
This does not help to level the playing field for all DA users, which may be crucial for ongoing sustainability. This is why we cannot consider suggestions like 1 or 2 dollar licensing, or even worse, $0.24/month licensing.
This would also lead to distro hopping nightmare. Each license would need to be pinned to max supported distro version.
Richard G
Verified User
There were also offers of 5/month for support. Which were not considered but should raise a lot of money due to the thousends of licenses out there.
Or a pause option (like we have now) when choosing the 15/month conversion (which is too expensive for some) even was rejected.
Or a pause option (like we have now) when choosing the 15/month conversion (which is too expensive for some) even was rejected.
DennisNL
Verified User
I totally agree with you here. I'm really open to lets say 50 dollars a year for access to all functions/upgrades (i only use it for a hobby, on 2 servers for easy upgrading distro). The big issue i do have here is that when i upgrade i don't want to lose the possibility to fall back to a sleeping "lifetime" license without upgrade rights. Not only is that something that's just a feeling but also since i don't use both full time.
Even 15,- a month (and don't even talk about 2 times for both licenses) is just to much for me when not earning any money on it myself.
That is 180,- (x2) and if i just want to pause one i lose everything, no i don't want that.
I totally agree you need to earn money that's not even something i was ever thinking you shouldn't. A less paying customer is still a paying customer, better then a no paying customer.
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@DennisNL, this is why we have Personal PLUS licenses $5/month is $60/year. It is perfect when for self-managed servers and hobby projects (when you are not reselling the services). Since this is retail license you can stop it any time you want and start again (not paying when not in use). Feature-wise it is identical to full license.
DennisNL
Verified User
Yes, i have seen this. The only issue here that i want my websites not under 2 account's also 20 domains is to less for me..
For hobby i even also meant that i host a few sites for friends and my wife so 2 accounts is just not it.
For the record i have now 11 user accounts with 31 domain's. most domains (and a few user accounts) are mine but not all, it's all based on a free friend service. If one site ever gets hacked it will never get to the data of my other site, at least i hope.
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Hmm, I see. Slightly too many domains for Personal and just barely too many accounts for Lite 
. There are ongoing internal discussions on more options for lifetime to modern license upgrades, but no conclusion yet. Thanks for feedback and sharing your use-case.
. There are ongoing internal discussions on more options for lifetime to modern license upgrades, but no conclusion yet. Thanks for feedback and sharing your use-case.
Arieh
Verified User
I have a couple of lifetime licenses, external lifetime under 2 accounts of which 1 I haven't even logged into for many years. And some internal. But currently I'm just using 1 license/server for all my DA activities. There are a handful few customers that are with me for over a decade, I have my own stuff, some friends/family stuff. It makes no profit at all. I would like some option to keep this running, but with current license offers I see no way here as well. I would be down for a one time payment per OS upgrade or I might consider 5$ a month however please no restrictions because I have a ton of accounts that are also there for archive purposes. About Debian being left out, well they did that all on their own already by increasing the lifetime cycles. I was using Debian for many years, since for a couple of years you have to do a major upgrade every few years I'm onto the RHEL based distros; in fact I sought refuge at CentOS at the time, only to be finding out shortly after that they were going to quit as well. So at AlmaLinux now. Well just my 2 cents; I have some stuff running I which I would like to do so with minimum amount of hassle or money.. I understand my personal case may not be financially interesting however at the same it is also an example and consequence of the offer of a lifetime license. And I also feel somewhat disappointed, although my personal stake in this is not that hight, I feel somewhat emotionally invested as I had quite some active years here as well.
beansbaxter
Verified User
In my proposal, I said only provide updates for the "Full Support" period, which is around 5 years.
The 10 year timeframe you mentioned is the "Extended Life Cycle Support" period.
In my proposal, I mentioned separating between active and sleeping licenses. If there are "lazy RHEL users", then it won't affect DA because they will receive zero updates past the "Full Support" period and will need to upgrade their license to the newest RHEL version to receive active updates again.
Respectfully, this reasoning shouldn't be applied to Legacy Lifetime holders.
Lifetime users entered into a completely different agreement with DA, compared to the Monthly users.
Those "others" started using DA and agreed to pay a monthly fee because we "lifetime legacy" users came to DA a long time ago to pay money before them, which helped support DA when it wasn't as popular as it is now.
And unless I'm mistaken, those monthly users are getting both Pro Pack features and Unlimited Technical Support that we Legacy Lifetime holders are not receiving.
I can understand this...
Then it seems the only way to make this easy is to base it on a flat timeframe. Then it's not distro specific...
I would propose... assign every Lifetime license with a Valid Date and an Update Date. The Valid Date continues to be lifetime, and the Update Date is the cutoff for new updates. And then charge a nominal one-time fee, per license, for continued updates. For example:
- $15 USD — Per License, for 1 Year of Updates
- $30 USD — Per License, for 5 Years of Updates
- $50 USD — Per License, for 10 Years of Updates
I know others are vehemently against the idea of paying anymore money for their Lifetime licenses, based on the agreement that was originally made, but I'm trying very hard to be sympathetic with the situation DA is in.... and I feel there can be a reasonable compromise for both sides. We are all clearly passionate about DA and want to see it succeed.
