extensions.Siliana.com

Hi all

As per previous announcements on this blog and other places, you probably know I have been very close to calling it quits on sh404sef. Despite the fantastic personal satisfaction and all the positive feedback and friendly relationships  I got from the community at large over the last 3 years, I had come to a point where I could not possibly handle sh404sef in my spare time alone, hence my first announcement that I would stop working on this extension.
 
However, after this blog post, several people contacted me and offered to collaborate in keeping sh404sef alive. The idea made its way slowly, and then I jumped in. After a few days of quite frantic preparation work, I can today announce I will now work with Anything Digital, the well known company behind JCal Pro, the Joomla calendar extension.

The agreement maintains me as lead developer of sh404sef, while Anything Digital will provide documentation, support and all the necessary work for an extension that has grown as large as this one, while keeping it fully GPL. I know many companies in the Joomla world, and I am confident Anything Digital will "do the right thing" with sh404sef.

What will happen now? Starting immediately, all information, support and downloads will be available at the Anything Digital site. Here are the main links :

sh404sef main page

sh404sef FAQ

sh404sef dedicated board on A.D. forum

There may be a few unfinished content here and there, but that will soon be fixed up. Content on my site has been already made read-only, and will stay available as a reference in the future. Look for link back to it on Anything Digital FAQ page.That's all for now. I'll try updating you here as things move along, but I can already tell you that all the plans, new features and improvements that I have held back for the last 12 months, as I lacked time, are finally going to happen.I am really excited about it - especially after being so close to stopping everything. As a sign of this, we will already have a first improved version released on next friday ! My best regards to all of you

Thanks for the ride, anyway!

Yannick

commentaires

brian teeman - Great news 07-09-2009 20:59 Great news to hear that you have found a means to continue not only offering sh404sef but of continuing its development and adding new features. Can't wait.

This is BAD - sh404SEF is now $35 !!! 07-09-2009 21:49 Incredible ! I thought it would be free and NO it's $35 per year. Too BAD. Really TOO BAD i'm off with that component

Vic - sustainable open source 08-09-2009 01:29 many, many cost-free extensions die a silent, cold death. We've prevent this a few times with a simple, fair commercial GPL model. I'd recommend some prespective by reading this thread: http://dev.anything-digital.com/Forum/1.5.x-General-Discussion/1363-JCal-Download-cost-$$-/

Charly - a good way to help the develop 08-09-2009 02:23 I agree with the new system of payment and i think the component and its support will be more and more better. Long life to sh404sef!

Vic 08-09-2009 04:31 Thanks Charly

jamfx - This is going bad! 08-09-2009 05:12 Hi Everyone and Hi Yannick, i am very sad, that sh404-comp is going this commercial. I always understood GNU/GPL free as in free beer AND in freedom. But now, we have to PAY 35$ just for a 1year download... THIS IS VERY SAD. I would have prefered a download at joomlacode. So nobody has to pay for traffic... Sorry, this is so sad guys

goyo - to jamfx: 08-09-2009 05:47 "Nobody has to pay for traffic" There's no such thing...

teddy - there's another free component 08-09-2009 07:49 Look at Joomace.net, there is AceSEF, which is supposed to be free and work with sh404 urls. It is made by Denis Dulici, who developed a lot of extensions for 3rd party components (many for $9), and the free version has a copyright footer...

Anonyme 08-09-2009 12:05 Hmm....I think that $35 is a bit expensive....and I'm someone who has donated money before to sh404SEF. $35 is more than the calendar component also on offer on that site!

Shame - sh404sef i dead 08-09-2009 12:10 Now it's commercial!!! 35$ for a year! Shame!

Yannick Gaultier - Information on changes 08-09-2009 15:29 Hi all thanks for all your comments. I knew some of you would be upset by this decision and I definitevely do not want to enter a discussion on this. But as I see that most of the expected critics have already been made, I thought I'd post some additionnal information : @jamfx: surely you know by now that GPL means free as in free speech, but NOT free as in free beer. (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html or http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html) @jamfx, @goyo: re traffic, web site. If you read again my previous posts, you will realize that traffic is not the problem. The cost of this server is about $20/month, and that is covered by donations and Adsense, so I don't pay for it myself. The problem is time. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, I could spend 20-25 hours per week of my spare time working on sh404sef and supporting users. In 2009, I cannot spend even one hour per week working for free. It's life. It changes. This is why I announced I was terminating sh404sef. Then Anything Digital stepped in and the project can continue. Sure, it is not as nice for everyone as when everything was for free. Still, I consider this a better solution than several tens of thousands of users having eventually to find another solution. @teddy, @Anonyme: regarding price. I did not do the pricing, but I agreed to it. My concerns were: 1/ extension stays GPL 2/ no "pay for each download" 3/ sustainable activity : has to provide a long term solution, otherwise it is not worth, we may as well just stop everything today 35$ for a year of updates and new features, plus documentation, appears fair to me As for those who donated before, as said above, this was helpful simply so that I would not pay for server, on top of spending the time. To be totally transparent, donations and adsense fo this site represented around $300 for 2009. Surely you realize I cant' make a living with about ($37.5-$20 for server) = $17.5 per month ? SEF extensions are very difficult to make and also to support, because most of the time the problems (bugs, htaccess, etc) are NOT within the extension itself, but inside the web server, other extensions or within Joomla itself. This is why there is basically no free (as in free wine - I prefer wine over beer :) ) SEF extension. All others are either paid and encrypted, or have a simple version with added links, while plugins or "pro" version is paid. Now if you want to improve your SEO by adding links to other sites, then you are not going in the right direction. @shame : I don't see in which way it could possibly a shame. Also, please face the facts: sh404sef WAS DEAD. Now, it has a good chance to survive and stay around a long time Best regards to all, feel free to comment again

Loewenherz - sh404SEF is dead 08-09-2009 17:11 Yes. I'm off too. A bad decision... I supported sh404SEF for some years, but this is sad.

