Thanks to the developers of the Tag Module. It looks great. My question is why is nobody disappointed that EE/Solspace is charging $40 for this module? This is something, in my opinion, that should be included in the commercial version of EE.
I understand and appreciate that developers need to be compensated. But, maybe that compensation should come from EE and not from the customers/clients who already paid for the commercial version.
Please rethink this method for this and future modules/small plugins. I would love to see EE as a beautiful hybrid of open-source like software and a stable, well-supported pay service.
I kinda agree with you j25. It’s not so bad right now, but as more add-on modules become available the cost for these will soon add up to more than the license itself. Also being an “official” third party module i had hoped for the $40 it would fully integrate with EE, but you still need to use an additional plugin to hack around the fact the tag module doesn’t integrate with the EE search module.
The certified modules has both good and bad points IMO. Bad is cost, who doesn’t like free.
On the other hand the developers are asking a reasonable price for the functionality offered here.
If everything was incorporated into the main EE product, it could quickly become bloated with features the average user would not need, complicating the learning curve as well. A module with overwhelming popularity could most likely end up in future new releases, but for those who have “live sites” and want to get their hands on the goods now, it’s a great thing.
Suggesting what features you’ld like to see in future can never hurt either.
I would love to see EE as a beautiful hybrid of open-source like software and a stable, well-supported pay service.
I really don’t see how the current model isn’t exactly what you describe. You get loads of features included free with EE plus you can pay for extras like Tag that we’ve taken the time to certify. I don’t see why EllisLab should foot the bill for something you’re going to make use of commercially. That would quickly get ridiculously expensive for us and severely limit what we could offer the community.
If you don’t want to pay for tagging, there are other solutions to incorporating tags into your EE install. The Tag Module is not the exclusive way to accomplish this. But it is certainly, in our opinion the best, and its certainly worth the price tag (har har, pardon the pun), and its certainly reasonable to expect to pay for something you’re going to receive support for from the developer.
As to Tag Module and Search, put in a feature request with Solspace. Certified doesn’t equal “does everything you want or expect” it means that the code is stable, secure, and optimized for performance. Beyond that, its up to the buyer to make sure that it fits their specific needs.
My question is why is nobody disappointed that EE/Solspace is charging $40 for this module?
Because if I needed it for a commercial project, $40 is a drop in the bucket…
I totally agree with that sentiment. EE is absolutely fantastic in what it offers at the moment. The amount that you can do with the out-of -the-box as it were version of EE gives you a massive amount of functionality immediately. They also took the time to create a fantastic base for people to be able to write their own extensions, plug-ins and modules fairly easily.
I paid for the Tag module as it was something that I needed just like I did with EE. If EE did have every single option in it as standard then well to tell the truth we would probably not be using it right now as it wouldn’t exist!!
Thanks to the great developers who created EE I have even myself been able to create a couple of extensions and plug-ins to help me with projects I have done. The Tag module is a massive amount of work and Mitchell definitely deserves every penny / cent that he makes from it and I wish him and the Solspace crew all the good fortune they can get. If you have already paid for the commercial version of EE then $40 more for the module if you really need it is really not a lot, just add it on to the client cost as it shouldn’t really make all that much difference to tell the truth if you are pricing correctly.
I can certainly justify paying $40 for the Tag module. To me, there’s a bigger concern.
Mitchell, I say this while at the same time having a lot of respect for your software and supprt of EE development in general—but I worry that now that there’s a “certified” tagging solution, EllisLab isn’t going to bother including tagging at the core of their product. They won’t want to pull the rug out from under SolSpace’s work, and they’ll feel that tagging has been “done”. Well, as the search integration shows, tagging isn’t fully done. Plus, every time someone compares EE to Wordpress or Joomla or whatever, the lack of native tag support is going to be a strike against EE.
As more certified modules start being offered, I actually hope that EE eventually clones, buys or integrates the best of them completely into the core product—especially for something as critical as tagging or perhaps the freeform module, also by SolSpace. Apple does this, sometimes to the criticism of its biggest fans, but I think it’s an important part of the evolution of software. It would be an ironic twist if certified developer modules ended up hemming in the core product instead of helping it to grow.
I can certainly justify paying $40 for the Tag module. To me, there’s a bigger concern.
Mitchell, I say this while at the same time having a lot of respect for your software and supprt of EE development in general—but I worry that now that there’s a “certified” tagging solution, EllisLab isn’t going to bother including tagging at the core of their product. They won’t want to pull the rug out from under SolSpace’s work, and they’ll feel that tagging has been “done”. Well, as the search integration shows, tagging isn’t fully done. Plus, every time someone compares EE to Wordpress or Joomla or whatever, the lack of native tag support is going to be a strike against EE.
