EE Core is free, too.

Ingmar - 23 April 2006 03:38 AM

EE Core is free, too.

Right. It did not have all the features I needed and I thought perhaps it would go the way of pM pro fairly quickly…

… I thought perhaps [EE COre] would go the way of pM pro fairly quickly…

Not very likely. It shares the codebase with pMachine’s flagship product, ExpressionEngine, minus a few modules.

We’re still a hold out.

I’m still using it, but I’m planning to upgrade to EE shortly. I’m looking for the upgrade policy. Can anyone clue me in?

There is no policy as such. You can upgrade to EE Core for free, or buy a Personal licence. In both cases, most of your data (posting and comments) can be migrated.

Bummer. You mean that there’s no longer a special upgrade price for registered users of pmachine pro? I have to pay full freight ($249.00)?

If you need the commercial version, yes, that’s what I’m given to understand.

Randy, EE’s been out for a few years now. 23 April 2004 to be exact. The upgrade offer expired March 15, 2005. That’s just over a year. Not a bad upgrade path. But two plus years? That’s a bit much to expect.

Well, I was about to let this issue drop, but when you cop an attitude such as this, I take notice.

Is it too much to expect? Lessee, I just got an upgrade price on my Adobe Creative Suite based on the fact that I was a registered user of Photoshop from version 6, an upgrade I purchased in 1998 or 99. I skipped at least two upgrades, and still saved something like $500. Does Adobe need my business more than you do? Doubt it. In my general experience, I rarely run into upgrade price expirations.

Frankly, so what if I missed your deadline? Did EE get that much better in the interim? Does the software have some kind of shelf-life? Carrying inventory sure isn’t an issue for you. Maybe you have your reasons, but is it too much for me to expect you to follow the lead of most of the other major software makers? I think not. Forgive me if the budgeting concerns of my small business don’t happen to synch with your sales goals.

You’re only giving me further incentive to go to an open-source solution, which may or may not have more features, than EE. May take more work to install, migrate, etc., but it’ll be free, and you’ll lose $(name your upgrade price here).

Thanks. My decision just got a little easier.

Randy, I’m sorry if I offended you. I’m a user of EE, not a part of the staff or company. EE has gotten that much better in the mean time. Since 1.0 came out, there have been the following new features/functionality:

A forum. (Additional cost)
Gallery. No additional cost. Not available in the free version.
Moblog. I’m pretty sure that was later than 1.0.
Query module. The ability to run queries from inside of EE. Made it easier to not need custom solutions.

See the Changelog for a better listing of what changed per version.

A completely free version of EE. Not to be used by commercial users, but for personal sites and the like, free is good.
Various and sundry modules, plugins and extensions, most of which are free and work with both EECore (the free version) and the commercial versions.
Two full time programmers added.
A paid support staff.

Software doesn’t have a shelf life per se, but there are costs in adding additional functionality, support costs, and sustainability.

As far as budgeting concerns go, I’d love it if EE were free. Then I could create sites for a lot less. Or I could use open source solutions. But eventually you have to be able to make money to survive.

99% of my business involves creating, maintaining, and modifying EE sites. I want them to prosper. If they do, I do. I spend a great deal of time answering questions here for free. Sure I get leads and that’s one of the reasons I post so much. The other reason is to give back to the community. I have over 4000 posts here.

I’d like to see you use EE and see if it would meet your needs. You haven’t mentioned what kind of business you have—or if you’re just blogging.

What you choose to do is up to you, but please don’t let my comments be your deciding factor. Get a copy of EECore and try it.

...I’m seeing some referrers come in from this thread so should note that Boyink.com now runs on EE.

Still using pMachine. I really wanted to use the free EE but I’m afraid to migrate. I am not sure if I can retain all my entries to EE. It’s a pain if I have to encode them all! :(

You can check my gameblog at: http://www.mowgee.com
Yep, still uses pMachine

I got my first taste of pM Pro the other day. A client who could not afford to upgrade to EE, as well as the re-training involved for his staff, had me upgrade 30+ installations of pM Pro/Free to pM Pro 2.4.102. Not a fun task, in case you were wondering.