James Friesen - Are you guys SERIOUS??? I'm ta 08-09-2009 19:05 "Yes. I'm off too. A bad decision... I supported sh404SEF for some years, but this is sad." Gimme a break guys! I am a webmaster that has enjoyed the "free as in beer" sh404SEF for a number of years. How Yannick could afford to do that for so long I have no idea. But now the free ride is over because he can't afford it anymore. Do you think he OWES it to you? Really? How about THANKING him for years of free service for something that helped you and probably helped make you some money (or at least it helped me make money). Do I WANT to pay $35 to download the next version... no, but is it worth the time and effort he has put into it... YES. Does someone with his talent and dedication deserve to put food on the table through his work? I hope that's a rhetorical question. In the meantime... enjoy whatever inferior extension you all run off to, I am sure you will be much happier. James Friesen Mango Tree Media

Breeza - i'm off with that component 08-09-2009 20:44 $35... for beta... noway guys... i'm off with that component

Sam - Thanks! 08-09-2009 21:46 Yannick, just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work. I can't believe you've managed to do this for free this long! I was a little confused myself at first about the price since you only find out about it on the AD site, but the move makes sense in light of the alternative. A for-pay extension in the hand is worth two free-but-dead extensions in the bush. =) I would way rather have the option to pay for the best SEO extension out there than not have access to current versions at all. And $35 is great value considering you get unlimited downloads. Glad to hear more stuff is coming. Keep up the good work; I'm in!

Tim Hakunano - Yannick, please reconsider it 09-09-2009 06:01 Hi Yannick, my single point: a lot of people which use your extension would think $ 35 is cheap, but some of us come from very ppor countries and $ 35 means a lot (have you heard of people living under $ 1 a day?) Please reconsider it, charge $ 10 and you'll get more people on your side, charge $ 35 and your extension will be sold only to the few which can pay it. Again, maybe for you $ 35 is not that much, but for me, it means 10 days salary. Please release a free version or charge less, you are a hero to us, don't let money blind you, don't let people at AD take advantage of you. God Bless you. Tim

borej - sh404sef cost money ? 09-09-2009 08:42 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Yannick its bad solution! Now I look for free component with the same functions. I'll remove all sh404sef components from my sites (with tears on my eyes).

Ant - Ok, the software is yours 09-09-2009 09:31 Hi Yannick, sh404sef is yours and you decide what to do. I'd only like to say that imho it would be better to sell assistance instead of a piece of software. What about if I usually modify deeply your code by my means? I wouldn't spread it as if it was mine and you couldn't give me any assistance because you don't know what I changed. But you gave your code for free and if I improve it much one day, GPL tells I can't apply another licence, particularly NOT commercial licence. I'd be walking in your shoes. While software by itself would have grown!

torben@dmsomediadesign - Integrator's most used compone 09-09-2009 09:37 Besides JCE and a few others I think that sh404 has been the most used component for integrators who earn a whole lot of money with selling their services to clients, using sh404 as the only good SEO solution for Joomla out there. There are many open source business models out there and I think it is only fair that such great components also get financially supported, so they can increase in quality and features over time, which is an important factor in professional use. Of course for the punks loving free software - as with free beer, this is a sad decision, but 35$ is not really much for such a piece of software. For my next project I will get my self a subscription for sh404 and hope to benefit from better documentation, support and quality improvements over time. Thanks for all the good work. Torben@dmsomediadesign.

John - I think this is a good thing 09-09-2009 10:23 I used to use opensef and when that died it was a pain migrating my sites (although sh404sef made it easier than it could have been!). I think that the continuity of this component is the most important thing, if it has to be paid for then in my opinion it will survive much longer which is a very good thing. I also hope yannick makes some decent money out of this as i'm really grateful for sh404sef and use it on all my sites. Well done!

Makis - hm... 09-09-2009 10:54 of course we all are relieved to see that sh404 will continue to be developed even though if we need to pay for this. Is it $35 per yr for each website are unlimited? $35 maybe be nothing to some of you including me but most of the people will turn it down and seek another solution. In fact this move made some space for some other solution more competing than A.D. offers Cheers

privateace - Disappointing 09-09-2009 12:40 I've supported sh404sef for the last couple of years and have over the time offered numerous times to facilitate hosting and also help assist with the fees that result from the hosting of such a component. We host numerous components and maintain many Joomla plugins with none of the problems you have. YANNICK - We offered over the last year or so to help you with costs but at no stage did you ever seem interested in the assistance or financial interest in the project from a commercial company. All of a sudden we get slammed with a pathetic payment plan for a 'beta' project by a no-name company which doesn't have a spectacular image in all the articles I've read about them. This is pretty poor that you would cut out the community for your financial gain. There are better ways to go about this than the road you've taken. I'm disappointed that I've spent all this time assisting users to have the author turn his back on them for the money side. Please take a deep hard look at who follows you to the new company and the assistance that you get.

Amorino - La mort - The death 09-09-2009 14:08 Yannick we supported with you sh404sef over the last 3 years and you KILLED all our effort Thank you man! ************************ Yannick on a supporté et aider au développement de sh404sef durant les derniers 3 ans et tu as Tué tous nos efforts ! Merci ! L'open source n'a JAMAIS été ça Mr!