You know, we’ve been saying this for years but some people don’t like hearing it. Tagging isn’t critical or a high-enough demand feature for us to consider it as necessary to be native to EE. You may think tagging to be critical and a big strike against EE but our continued growth and sales prove otherwise.
Is tagging important? Certainly. Is it critical to specific projects? Absolutely. And that’s the whole point of 3rd party certification; to offer a wider range of niche solutions to the community.
We think the Tag Module is great. That the Tag Module doesn’t meet your exact requirements at the moment doesn’t mean it isn’t ready for prime time. Could it be improved? Certainly. Will Solspace continue to improve it? Of course. If you have specific things you want to see in the Tag Module, just drop Mitchell a line, same as you would EllisLab.
Further, there is absolutely zero guarantee that an EllisLab Tag Module would meet your needs either. Its not like having us develop it would magically make tagging “done” in your eyes, especially considering that software is never finished. Its just the nature of the beast.
As more certified modules start being offered, I actually hope that EE eventually clones, buys or integrates the best of them completely into the core product—especially for something as critical as tagging or perhaps the freeform module, also by SolSpace. Apple does this, sometimes to the criticism of its biggest fans, but I think it’s an important part of the evolution of software. It would be an ironic twist if certified developer modules ended up hemming in the core product instead of helping it to grow.
Frankly, I find the above statement fairly unreasonable and certainly unfounded. Since when does having a healthy, growing, economically viable developer community hurt a company? Its really hard to argue that as a negative. As new technologies and trends emerge it will become more and more impossible to make them first party solutions. Its unreasonable and we feel detrimental to approach development in that fashion. True, Apple may incorporate a few things over the years but clearly one of the strong appeals of the Mac is its amazingly healthy and thriving developer community.
Currently there is a single certified module and you’re wondering if suddenly EE’s internal growth is being hurt? If there were 1000 3rd party add-ons and we hadn’t released a new version of EE in over a year I could see a legit complaint but clearly this isn’t even remotely the case with EllisLab or our community.
Mitchell definitely will continue to develop the module and he is one of the best most up-standing developers you will ever come across. He is currently taking a lot of time to help me with something on my site that is in development and is working wonders.
As Leslie said software is never ever really finished. You can never put everything into a piece of software as new technologies become available and people want to do new things. If you could develop a piece of software that could do everything for everyone all of the time then you would definitely have created some kind of artificial intelligence which I think it’s safe to say is a very very long way off.
Since when does having a healthy, growing, economically viable developer community hurt a company?
This is a straw man argument: I didn’t say a healthy developer community hurts EllisLab.
I said (or at least tried to say ) that I was concerned that certifying certain modules would create a buffer around EE that could impede EllisLab’s implementation of key features. And, I said I hoped EllisLab wasn’t creating a situation where doing something good for the end user [1] might contradict what’s good for a certified module developer—who might feel like his or her code is somehow off the table for development from inside EE.
[1] like fully integrating functionality into future EE versions that overlap a certified third-party module
I say this as someone who’s bought from SolSpace and from many other EE developers over the past three years. I want to support EE developers (heck, I am one!). But I wonder if the benefits that certification brings them (presumably, more people trust and buy their software) ultimately is going to cause problems for EE and its end users.
As a real world example: If “Pages” had been a certified module from Mark Huot, would EllisLab have built their own version for EE 1.6?
It is way too late on a Friday afternoon for me to add anything meaningful to this certification discussion.
For what its worth, I don’t think any of your well-spoken if unfounded fears have any chance of happening at EllisLab. And I think we have a very good track record of being fair to our community, ourselves, and developers and have shown time and time again that we are capable of flourishing in the stormy internet development seas. Now, its food time!
Hmmm sounds good! Tell me what exactly does a great EE developer like yourself eat Leslie? Maybe if I eat what you eat then I can get better at coding my own modules and extensions??
“has well-spoken if unfounded fears”—that’s going in my .sig!
hee hee, I didn’t mean it to be harsh. In all fairness, it could certainly go in my sig from time to time as well. Thanks for taking it well Travis. Now really, I’m going to try and go enjoy my weekend a bit!
OK, so instead of talking about all these crazy stuff about $40, how about a couple links to current EE sites that are using this tagging module so we can get our hands (and minds) around it?
Hmmmm, am I going to have to teach sales and marketing here? (my specialty).
Is it possible to create tag cloud drill downs with this module?
For example, if I have a gazillion tags, can I display a most-used tag cloud and then, when someone clicks on one of those, a second level tag cloud comes up? Hope this makes sense.
) that I was concerned that certifying certain modules would create a buffer around EE that could impede EllisLab’s implementation of key features. And, I said I hoped EllisLab wasn’t creating a situation where doing something good for the end user [1] might contradict what’s good for a certified module developer—who might feel like his or her code is somehow off the table for development from inside EE.
