Let's talk about community for a moment.
I recently got a mention over at the official Sitefinity blogs page. I appreciated this not merely because I'm an ego maniac, but also because it shows Telerik stands ready to foster & support the budding Sitefinity community.
When evaluating Sitefinity early on, there were five things that were largely responsible for getting me on-board:
- There was an online demo.
- There was a downloadable trial.
- There was a free "Community" version of their product.
- I didn't have to talk to anyone in sales to evaluate the product.
- There were open forums.
To me, all 5 of these say "take your time, give us a look, use our product, we have nothing to hide". That's a very powerful sales pitch. In my experience most companies don't have that much faith in themselves.
There are a ton of other CMS's out there that require a registration and a phone call to even hear what the product can do. Why do they do that? Because their product sucks. Because they don't trust their customers and they don't trust their product. Instant deal breaker!
Among these 5 items, however, it remained to be seen how Telerik would handle the Sitefinity Community and the Community-version of their product. It is my opinion that "community" is what will make or break the Sitefinity product.
Giving away your product seems crazy. You don't have to look far though to find examples of companies that make good money selling commercial versions of community products.
This GoonDocks.com web site makes use of the Community version of Sitefinity. As a side project, I'm also investigating launching a web site for a very small business also on the Community version of Sitefinity. This small business can cope with not having the extra features offered in the full version of Sitefinity.
Profit for Telerik $0.
What happened though? Telerik just got me familiar with their product. How much is that worth? I consult with a fair number of people. I have already been involved with 1 Sitefinity purchase and I doubt seriously that will be the last. Not to mention, my contributions of product testing, sample code, new controls & support. I, along with any others who have taken a spin via the Community version, have helped make the product better & more approachable to any who will follow. The value of this cannot be underestimated.
I'm not saying all of this to appear self important. That's truly not my aim. I'm merely trying to highlight how important the Sitefinity Community and the Community-version of this product is. If Telerik is smart, they will refrain from imposing restrictive licenses on the Community-version of their product.
In my view, it's better for a web site to be using Sitefinity than to not be using Sitefinity. Telerik needs a pool of developers who are familiar with and contributing to the product. If that means that a few small "commercial" web sites get launched on the Community platform, so be it. As long as there are reasons (versioning, security, Nolics, workflow, etc) to buy Sitefinity, Telerik will eventually get the sales they want. Those commercial customers will also gain access to a thriving community of developers.
I am anxious to see the contributions of others and hopeful that Telerik will continue to value the Sitefinity community.