Work with us. Help us find a solution. But it's not fair to treat Lifetime holders the same as Monthly users. Different agreements, different expectations, etc.
Respectfully and appreciatively,
I agree with beansbaxter. My FLL's (I) do not need support for WP, PRO pack and any of that. And I do not need any human D.A. support (not beyond this forum any way). If I was contacted by D.A. directly, we might get to a win-win situation, but I get the impression D.A. is not yet there.
Having seen how (the development and many many fixes to) evolution made things worse for D.A. (in terms of workload), and now fln says they are thinking of even going to another language, makes me believe D.A. is not going to survive.
D.A. should not need to focus on FLL users at all. We are collateral damage. We do not pose any pressure. We should NOT be compared to current users, who DO have support and extra Pro Pack and what not.
D.A. please wake up. Focus on a better way of development, use your fte's wise(r). If you can not pay the developers, what do FFL's have to do with that? You are developing for paying existing users.
I noticed many hosting providers (slash data centers) no longer offer D.A. any more. I am not into marketing, but what has happened there? (I am not asking to get answers, just thinking out loud because that is a huge customer base).
The current direction (focusing on clients that are sailing along side) does not help, does not improve the solvability or existence of D.A. We are just "riding along", which is part of the deal made in the past. How does it benefit D.A. to try and cut them off from the offered update(s), or try to influence their customers -as if- their current license is a bad product? Is that it?
Having seen how (the development and many many fixes to) evolution made things worse for D.A. (in terms of workload), and now fln says they are thinking of even going to another language, makes me believe D.A. is not going to survive.
D.A. should not need to focus on FLL users at all. We are collateral damage. We do not pose any pressure. We should NOT be compared to current users, who DO have support and extra Pro Pack and what not.
D.A. please wake up. Focus on a better way of development, use your fte's wise(r). If you can not pay the developers, what do FFL's have to do with that? You are developing for paying existing users.
I noticed many hosting providers (slash data centers) no longer offer D.A. any more. I am not into marketing, but what has happened there? (I am not asking to get answers, just thinking out loud because that is a huge customer base).
The current direction (focusing on clients that are sailing along side) does not help, does not improve the solvability or existence of D.A. We are just "riding along", which is part of the deal made in the past. How does it benefit D.A. to try and cut them off from the offered update(s), or try to influence their customers -as if- their current license is a bad product? Is that it?
DennisNL
Verified User
+1
From DA perspective i also understand that just offering support don't cost a dime, they just hope (and know) people barley use it, just a selling point. Mostly new people only need it during the setup day's and then it's done.
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Richard G
Verified User
That is not our fault and no argument at all.
1.) DA specifically stated on their website "never pay again". So everything we are willing to pay more than 0 is a good thing from our side, because it's a 100% price raise for us no matter how you look at it. Because we -should- be paying nothing according to the agreement.
2.) When we bought the lifetime licenses for a lot more money, then also there were people paying the monthly fee, so that same difference was there at that time too. Nothing changed.
So it should in no way be compared to normal license agreements, they are totally different so that is not a valid argument.
As a new user considering switching to DirectAdmin, I don't find it unfair that I'd be paying $29 a month for a service that some users get for free. They were there when the offer was available and made a substantial commitment. I wasn't, so I can't complain that they're now getting the service on better terms.
What I do find unfair is that those users are being stripped of what they paid for and given worse service than new users to convert them into paying customers again. It's not their fault you made an offer that was too good. You knew what "lifetime" meant and shouldn't change that meaning. If you regret making that offer, the only right thing to do now is to keep providing the service to those users as promised at no extra cost.
There's no need to maintain two different code bases or create more work. You still get paid by the majority of your users—anyone who joined after 2018 (might be wrong on the year - basing it on wayback machine snapshot of plans page) when the lifetime plan was removed. It's not unfair to anyone.
Anything else would be breaking your promises and terms of sale. It would be better in the long run to accept your mistake and remain an honest company with good business practices than using sneaky tactics to screw over your users to fix a bad business decision and make some extra money.
I'm going to wait until this issue is resolved before switching over. Whatever decision is made won't affect me as a new user, but if you display bad business practices now, that doesn't give me a good outlook for the future. I don't want to switch panels again in 5 years for the same reasons I'm moving away from cPanel now.
What I do find unfair is that those users are being stripped of what they paid for and given worse service than new users to convert them into paying customers again. It's not their fault you made an offer that was too good. You knew what "lifetime" meant and shouldn't change that meaning. If you regret making that offer, the only right thing to do now is to keep providing the service to those users as promised at no extra cost.
There's no need to maintain two different code bases or create more work. You still get paid by the majority of your users—anyone who joined after 2018 (might be wrong on the year - basing it on wayback machine snapshot of plans page) when the lifetime plan was removed. It's not unfair to anyone.
Anything else would be breaking your promises and terms of sale. It would be better in the long run to accept your mistake and remain an honest company with good business practices than using sneaky tactics to screw over your users to fix a bad business decision and make some extra money.
I'm going to wait until this issue is resolved before switching over. Whatever decision is made won't affect me as a new user, but if you display bad business practices now, that doesn't give me a good outlook for the future. I don't want to switch panels again in 5 years for the same reasons I'm moving away from cPanel now.
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