John - Hope it works 09-09-2009 14:12 I'm a professional web developer and was use sh404SEF all the time. The $35 cost represents about 15 minutes of work to one of our clients. There's no way we could duplicate the functionality in that amount of time. I hope that charging for sh404 will allow you to continue its development and earn a living from your work because honestly others of us have been partially earning a living based at least partially on your work. Still commercial GPL always confuses me. According to your licensing people are still allowed to re-distribute. So I could buy a subscription for a year and then re-publish the extension. Obviously I'm not going to do that but it seems to be within the term. And at the very least people can certainly use the previous non-commercial version and fork off of that for another version. @privateace - you shoul really try reading. He's said repeatedly it's not about the cost of running a server but rather the cost of dedicating the time to the project.

Tesla - Help with costs... 09-09-2009 14:16 Now that is a interesting comment.... Programming is expensive or time intensive. I have donated a couple of times to sh404sef and am very glad that It is going to stay alive. I personally have spent alot of money having a component coded. Instead of paying less just to use it myself I have spent much more making it ready for everyone, I require donations to download. If you think this is bad, I can start spending less and have it coded just for my needs instead of the community, and then you will not even have the option to pay. People that are freeking out. I would like to knww how much money or time they have donated to sh404sef. if you have donated $35 USD a year or spent 10% of the time Yannick did each week, then I think you have some "right" to complain, but if not then please keep your rude or negitive comments to yourself. Yannick, I think you made a good decission (having spent well over 12k) and only received a few thousand in donations)

Bob Janes - Good luck 09-09-2009 14:26 Sounds like a good move Yannick. I'm delighted to see that sh404SEF will continue to be developed.

Humn Kinlikñimlojmlhnkh - So... what about poor people, 09-09-2009 14:49 The same wall street speculator which like to ruin everything are here giving positive comments. So how about poor people, which can't pay for this great component? Don't we have the right as humans to succeed? what about all those websites for non-profits, church, and local schools I develop por FREE! just to help people? is there a non-commercial user version for .org and .edu sites?

Jenkinhill - The right decision 09-09-2009 16:33 As a web developer I have no issues with the pricing policy you have decided upon. It has to be the right move if it will allow you to commit time to continuing development of sh404SEF. There will always be people who believe that Joomla! extensions should be free to all users, but I wonder how many of them willingly give many hours of their own time back to the community for no charge. Joomla! websites function perfectly well without any form of SEF, and if SEF is really required, then the native J!1.5 SEF does work adequately for most. But if the extra facilities & function provided by sh404sef is required then the extension and support is available for a small charge.

der.Ede - Templates Royal - Good night sh404! 09-09-2009 17:02 I think that is the end of sh404, one of the best Joomla components. MfG

Justin - Wow - the ingratitude of so ma 09-09-2009 17:12 I am horrified that so many people think that people should give their time for nothing. I mean it is very nice that people do, but it should not be expected or taken for granted. I for one would like to thank Yannick for all his hard work on SH404 until now and I look forward to continuing to use sh404 in the future. Without good search engine optimisation there is no point writing sites. We need to use a component like sh404 and to be honest $35 isn't a great amount no matter where you live. I am based in Peru where the average weekly salary is around $35 but clients are prepared to pay around $150 for a simple site. If you are using this for any site where you need traffic pay up and be grateful for all the work that has already been done.

Rob - C'ya 09-09-2009 17:33 There is no way I'm paying a dime for a program that has been lacking for a year. I can understand needing to move over to a paid system, and it does not bother to much however, the condition this program is in now no way I'm paying a for it.

Justin , so how do you make mo - Justin what a loser you are 09-09-2009 18:21 Justin, Ok, you make a site for $ 150, minus $ 35 = $ 115, so is that how much you get from making a website? don't you have any other expenses? Ohh, I forgot you'll get the sh404SEF extension and re-sell it at $ 10, nice, I remember you told me to wait until you could resell it on your warez site. Ok, thanks. Please understand, maybe you can pay $ 35 but there's people which CAN'T is that so difficult to swallow, punk?

SB 09-09-2009 22:23 sh404Sef is not compatibily with joomla 1.0.15. If you want money, make your component working... Last beta for 1.5 dont work with other language than english... if it work like it should i pay you 135$. but now it not worth $35 for now i use artio...

SB 09-09-2009 22:51 aaand look for future joomla 1.6... most feathures of most popular SEF comps will be there by default... aaaand for free... and with free updates... etc

Yannick Gaultier 09-09-2009 23:27 Hi all, @Tim Hakunano. I am perfectly aware of this issue. I have been in touch in the past with people living in the same condition. Simply I don't have a solution for this question. The problem is the same for many things. The pricing has so to be set in accordance with the living costs of the author/seller location. I am not handling the business side of things, and I really don't want to, that is why I have partnered with a well-known company, in joomla business for several years. They have a GPL-business model that worked for them, so I hope it works also for sh404sef. @all others. I don't want to start arguing endlessly about this. sh404sef works very well with J! 1.0.15 and other versions. It works decently with J 1.5, and is in used in tens of thousands of Joomla 1.5 sites currently. For $35, you get one year of updates and can use it on as many sites as you whish. There may be bugs. The only way they get fixed and new features are added is if I can spend some time on it, which means being paid for it. I perfectly understand some people CANNOT pay that much. That does not solve MY problem. And before you get started on that, donations never exceeded $300 per year. I cannot spare any time for free now. As simple as that, all the rest is litterature. I will now refrain from commenting again, but I wanted to respond to Tim Hakunano. Please stay courteous when discussing or commenting Best regards

red - Need of supported plugins comp 10-09-2009 03:02 Hi Yannick, I have been using your extension and I am glad that it will continue instead of dying. Anyway, I have a request. I have mentioned this on anything-digital blog's comment but I firmly believe this is significantly important. Instead of having a discussion forum thread that has -- duplicate contents with different titles -- example; 10 threads about JReview component but only with different titles and user ignorance to SEARCH before posting new thread. To remedy this, why not make a table to inform potential customers regard supported components for sh404sef plugins. Example; component | sh404sef-ed | forum link com_example | Yes | /forum/... I proposed this for a reason. For potential and existing customers point of view,It makes 30 minutes of forum digging for specific info of is one component is fully supported by sh404sef, to a simplified 5 minutes lookup. For you and anything-digital, it minimizes the amount of unsatisfied customers who paid and assume their components are supported, only to found it is not fully supported (hopefully 'not yet'). Unnecessary bad faulty ratings just because of customers ignorance or flaw of product presentation could be eliminated with this. Some example or impression of what I am talking about (there could be a better example but it's in my bookmarked so..): http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/ From here i think you know the drill, since sh404sef has become a product, it's about managing expectation of product.

