Last week I fired off a tweet about Solspace, a web development company that contributes heavily to the space of ExpressionEngine add-ons.  I challenged their business model of charging a fee for their “beta” modules, which quickly drew a response from their lead developer.  We exchanged a few tweets, but it left me frustrated; Twitter isn’t always the best medium for a debate, especially between two strangers. Or perhaps I’m simply not articulate enough to say everything in 140 characters.

Let’s see what kicked this off.  On Nov 24th I twittered:

@johndwells EE was released this way. EE 2.0’s release is effectively a public beta. And any non-beta update is free, so I see no problem.

My first reply was from another EE community member, who said she’s known the two behind Solspace for years, has used one of their stable pay-for modules for years, and contended it was still a good deal.

Then Solspace’s lead developer Paul Burdick got back to me, aligning their business model directly with ExpressionEngine’s, by saying that EE’s 2.0 release, which is pay-for (and includes a price increase) is effectively a beta release.  Two days later, serendipitously for Paul’s arguement, EllisLab announced they were renaming the December 1 release of EE 2.0, from “release candidate” to “public beta”. Ah.

But let me just clarify my case: for first-time customers, paying for a beta release is off-putting.  I will be purchasing 1 freelancer’s license of EE 2.0 for myself, because I know and trust EE and I also want to be a part of the community that makes EE 2.0 great; but I won’t be purchasing it for my clients.  I’m willing to invest $99 in EE 2.0 because I know and trust EE 1.6.8.

With Solspace, let’s consider their recently released Super Search 1.0.0 Beta module.  EE has long needed a better solution to search.  Right now I’m quoting for a job that heavily relies on an intelligent search engine