I currently have IRedAdmin-Pro. The license for this expired in November last year, I didn't extend the license because I didn't agree with the 33% (or thereabouts) price increase that happened early 2014; It does not reflect inflation or even global economic developments. Like Wallace I subscribed to support a great open source development so with the source moving to a closed model I have even more reason to not want to subscribe.
My main concern with this development is this;

. Does this mean that my already expired IRedAdmin-Pro will stop working in the near future? When I paid for my initial subscription I read a statement that said that even after the license expires IRedAdmin-pro will keep working, you're just not entitled to updates and support. Am I to understand that this is no longer true?

I don't understand excactly how the new license model would work.

I hope the flow would be this:

1) I will buy an unlimited or mailbox based license
2) When it expire I would not be able to update the software anymore
3) But i'm able to use it as I've bought a  software and not a service

This make sense, not pay every year for use the iredadmin , otherwise it seems a classic "pay per use" license mode.

I think you guys are right, iRedAdmin-Pro should stay accessible after license expired.
I updated the license terms in first post, removed the "unaccessible" term.

This is why we always announce upcoming changes 1 month before we actually apply the changes, we want to hear from you to prevent stupid mistake.

Zhang,

May I suggest possible changes on the open source issue? There are many people that probably won't care about this but there are going to be a number of the most technically advanced users that this is going to alienate to the point they will stop using and recommending your software.

1. The first possibility is that you simply charge more for source access as a separate license. This would still allow people that need to make changes (for example to integrate inhouse proprietary systems like spam filters) to do so and you would know who is doing it allowing you to query about the changes and see if they are valuable.

2. The second possibility is that you simply eliminate distribution rights on the source so that they can only alter the source of the license they took out. Honestly this probably wouldn't change much.

3. The third possibility (and the one that would benefit you the most) is require that all source changes be provided back unless they buy a special license that allows them to keep the changes confidential, this way you would get all changes back to evaluate. Combine this with option 1 and you know who's making changes and get them back and would be able to check for compliance.

I'd suggest you reconsider taking it completely closed source, in my opinion your most valuable customers are those customers so technically advanced they are making changes because they are the ones recommending your product to others. From reading your previous thread your biggest concern with open source was that no one was providing changes back, using one of the above suggestions you could counter that concern without closing the door. 

As others have already said, having the admin open source and modifiable is an item that makes your product more valuable than others and is a selling point. From a corporate point of view purchasing the admin interface from you is more acceptable because if you go out of business there is a guarantee they can support the software in the future. There will be many larger companies that wouldn't buy from a company your size without this guarantee, even if it cost more.

I've been very happy with iredmail and iredmail admin pro, but everything being open source including the pro interface was one of the selling points for me. I hope you change your mind about this.

Trent

You could also create two separate licenses: SOHO and enterprise.
SOHO:
- Restricted to a number of mailboxes. eg. 10
- Support is restricted to community. More individual support follows your current payment scheme.
- License valid for 1 year for 1/25 of an enterprise solution. eg. 40$
Enterprise:
- Unrestricted mailboxes
- A number of support tickets per year. Eg. 3 which can be used freely or using 2 tickets for installation and 1 ticket for configuration. An option to buy  more tickets for a reduced amount. Eg. 100$ per started hour.
- License valid for 1 year 1000$

Above is just an proposal changes will likely occur;-)

Motivation:
SOHO users cannot afford to buy an enterprise license but would likely buy a license if the prize is right. A prize tag at a level comparable to a donation will surely make more SOHO users consider a license subscription - I would definitely buy such a license as a way of supporting the project and community support for me is enough since I am fully capable of doing most adjustments myself.

Enterprises wants to be able to have support since time is considered of value to them. There domain is something else than fiddling with configuration and installation of the company mail server in which case they will gladly pay for support. On the other hand they also wants to be ensure of continuing support for their mail server since a mail server is a critical component of business and buy a solution from a small provider is a risk if the source code is not available . 1000$ for a fully installed and configured mail solution is not something which will scare an enterprise.

Just my 2 cents.

Hi Zhang,

Clearly, your post on Jan 10 shows some frustration (comments about internal ability to grow development, etc.) and burn out which I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing. 

You've gotten some great feedback already that I hope you'll consider.   For example: 
Hansonte's 3rd option

I would recommend exploring some of the above ideas and consider how to implement them.  You could even do such for period (i.e. 3 years trial) and reevaluate the situation. 