Justin - Is it so difficult to swallow. 10-09-2009 13:16 Yeah it is. If you are designing websites that needs a component like sh404 then you should be making money from those websites. If you are not making the money don't get the extension, work with one of the currently inferior free versions out there. Finally your maths is wrong. You get unlimited installs for your $35 so assuming you do an unconservative 10 websites a year you are only paying $3.50 per site so my profit would be $146.50.

arisbalis - Paid beta 10-09-2009 22:09 It's a shame that you now have to pay in order to use sh404. I hesitated between artio and this ******* one because the first is stable and the second is beta. Now both aren't free, so the choice is easy... Stability = Efficiency. What kind of guys are you to sell a beta ? This word means "test" and you want people pay to test your product? Hahahahaha... You should go to business college...

Sirius - Shit 10-09-2009 23:26 I was about to make the jump from JoomSEF to SH404SEF when I found this... It's too bad. Some of us like joomla and it's bad to see that our brothers from Wordpress can have SEF URLs for free when we "have" to "pay" for that. That sucks man. I hope that the Joomla Guys make joomla 1.6 SEFly out of the box.

Sirius - @Yannick 10-09-2009 23:35 Don't get us wrong. We like the job you did with this component. But... really wasn't anyone who could give us sh404sef free? I think Joomla is about "Working Together". You work, we work, you put money, we too (by donations and publicity). And, SH404SEF is not an "all in one" that justify that pay as we can read at Alledia.com (some features of other SEO and SEF Components/Plugins are missing)

Phil - Le monde est bien petit 11-09-2009 12:01 Perso, je n'utilisais pas ton composant mais je trouve normal qu'arrivé à un certain stade l'on demande à se faire payer pour ses heures de travail. Le vie d'étudiants ne dure qu'un temps, après, il faut vivre et nourrir sa famille en quoi est-ce mal ? Bonne continuation Phil

A Joomla! User - Good work! 11-09-2009 17:14 I would like to start out by saying congratulations to Victor and Anything-Digital for taking over a great extension. Without you, sh404sef would have died off. I would also like to thank you Yannick for all your hard work and dedication in creating, maintaining, and supporting such a powerful and useful extension. While I am not excited to see this become a commercial extension, I understand and agree with the decision made. Developers need to make a living. Yannick already devoted much personal time to this great extension and now no longer has personal time to do so. Rather than let the extension die off, Anything-Digital has graciously taken up the task of maintaining and improving this extension. Developing something this big is not free and I can see why they decided to go the commercial route. I can only hope that now this is a commercial extension that the bugs are fixed at a more rapid pace and more innovative features are implemented. I do notice that some are complaining that the "only really free URL and security management extension" is now commercial. Yet I have to ask myself, how many of these people complaining actually DONATED? Most probably not. Because, if the most people who used sh404sef extension donated $5, there would be no reason for Yannick to move on to other things as this extension can support his livelihood. But, as often case, most people don't donate. They want something for free. I am willing to bet that most people complaining here did not even donate a single thing to the extension's livlihood. Yannick even said that donations didn't exceed $300 a year. You don't have to just donate money, you can donate your time by providing support on the forums or make a code contribution to fix bugs or add new features. How many of you are willing to donate all your free time to develop something and get nothing in return (except complaints and more requests)? Unless you donated more than $35 or provided such great support on the forum, or even contributed code that has now been included, I do not see how you are in the position to complain. And no, offering to host the project does not count. There are much better places like Joomlacode, Sourceforge, GitHub, and Google Code that can host the project for free than your server. For quite some time you have been getting a great extension for free (as in beer), the cost of it has now caught up. This brings me to my next point. I also noticed that some people brought their GPL==free beer thoughts into their comments. Stuff like "Joomla is no longer OPEN SOURCE". GPL does not mean free as in beer, the GPL does allow developers to charge for the distribution of their product. Joomla! is still open source. I do not even see how this relates to Joomla! being or not being open source. This is a 3rd party extension. Continuing on, the complaints about the price are ridiculous. $35 is not that much money considering what you get in return. Spread that cost across multiple sites and the cost per site drops even lower. The attitude of some of the comments makes me think that some people would rather see sh404sef die a slow death like OpenSEF (or its J! 1.5 equivalent SmartSEF), than pay a small fee to help continue its development. You're not being asked to pay hundreds of dollars each time you want to download the extension or each time you want to use it on a site. It is $35 to download as many times you want on as many sites as you have. If you were to develop an SEF extension yourself, it would certainly cost you more than $35 of your own time. Try and find a freelancer to do the same thing for you and it might run you in the thousands of dollars. This is not the end of sh404sef, but the beginning of something new. Best wishes to Yannick, Victor, and the rest of the Anything-Digital team. (Note: This comment has been posted on both the Anything-Digital blog and the sh404sef blog. This comment may at times reference other comments from both blogs.)

Vamba - Che tristezza!! 13-09-2009 13:40 Che tristezza!!

