[wp-hackers] Premium plugin protection

[Michael Torbert]

*What is your opinion on things like shopp? You can't deny they provide an
excellent product and while for the most part it is free you will still have
to pay for certain (very useful) features. Are they wrong?*
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I never mentioned Shopp's model. (BTW it isn't free.) I address the issue of
locking away functionality on a server just to be able to charge for it.
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What is your opinion on charging clients for development then? *
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I'm not sure why you think I'd be opposed to this.
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*Surely charging for a plugin/service is simply paying back the initial
investment of time that was put in to it? *
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No, when someone pays for a product, they aren't paying for the initial time
spent creating it, they're paying for the value of the product. Either way,
this isn't relevant.
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*Is it not the same thing? Surely you would not give code away due it being
for an open source platform?*
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*It's not the same. Again, I never said anything about that model. Let's not
straw man please.

I'm interested in knowing the general consensus on premium plugins. It
doesn't seem to be something that's discussed much and there certainly isn't
a lot online about premium plugin development.*
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This has been discussed ad nauseum.