I want to chime into the vote for NOT CLOSING the source to any of it (iRedMail Pro).  You state that many do not seem to care and that is always going to be the case.  What we in the US the 80-20 rule.  80% get benefits for 20% doing work.  Anyway, the point is that there are many that will care!  They have a big impact on recommendations, etc. for long term use.  For example, we would drop the product internally, nor recommend it to clients, if closed source (and we already own "LifeTime" licenses).   

Ironically, we have also set an initiative in 2015 to start investigating how to contribute back to iRedMail and iRedMail Pro beyond purchasing licenses. 

Have you ever considered a support model?  My limited observations would suggest that the support model would provide a method to generate MORE income than sales.  It could even reach the point to where is subsidizes internal developer(s) contributing to the software and/or release models (contributions from other developers outside payroll). 

Ref. Fee/Account

     Really....?   Zhang, ask yourself what motivation and who benefits from such?   The 80% example....

     Ask these users if they would donate to such a project/product vs purchase? 

The market is for both but in doing such also increases demands in tracking the license based upon quantities of accounts.  Example: price the product at $50 for less than 200 users and at $799 for unlimited (anything in between).  You then need to track and monitor licenses based upon account quantities which takes more bookkeeping.  Plus, what about a code base to control the account number for the appropriate number of accounts.  The advantage is that you gain contributions from smaller businesses, etc. using it but further increase operational workload for tracking.   If going such route, I would recommend some tiers.  Example: product is $50 and works up till 100 accounts.  $250 up to 2000 accounts.  $799 unlimited.  Then the code base just does not exceed such number until unlocked.  Of course, if open source, who can edit (crack) such.... 

So ask yourself how others get funding without building a code base to monitor or backend for tracking account numbers...

Ref. FUNDING:
Ask for contributions and/or crowd funding. Numerous websites exist to help crowdfund projects and/or initiatives.  Review and select one which you can accept donations. 

     I do not want to start a flame war about PHP/Python, etc. here.  However, this comment should be an indication to you about ramifications to closing the source:

• First, someone will probably fork it in Python.

• Fork in other languages like PHP, Ruby, etc.

• Other scenarios as well.

End result is that another "open source" project will emerge to further compete with iRedMail.  What then is your plan to retain existing clients, etc. vs lose them to Zimbra, Google, GoDaddy Hosted Exchange, etc.? 

In my humble opinion, you're revenue model for building a company is the support aspect (possibly hosting as well) of the open source project.  Example: sell support agreements and the one time services you offer now in larger scale.  Hope you'll investigate the support model and supplemental revenue methods of funding like donations, source funding specific features or ports, etc.

We all look forward to your decision about closing the source code and I'm hoping that you'll NOT do such. 

Good luck.

Dear all,

Thank you very much for sharing your opinions. Please allow me to reply below.

This is not a good idea. If customer implemented some code to update the sensitive info (e.g. customer info, billing info), and customer contributes back to iRedAdmin-Pro, the code may leak my SQL structure, etc. Also, as @Dexus said, "i dont get money from you, so i dont make it public." That's the reality.

I don't understand why it becomes ironical if you contribute to iRedMail project. I want to make it clear here, because you always say "iRedMail Pro", we don't have "iRedMail Pro"

*) iRedMail will always stay open source (GPL) and free. All mail services are implemented in iRedMail.
*) We're talking about iRedAdmin-Pro - the web admin panel. It's just a web-based admin panel, it doesn't provide mail services like POP3/IMAP/SMTP/HTTP, etc.

Open source projects have many ways to generate profit, but that doesn't means it works for all open source projects.
As you may know, we provide paid remote support service, charges USD $39 per ticket. Let me show you the numbers of support tickets in 2014:

2014-01: 4 ($116 total, $29 per ticket)
2014-02: 13 ($377 total)
2014-03: 6 ($234 total, $39 per ticket)
2014-04: 12 ($468)
2014-05: 9 ($351)
2014-06: 6 ($234)
2014-07: 7 ($273)
2014-08: 8 ($312)
2014-09: 5 ($195)
2014-10: 2 ($78)
2014-11: 3 ($117)
2014-12: 7 ($273)
----------------------
82 support tickets, $3028 total in 2014.

iRedMail is too easy to install, not many customers bought remote iRedMail installation support. And very few customers (less than 5) asked me to provide long term support before, but unfortunately, no final deals.

Now you know the numbers, it's obvious this mode doesn't work for iRedMail project.