Kray-Z - Shame 13-09-2009 18:45 This really is a shame, as I find the dev's over at Anything Digital to be lacking in so many ways. Support? What support? They want you to pay for it. They rarely answer questions in their forums and their own products don't integrate with each other. This new development will ensure I use SEF Advance for all my future SEF needs

arisbalis 14-09-2009 08:18 I forgot to say something : unlike Artio, sh404 is unavailable to download as a free version. We must buy in order to test it. I tried sh404 bêta when it was free and I didn't success to make it work with a multilangual site. If I had to buy It I wouldn't be happy...

A Joomla! User - Replies 15-09-2009 18:35 @Kevin Which is why Anything-Digital's calender extension is so highly rated in the JED.... @arisbalis And unlike Artio, sh404sef DOES NOT insert spam links in your website... Probably why Artio gets a lower rating on the JED than sh404sef. @Kray-Z Nothing in this world is free. When too many people ask for support, and not enough volunteer step up and help out, you end up charging for support in order to provide a reasonable service.

Yannick Gaultier 16-09-2009 17:34 I will continue to remove comments with bad languages...

piotr - rc 17-09-2009 09:04 35$/ year is a decent price, however not for a componenent in a beta phase or RC. When I pay, I want a functional code having no problems at least with default joomla installation. I hope that now you'll be able to do what you like and get for that enough finances. I'm positive about sh404SEF going commercial and hope it will go stable soon!

piotr - ps 17-09-2009 09:24 and thanks for you effort in previous years. I'm a web developer know how frustrating it may be sometimes ;)

epek - Open Source going Closed Acces 17-09-2009 14:10 I understand the dilemma between regular income and open source. But there are sure other possibilities to a subcription service. I would suggest to really start over on a fork of the software now. Do remember that the joomla project itself spun off mambo for lesser diverging opinions? There is still much work to do on sh404sef, which is quite a solid component but still lacks plugins. The plugins will a last foretell, if sh404sef or any of it´s fork will survive or not. We´ve seen OpenSEF die, but this time the chances are better.

A Joomla! User - Replies 17-09-2009 23:48 @epek Go ahead and fork it and see if you can find ANYONE willing to further project. I guarantee you they will not last long. You're suggesting that alternative sources of income weren't considered. As shown time and time again, donations certainly don't cut it. Not enough people donate. It's not just money either. It's time helping provide support, code contributions, writing documentation, etc. Charge for faster support? Then the same people complaining that sh404sef has gone commercial will still complain that they have to pay for support. Charge for earlier release? Same people will still complain. As danayel says "As a paying customer I BEG YOU, if you are someone who refuses to reward other people for adding value to your life and your business, take your greedy "I demand you give to me but I won't give to you" attitudes, go away and stop bugging the developers and admins. I want value for my money. Stop damaging that value by wasting their time with your tantrums." sh404sef would have died the same death as OpenSEF. The chances weren't any better.

arisbalis - Paying is not the problem 18-09-2009 16:00 I am ok to pay, as we say in french "tout travail mérite un salaire" (each work diserves salary -sorry for bad translation-) but as I said above, I didn't success to make it work with a multilangual website when it was free to download and I don't want to use a bêta or RC version on a production website. So : - When will sh404 be available in a stable version ? - do you plan to release a test version ? That's the software business basis : how do you want users buy your products without testing them before ? That's incredible... When I want to buy a car, I can test it before...

epek - As for paid work 20-09-2009 10:13 As all of you know, software is - in most cases incomplete or has errors. I am a person who has always been willing to debug software and who sent bugfixes for several projects, whenever my spare time allowed for it, or whenever I customer required a fix. This is, why I prefer Open Source over proprietary software - You take and give back. This is not always money and that's why it works. Since you are now asking for the salary - who pays me for contributing fixes? To be honest I'd rather take the bugs, too. Fact is, I'd rather let one customer pay for a project and contribute the software afterwards. There are projects, collecting fees for developing software in a democratic way. The users vote for there features or pay into a "pot" for a category. If a piece software that has such a wide user base as sh40sef gets restricted - either in it's licence or access - you are definitely forgetting about all these programmers and users, who helped out or even made their own software compatible with this software. Hence you are not only restricting the freedom, Stallman speaks of, (free as in speak) but also take away the "free-beer". As stated - I understand the necessity in doing the later. But where is the community aspect in closing out all other potential users and developers? I do understand, that you need to stabilize your financial income - as anyone of us does, but I do not understand, that you forget about all those, who didn't just use the software, but contributed - no matter what they contributed - be it donations, be it code or ideas.

A Joomla! User - replies 20-09-2009 21:58 @epek As you can see by reading all the other comments, you are in the minority. You contribute something useful to the project and you just don't take things and expect things to be given for you for free. You help the project grow. Sadly, most people complaining about the project becoming commercial GPL aren't like you. Most people complaining expect things for free as in beer and don't give ANYTHING in return. Now that sh404sef is a commercial project, there is no need for you to contribute fixes (if you're a paying customer). However, I'm sure that if you're not a paying customer, you can probably work something out with the developer in terms of getting sh404sef for free in return for contributing patches. See, the added benefit of going commercial GPL is that now, instead of relying on a volunteer to fix bugs, you have a person whose income relies on fixing bugs and adding new features giving them the motivation to make this a better project. On behalf of other users, I'd like to thank you for contributing your time to open source projects and making what we use a better product.

