.NET Reflector is Becoming a Paid-For Product
.NET Reflector is Becoming a Paid-For Product
Red Gate announced a few days ago that .NET Reflector will become a commercial product from the end of February 2011. Here is what Neil Davidson, Red Gate’s Co-CEO, wrote as an open letter to the .NET community:
”Red Gate has announced that it will charge $35 for version 7 of .NET Reflector upon its release in early March. Version 7 will be sold as a perpetual license, with no time bomb or forced updates.
As many of you know, our original intention was to maintain .NET Reflector as a free tool. But, after two-and-a-half years of providing it without charge, we realized that we could not make the free model work. We know that this will cause pain for some people in the .NET community, and we apologize for the change in policy.
As a commercial company, we need to charge at least a nominal amount to keep .NET Reflector up-to-date and relevant. Without revenue coming in, we cannot dedicate a team of developers to ensure that Reflector remains a valuable part of .NET developers’ toolboxes.
As always, your feedback is important to Red Gate, so please contribute any thoughts on this subject to our .NET Reflector forum.
Sincerely,
Neil Davidson
Co-CEO, Red Gate Software”
Since Red Gate bought .NET Reflector I expected this change to come. But what I didn’t expected is that the product will have no free version at all. This is bad news for the people who use it on a daily basis (like I do). I know that $35 isn’t a lot of money but I want to refer you to Lutz Roeder’s announcement when he sold .NET Reflector to Red Gate – “Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version and is looking for your feedback and ideas for future versions.”
What do you think about this Red Gate announcement?