About why we remove phpMyAdmin/phpLDAPadmin/phpPgAdmin, it's clearly mentioned in iRedMail-0.9.0 release notes, and we asked for feedback in mailing list on Jul 21:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?pli=1# … 5l1aDpxzSQ

Donating doesn't work for iRedMail project. We have donate button on web site before, i received few donates, i guess it's about $300 total. yep, total.

This is what we're going to do.

Crowd funding for what? And you cannot ask for contributions/donations/crowd funding every year, we're not big project like FreeBSD/OpenBSD, we cannot get enough money to live.
Selling license of iRedAdmin-Pro is a persistent and steady way to get profit, and the most important point is, it works quite well. so we can keep iRedMail project moving on.

Customers always have choice, they choose the one matches their needs, that's good thing for customers. We cannot avoid this situation.

Our revenue is that we can build fast and new features in less time, it works better with our billing system. Perhaps if i'm family with python, i'm doing the same in python. But i'm PHP evangelist.

I'm like iRedMail and i have aks ZHB a while ago if he have some other Pricing for Cloud services oder Hosting Products.

I'm building upon iRedMail a E-Mail hosting product, because i and some other people dont trust, the "main" hosting companies and there or other goverments.

For me have iRedMail first 20% of the potential used, what is possible. But to get the last 80% ZHB need help or money.
When i can help ZBH, i will do my best to do so.

At last, i have the feeling that zhb not realy can work in a team. Sorry if i'm wrong, if i see the deleted "feature" requests in bitbucked that make sense, i feel so.

- now i learning py -

That is not accurate assessment but an opinion.  Additionally, I've seen you support at work and I understand why there are problems with some issues.   

Yes, I do understand iRedMail Pro is the actual product. 
It is ironic because because of the timing in that when we're looking to help your initiatives, you're going to close the source.  Assistance with iRedMail in the forums, documentation, IRC, etc. helps reduce your load to focus on iRedMail Pro.  Thus, assisting with both products has benefits even if one is the revenue stream. 
Additionally, you cannot take a programmer and ask them to contribute code that manages underlying systems services/software if they do not now hos parts of it work.  One off Example:  There is some basic required understanding in e-mail ports and security for someone to write code that interplays with the iRedMail (?) Adanced tab settings for enabling SSL SMTP vs SMTP, etc.  In other words, one can develop good management code if they lack experience with what it should be managing. 

Even more reason to keep it open source and get the support model corrected to a revenue stream as more and more people, entities and governments will be seeking secure scenarios where code review is an option. 

Again, a "button" for donations with little to no contextual reference from which end users draw conclusions....   Why would they donate? 

You can ask for support for new features, new ports, cross platform initiatives, etc.   Look at how some Plone and Django projects generated revenue for add-on modules/plugins. 

How much do you need?  Do you think you'll get rich on this product? Have you applied to any organizations or submitted proposals to them for using your product to provide contributions back to the code and/or developer time.   Yes, I said we're looking to help...  That means assigning development time to the project which is then not funded by your budget. 

SQL - not really sensitive and to provide back code with better database structures for ongoing development just further strengthens the project and thus interest by companies, governments, etc., etc. 

No selling software is a method to generate some revenue and but fails to account for other avenues of revenue generation. 
It appears that you've made up your mind....  Good luck.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other products to replace IRedMail Pro and/or iRedMail? 

Thanks

The latest roundcube stable release is 1.0.4, Debian ships 0.7.2. We want to avoid bugs in old releases, embrace new features in new release, so we use  the same Roundcube releases on all supported Linux/BSD distributions.

BTW, iRedAPD stands for iRed Access Policy Daemon.

Twice annually is not a rule. new version will be released "when it's ready".
iRedMail-0.9.0 supports Nginx + SOGo, plus several new Linux/BSD distribution releases, and have to improve iRedAdmin-Pro, so it takes some more time for this release.

Hi, I just got the pro version of the product, we migrated a small portion of our domains, about 500 mail boxes. So far the product is doing impressive. We have other mails servers but I am reading at your post here.

one question
is the unlimited version still going to be available?. i don't mind paying annually for a support/ update subscription. as a matter of fact it didn't made sense to me a "lifetime" product. Of course if has cots to support a product, nothing can last for ever with out a price. But the pear mail box cost is what made us run out of many solutions like atmail, merak and others we have use in the past. And I believe is one of your strong things..

My suggestion take the lifetime licence but not the unlimited licence..  we where checking out mailmagic.. they are unlimited but their price is crazy.. 7500 usd initial and 2500 a year.. their product is meant for ISP's but even when it is the price is crazy for a small / mid size company.

reagrds

Guillermo Dewey
http://www.ofik.com