Yannick Gaultier 21-09-2009 12:48 @epek: interesting standpoint. I think you are forgetting some aspects of the question 1 - there is virtually no contributed code in sh404sef (in 3 years !). Something like 10 lines maybe, mostly typos. Actually, most of the pre-existing code (from 404SEF in mambo years) has be removed or rewritten.The largest contributions are from translators, who provided lots of work in that field (I am doing the english and french versions, others have contributed to various other languages) 2 - All of these people who did contribute, or donated (and there are some!), have already been rewarded - assuming they were looking for a reward. They have been using the sofwtare, and if they did contribute, then I guess it is because they found it useful in one way or the other (useful to them, not to me) 3 - I am not looking for any reward for the time I spent on this, whether programming (30-40% of the time) or supporting (60-70% of the time). Simply, this time is not available any more. That's it. It is very simple. There is no time available. 3 - "Fact is, I'd rather let one customer pay for a project and contribute the software afterwards" It's up to you. I don't have any customer so that's not even an option for me. I'd also argue that is not very fair for this customer. I personnally find the current model - a small fee worth one year of updates and new features, a much better deal for everyone, as basically it opens up access to many more people. 4 - This last point I am a bit angry about: "Hence you are not only restricting the freedom, Stallman speaks of, (free as in speak)" I AM NOT restricting any freedom in Stallman speaks. sh404SEF is still totally and absolutely free as in speak. It has always been a GPL extension, and therefore cannot be re-licensed in any other form. That would require approval of previous contributors, and I don't have any idea of who and where they are. And where in the world do you get the idea that I would like to do that, that I'd want to restrict freedom for sh404sef ? "But where is the community aspect in closing out all other potential users and developers?" Sorry, as stated above, I do not see where do we close out anyone. That's the freedom you have, guaranteed by the GPL license. Again you are mistaking free as in speak with free as in beer. I suggest you take a look at those pages from Richard Stallman : see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html Hope this helps to clarify matters. Best regards to all PS: another new version with new features and a few bugfixes is due out in the next hours or day.

hoksakopf 21-09-2009 16:59 You don't restrict any freedom in Stallman speaks... maybe... but, you still restrict freedom : Before - Download : $0 - use : free Now - download : $35 - use : free I can see another liberty : the freedom to choose the SEF component to install... But, the fact that yours is only available after paying (even a small fee!) will decrease your marketshare which you are so proud of : http://dev.anything-digital.com/images/stories/sh404sef/80-percent-market-share-graph.jpg Think about it: you got 82% because s404 were free to download... anyone could use it. Now, no one can test it, unless they buy it...

sevensages - what is your time worth? 24-09-2009 20:23 I think all of this complaining comes from people who don't respect the time and work put into a project. ANY project. How much should someone make an hour? Minimum in USA is about $7/hr. Regardless of the amount in your country/area, think what is the minimum YOU would work for. Now, let's do simple math. Set the minimum to $5/hr, which might not even get you a happy meal at McDonalds. Work 20hrs a week, doing ANYTHING. It doesn't have to be coding or support. Maybe it is raking leaves, or sealing envelopes. Or mopping floors at McDonalds (which pays more than $5) You do this for 1 year, and maybe, at that low wage of $5/hr, you can make $5200 for the year. Whoops... you only received $300. For how long would you continue to do all this work? Would you keep mopping that floor for $300/yr? Would you work for $6/wk. A 20hr work week comes out to be $0.30/hr! Anyone complaining is just showing they do not truly value other people and their work. However... if you do want to work for that wage, I have work for you. I'll even triple it and pay a whole $1/hr to design a few websites for me. Reminder: donate this week to other projects you use for 'free', to show you are truly do support Open Source. Brian

Zen - I am disappointed but I unders 01-10-2009 20:46 I want to say I could not have done what Yannick did for free for 3 years! I am not a web developer. As a hobby, I develop my site in Joomla in my spare time. I cannot pay $35 as an ongoing subscription. I have a 1.5beta version that I downloaded a few months ago. I will continue to use until hopefully I find a different solution. This is my problem, not Yannick's. Trouble is that mine is a hobby site, I cannot pay for plugins. Many Joomla plugins cost money and $35 here, $79 dollars there soon adds up and makes the whole thing very unaffordable. Especially when next year, they may double the price!

gadareth - molto inquietante. very distur 04-10-2009 22:54 Scrivo in italiano e in inglese. I write in italian and in english too. Non va bene, Yannick. Se sei riuscito ad arrivare sin qui e' perche' una marea di utenti e collaboratori ti hanno aiutato a sistemare tutte le schifezze che c'erano nei tuoi programmi. Li hai utilizzati finche' ti ha fatto comodo e poi li hai abbandonati. Lo avevi deciso sin dall'inizio. Bene, invito tutti a criticare duramente chi utilizza la bandiera dell'open source per fare questi giochini. Attento alla miseria... Not good, Yannick. If you get here is because a flood of customers and associates helped you to fix all the crap that were in your programs. Have you used brought you until you have them handy and then abandoned. You had decided from the beginning. Well, I invite everyone to harshly criticize those who use the flag of open source to do these tricks. Attention to poverty... gadareth

CSommer - Give Yannick a break! 05-10-2009 20:39 Yannick, thank you so much for your hard work!. I hope that the new project will finally give you some financial reward for all your efforts. I totally understand why you did this, and I think people should give you a break! Yannick doesn't owe us anything considering how we have benefitted from his work over this time. I run a Joomla based site in my spare time and get almost no financial benefit from it, in spite of many, many hours of hard work. The users of my site get a lot of benefit from it. I'm also considering ways of making it more sustainable in the long term (because endless hours of work for free is NOT sustainable). I don't use sh404sef anymore because the $35 is not worth it for a site that currently doesn%u2019t earn much money. But I certainly don't begrudge Yannick for the decision he had to make. To everyone that wants a free solution, core Joomla is already much better at producing SEF urls, and if you put a little effort into your own research you'll discover there is quite a bit you can do yourself towards better SEO.

digitalis - how many friends you have... 09-10-2009 00:17 Hi Yannick, i've seen that you have many many friends. I think that they not exists and which are fake people who write well about you. Yannick, have betrayed the cause of open source. You robbed everyone of releases up to September 2009. good, good shot ... digitalis

