Thread

Hi,

I’m learning Expression Engine and web site design in general. Accordingly, I’ve been setting up sites for friends/family. I put them on my hosting account—I don’t charge them a thing—I even purchase the licenses for them.

The multi-site license would be nice for this purpose.  But, I don’t know that I “own” all the sites even though I put them up for people on my own initiative (absent them even telling me they want a web site).  They are gifts and practice for me.
examples:  http://www.jeffbarnet.com (a good friend); http://www.couragenet.com (my brother).  I have separate licenses for these.

Can I use multi-site manager for this?  Or, when I put up a site, for free, for friend/family, do I need a separate and full license? (I see the multi-site license supporting my create web-sites for friends/family compulsion.)

Thanks,

Bruce

EE’s pretty lenient when it comes to running sites for your mom/pop/sister on a single install.  Of course, if you’ve got 50 people in your ‘friends and family’ network, that might be pushing the bounds of the ‘no hosted blogging service’ requirement in the license.  I’ll double check with the sales crew on this thread- but just to give them some more info- how many sites are you thinking of running like this?  And would any of the individual sites fall into the commercial category?

I’d say 5 family and 5 friends at any given time.  Most sites the people don’t want or use.  Currently hoping that my friend will use the jeffbarnet.com site I made for him and my brother does use his couragenet.com site. 

I’ve built a number of sites for friends, which are out there, but none being used.  For example jhenriwiesel.com or theosapy.com.  I buy them the domain, build it, and they don’t use it, which is fine with me.

Whether they are commercial—I’m not certain.  I hope jeffbarnet starts to sell writing from his site.  My brother uses his site to post articles about leadership, and he does refer to his consulting business in the site.  But, I don’t know if he’s ever gotten a client off the site.

I own one EE commercial license, 3 EE personal licenses, two discussion forum licenses, one Personal and one commercial and a MSM commercial license.  I try to keep my current practice sites within these boundaries.

It’d be easier/cheaper to add licenses to my MSM.

I really need to build these sites so I can get over the learning curve.  I’m starting to get EE, now though.

I want to start offering commerical design in about a month.

Bruce

LOL- you’re worse than I am about creating sites!  Yep- I built one for my Grandmother I KNOW she never touched.  But it’s fun to have a goal in mind when you’re playing.  Let me check with sales to get you a firm answer on this one.

Hi Bruce,

I’m glad EE is working out so well for you. As Robin mentioned, we tend to be rather lenient when it comes to providing websites for families. If you want to use EE + MSM to provide websites to your immediate family, that’s just fine, so long as they are personal sites. For example, if your brother runs his own business, he needs his own commercial license. In these situations we ask that people be fair to us. Its a little ridiculous for us to demand that someone buy another EE license so that their daughter can have her own part of the family website. In the same vein its ridiculous to provide a business website to a brother off a personal family license when the purpose of that site is separate from “family websites”.

Also, keep in mind that all the Sites on MSM have to be the same type. So if you’re running a personal family set of sites, they all need to be personal sites anyway.

We don’t have any hard and fast rules. If you have questions, the best thing to do is email sales and ask first.

So, it looks like best option for someone learning and building sites like me is to invest in both a commercial and private msm. 

So, to accomplish this, I just need to add a private MSM license, which I’ll do today!  That way I have both the private and commercial forum and the private and commercial MSM, with 3 sites each, and ability to add additional sites of each at a good rate.

Then, I’ll move my sites over to the MSM install of the appropriate variety.

I’m happy.  This tool has been a great learning tool for me.

Bruce

I guess I need also to upgrade one of my private licenses to a commercial license for jeffbarnet.com, as he’s a friend (since 8th grade—we’re 46 now), not family and can’t run off my MSM?

He’s not using the site, but I think he wants to after he gets a laptop.

He’s disabled, but he’s an amazing writer and I hoped he could earn some income with a EE site at http://www.jeffbarnet.com.  Wish him well and consider him for web editing.  He’s got a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and significant experience in journalism with awards, and a very hard life with his own illness and taking care of his mother with Altheimers.  (I get nothing from this as I’m gifting him the site—so I hope it’s not spam.)

Bruce

Or, as to jeffbarnet.com, and other sites I create on my own initiative for friends—really, until the friends agree that the site is useful to them, and that they want it, the site is a personal, non-commercial site of mine? As I intend to earn no income from it?  Could I create the site first on my personal MSM license, and then, if the friend wants to use the site, then transition them to their own license?  This way, I can do sites “on spec” for friends which has a commerical intent, but only if they actually decide to use it?

Sorry for endless clarifications—but, I expect that I’ll be doing a lot of this, as it’s the way I practice and a way to give gifts to people.

I’ll still upgrade Jeff, because I’m going to try to push him to use his site. 😊

Bruce