CSommer - not so 09-10-2009 18:40 @digitalis: that%u2019s a pretty serious accusation to make. I'm a real person and have never met Yannick nor had any sort of correspondence with him. The shallowness of your remarks nullify your own argument.

threads - Yannick I'm sorry it has come 10-10-2009 22:17 You have done a great job over the years supporting this software for many a website. You have put blood sweat and tears into this component and I really would hate to switch to something else. You cannot make everyone happy. I would suggest you write a book on supporting and using sh404 that you could sell to supplement your income as well. I feel bad that I haven't contributed a dime to your work and am willing to pay for the extension.

levelKro - The change is not for better 13-10-2009 20:22 OK, I'm understand your reason for move it to another team. But I'm not get support for my problem, I need to pay for supoport, I'm not want pay for that, and not want buy also if the newest version don't contain fix for my problem, since 1.0.16 all features are good and Work fine with Joomla 1.5. Excepted the Joomfish compatibility, and Anything Digital can't help me for this FREE RELEASE of your component without pay for a subscription, and the moderator don't want reply to this simple question; You have planned to fix the Joomfish compatibility ? You have make the bad choice, go to start and don't claim 200$ :P

MikeAJA - Thank you Yannick 14-10-2009 13:02 Good job with what you were able to do up to now. $35 is a reasonable price. However, I strongly recommend having a word with Anything Digital and the transparency of their site. Took me 2-3 mins to realise what they were asking me to do. Everyone will think it is a free link (because it was before) and the realisation afterwards causes frustration. You just might find more people will purchase the support is it is clear from the outset. Regards Mike

Ricardo Pedri Lopes - Just a little expensive 15-10-2009 20:24 It's a great component, no doubt about it, but in some countries like mine $35.00 means quite a buck. I believe something around $15.00 would be better. Thank you guys for the time doing this, it's been great anyway.

Avi - Shame,Shame Shame!! 15-10-2009 23:17 Now it is only with payment for 35$? Shame on you!!!! and what about upgrading? you should cancel this immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vandals - Thanks a lot 19-10-2009 07:27 Thanks for great component. But now, i'm going back to Joomla default SEF. And i have done converting 3 joomla site to Drupal.

Fred - per year ? 19-10-2009 14:56 Hi, i can't understand without problem the price of your work, 35$ is a good price. My unenderstood is the "per year". I used to work for a software editor and never seen the same price for the initial price and the yearly price fee. Who can tell me if you won't raise the price next year ? Please do a classicla model : initial fee and a yearly fee as a percent of the initial fee, 10 to 20% isn't crazy ... 35$ 5-7$ a year after for the patchs regards Fred Bonne continuation !

Sergio - Thanks 29-10-2009 21:11 It's somehowsad to see this great component getting paid. I agree that it should be paid, because nobody lives of wind! But, it should have 2 kinds of prices: US$ 10,00 for one domain (must of us uses it in one domain). US$ 35,00 for unlimited domains (or 10 domains, maybe). Think: it's better to sell 1,000 copies at US$ 10 (US$ 10,000) or 100 copies at US$ 35 (US$ 3,500)? Anyway, it's a great product. Cheers.

Marcel - Thanks Yannick 31-10-2009 17:34 I feel ashame for some narrow minded people here ... Time is Money in every country ... And u gave time for free in many years so Thanks so much!!!

George Langley - Paid = Support 19-11-2009 18:20 One thing people seem to forget - if you buy a commercial product, that price will (or at least should) include some level of support. This is NOT a slight against Yannick, or any other non-commercial developer. I have no issue with him or his support. This is just an observation about software in general. If I download a free item, it comes with no expectations of support. I cannot demand that the author fix things, or troubleshoot my specific set-up. Nor would I bet the farm that it will exist forever in perpetuity. If I pay for and download a commercial product, now I do feel that they have an obligation to provide some level of support. While I don't expect them to drop everything and fly an engineer out to troubleshoot my server, I would not accept a "use at own risk" EULA. And I should feel reasonably secure that it will be around for a long time. So perhaps people can think of the "future" time saved when they purchase this or any other software, if they are unable to appreciate the "already-spent" time that produced it in the first place.

Dino - Egggh funny people here 22-11-2009 08:36 Hello Yannick, Hope you are doing great, you shouldn't have allowed commenting system here buddy, people have tried almost everything to make this extension free, which is soo funny.. @All the don't wanna pay punks: Nothing is for free, and if you get something for free then quality lacks.. It was free for more than 3 years so just thank Yannick, and stop trying.. I bet you all do not work for free.. I think the price should be raised and it should increase in features like, project honey pot and many.. wish you very good luck Yannick, and best of health.. regards, dino@hybridwebdesignuk.com

Joe - To Dino 30-11-2009 20:29 I am not a punk, but i will not pay for a RC product(RC= not a stable, final release)!

dee - 2 bad the forum is gone tho 12-12-2009 02:04 too bad, its the second time in 2 years a forum whent off the air which was a valuable information base for user of the free version. any chance to put the old forum up for reference ? else, all agreed yannick, you made the right choice. thanks for the good work and the great component. dee

Sid - What a shame 15-12-2009 00:15 It is a real shame to see this go to a paid commercial. I do understand why, but still $35 seems high. I too am going to move on to a new system. //sid

Jamie - Website down ? 19-12-2009 10:32 Hi Yannick, No qualms here with the fee, I've used the previous free version of sh404SEF and always been happy with the results. I am trying to download the latest version from http://dev.anything-digital.com/sh404SEF/ and the site appears to be down? Thanks, Jamie

Phill - WOW 20-12-2009 14:11 WOW - I hadn't realised how shallow some people really are after reading these comments. I would like anyone that is complaining about yannick to come and work for me for 3 years for FREE. Thats right... No money for food... Rent... Bills... and any form of living. Actually I will give you $300, enough for some shoes and a few pieces of clothing. Then we will publicly put you on display so we can all gather around and harass you for your time spent. Ultimately you get what you pay for so it is simple. * move your sites onto a cheaper inferior system. If you believe in the success of your website you will purchase the components required. It is no-one else's problem except yours. * switch your sites over to another system - how long has it taken you and how has it affected your SEO rankings? was it worth it when you could have simply supported Yannick? * complaining about the cost of all the extensions for a site? Thats not Yannick's problem - its yours. Your choice. Choose the components that will add value to you traffic and your user base. Dont blame the total cost on Yannick * anyone complaining about Yannick not supporting Open Source - What have you created? Im sure you have happily used but not given 3 years of your time towards the effort. Lasty, How much is your 3 years worth? Phill

Tony - open Source 21-12-2009 16:39 I hate open source for these reasons ! people start thinking everything is free - the SOURCE CODE is open ! not the bloody work someone has put into it - take it and pay him for his work - after that you are FREE to modify etc its not FREE SOURCE - its 'OPEN' SOURCE !!

Ray - Anything-digital sh404SEF site 28-12-2009 21:49 It has been down for a considerable time now (since I started trying to access it a few days ago) so I guess they gave up and canned sh404SEF. Which is a real shame.

Yannick Gaultier - AD site and old forum 01-01-2010 20:10 Hi all, 1 - old forum has always been available at http://extensions.siliana.net/forums/ 2 - Anything Digital site is being moved to a new server, and this has caused some down time around dec 27-28. Nothing is canned, and please remember this is still me doing development, etc New version coming BTW. Besides, AD is notonly doing sh404sef, but things like JCal pro Rgds

Joe - Disapointed 04-01-2010 19:01 I'm very disapointed that A.D. charge for your extension... and I will have to migrate to another SEF component :(( As always ... anything .... resumes to money. Great JOB anyway. (I mean the extension previous of A.D.)

DevilsAdvocate - An idea 15-01-2010 20:05 Well here's an idea. Who's up for donating 50$ to a new site that promises to download and re-distribute the sh404sef component. All you would need is 70 people and there have got to be 70 complainers here alone. Bet even this wouldn't get people reaching into their pockets!

DevilsAdvocate - correction 15-01-2010 20:06 Was meant to be 50c not 50$ ... oops

Torsten - too bad... 01-02-2010 19:15 I agree with "Vandals" some posts before: Thanks to Yannick for the hard work all the years! I'd consider the price would probably be ok with full support, but it's $35 just for the download (only "community based support")??? What a shame, not to say a rip off! So, back to the defaults... :(

Altivox - Yannick 19-02-2010 05:45 Relaxe my friend's, the world is the world and Yannick have the right to win some money. The problem is when I read the forum about this sh404SEF... the new owner company don't give any professional support... but I'm lucky, I have always the free hold version... I will continue to work with this one... and one day I will start with a other CMS... Bye bye my sweet Joomla. And best regards to you Yannick.... I really like your product... before...

Altivox - In around one year 19-02-2010 05:52 In around one year, jommla 1.6 will have the SEF included, and if not joomla will arrive at the end... we are in 2010.. remember... Ijoomla offert componant with life update for 50$ and they are the best (number one for the support)...sh404SEF for 30$ a year and they whas the best include no support.... Yannick.. I'm so sorry for your baby... bur He will not survive..

Aytaç ZEREN - GPL Philosophy 26-02-2010 08:50 GPL does not mean giving people open source software. GPL is to let people contribute and develop the work. It is your fault if you are doing this by yourself. The closest example is Joomla. How is joomla living? We made your software perfect.Not you. We installed, tested and notified you about bugs, errors, warnings. We supported you with our ideas. These are more important than development. Anything Digital will pay you, how will you pay us? It is not about paying the software. It is about loosing freedom. Every Open Source Software is a free land and we are defending it. I paid to many components until now. However, I will not pay to you. You crossed the line. I will not use sh404SEF and I suggest no one to use it. Consider some day, oracle come and say you, "we are making MySQL commercial, because we can not afford it." This is insane.

Onur Demir - Thinking to Fork the project 12-03-2010 13:23 Yannick, We are thinking to fork the sh404 and wanted your confirmation on it. We are a company also selling Joomla extensions. However we got some requests from our clients to fork and get your code improved to their needs. If you allow us we will fork the project and work independently on it. We will not charge for this component also. If you can reply us on this subject we will be glad. Thanks Onur Demir

Yaani - Yannick, Thank You Very Much! 23-03-2010 03:34 Yannick, Thank you for all the time and effort you put into sh404SEF. I use it on about 15 Joomla sites & counting. That works out to about $2.33 a site which I consider a bargain. Thank you also for finding someone to take it over and keep improving it.

alican - happy to see sh404sef alive 31-03-2010 12:56 35$ is fair for SEO I guess. thanks very much. I hope YOU can help A.D to improve it too. regards

Philippe - Le blog n'a plus de traduction 25-04-2010 20:02 Ou : Comment vendre son âme aux Américains ?... Quand on clique sur le drapeau français, il n'y a pas de traduction. Yannick, je pense que l'argent ne fait pas tout. Il vaut mieux être aimé, célèbre et pauvre... que riche, anonyme et décevoir tant de gens. A méditer, pour une prochaine vie, peut-être, ou alors pour un nouveau projet, différent et ... libre !

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Joomla Developer 28-05-2010 11:55 This is a greate news...for adding new features....

Coral Cay - SH404SEF for Joomla 28-06-2010 13:24 Hi is there a SH404SEF for Joomla 1 or an alternative. At this point a Joomla upgrade would prove difficult and I just need a SH404SEF or other URL friendly extension for Joomla version 1 not 1.5 Cheers

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