First Commercial Plugins for Free!

General Programming
1

That’s more than fair and generous of Garry! I left Xojo before XUI came out, but it looks to me like a lot of attention to detail went into it, definitely a lot of work!

I’ve decided to completely open source my cross-platform XUI Desktop framework. Mostly this is due to a lack of sales but also because I am focussing on other languages at the moment and am not spending a great deal of time with Xojo.

Even if the author also gives other reasons, the “lack of sales” naturally catches the eye.

For me it wasn’t even that, but the “lack of interest”. My Web2 plugins have always been freeware, but there were no more than 37 download hits in total.

Of course, MBS and Einhugur as plugin vendors are still set, because every beginner quickly learns that they can’t get any further without them, but unfortunately the already high pressure is likely to increase even more.

This means that people are being punished again for putting parts of their business on Xojo because of a tool that has been unworldly and in agony for quite some time.

Unfortunately, for me, these are all signs that the platform can no longer be taken seriously from a commercial point of view. Too bad, but that’s the way it is.

But who knows, maybe Garry’s decision is the first step in Xojo’s and other plugin producers’ decision to go open source after all. I know that can only be written on April 1st. That’s not going to happen, and I think that sadly spells Xojo’s (and its ecosystem) fate.

I once announced the end of Blackberries in companies at a Google event and was laughed at (though the writing was on the wall, I’m not a genius), let’s see if I’m wrong this time.

For those who don’t want to mess with TOF, here’s the direct link to XUI:

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2

I thought the entire thing is first of April. So the Plugin Vendors will have a new form of learning curve, people building plugins and starting now to publish open Source. That will kill the other ones for desktop. Question is when and if it will also come for mobile and the web. That would make it really complex for the vendors to sell ui plugs like they do.

But I thought always Xojo is cross platform with its UI and there is no need for plugins at all…hmmm…somehow there are things between heaven and reality I can’t understand. Possibly while I have not enough knowledge of computer science…

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3

Nope that’s this one:

Xojo Android is out right now! :clown_face:

4

Yes, this will be a game changer. Either people will learn from Garry and build new stuff, or the more lazy ones will just consume it but not think a second about investing into paid tools. Time to open source your plugins :wink: .

5

Thanks. You’re right, many, many hours.

I just don’t think there is a viable market as a third party vendor in the Xojo ecosystem. I sold 13 copies in a year.

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Yes, that’s why I’ve always dismissed the idea of doing video tutorials. My articles were already enough work. And compared to other topics, my Xojo articles have less than one per thousand of the clicks of other stuff.

The established plugin manufacturers can probably survive for a while, but unfortunately I have my doubts about that as well.

But actually, the established vendors are not part of the ecosystem either, they are a must-have. If you take the costs for Xojo and these required plugins, then that should be enough for the average user in terms of costs, especially in this day and age.

Under these aspects, the 13 copies are probably a sign of high esteem and you can only see it with an Olympic spirit, but it’s a pity either way. In any case, you have my respect!

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7

There have been others that have been open sourced over the years. Even I open sourced one! :wink:

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8

The most I ever sold of my Mergable Listbox in a year I think was 11.

-Karen

9

My apologies, I could rename the title to First Commercial API2 Plugins For Free :wink:

Do you have many downloads? Whatever I made public related to Xojo had a limited interest. Of course that could be related to the fact that I am not a genius, but I do know of many others who are sharing my experience.

Even my translation to API2 of Joe Strout’s helper libraries have no real traffic. Perhaps 1-2 visitors a month. Considering that we have apparently millions of Xojo users this comes a bit as a surprise.

At least I’ll have saved up the money for a scoop of ice cream by the summer of this year with the Xojo articles - with a bit of luck even the money for the cone, I’m really looking forward to that.

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10

It is very generous of you giving it to the community! :clap: :clap: :clap:

Your observations and those of others here (@Karen, @Jeannot) confirm my suspicion that the Xojo ecosystem is already on its deathbed.

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11

But don’t underestimate medical advances, as long as nobody turns off the machines…

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12

A better indicator is probably sales of MBS which I doubt Christian would share

Maybe Einhugur as well

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13

Right, it’s just the question of whether we still need “scientific” evidence for a topic whose outcome can already be seen from the decreasing level of quality questions on TOF. :thinking:

14

It is not from interest fr the users to have that plugins. There are two possible reasons for that: ne is, the users are not in the need of any plugin. The second is: the users writing their own plugins. Oh, sorry and the third is: the users are buying only from the well known plugin deliverers plugins for much money. But the third I doubt. I guess: all plugin interests are down.

Looking ont heir marketing it can be that only citizen developers are coming as new users which want to store a few informations in a database and want to be able to search and show them. they don’t need any plugin. So I guess: there is not the wide market I always thought for Xojo plugins anymore. It can be that it is the deadhead for the Xojo market. It can also be that we are not able to see the plugin sales amount for the big commercial ones.

What ever, it is a great job Garry was doing here and we have to say thank you @Garry for this nice Plugin for ui development. It is one of the needed plugs when developing cross platform ui.

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15

I highly doubt that the commercial plug-in suppliers will share this information. It may prove that Xojo’s claim of ‘hundreds of thousands of Xojo developers scattered across the world’ cannot be backed by verifiable evidence and thus is fundamentally false.

16

Thank you for this reminder, I know it is an old one, but it still makes me laugh :slight_smile:

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17

Ah well, Dr. Genius takes care of the patient and decides the treatment…

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18

yes,

have you ever wanted to hide your development activities? Try Xojo now!

The only minimalistic IDE in 2023 which hides all your shiny code from the rest of the world!

19

Torsten, maybe they sold let me say in 20 years 20000 Licenses. And the rest of their Counting is: the every years renewing. So what. From 20000 in 20 years were above 45 I guess 50%. Most of them went off. A few are still there. Their rest is not there anymore. Stopped with Xojo or retires, get another Job, used another tool or hobbyists using still older versions which are still compiling.

You can see it on the activity. Looking for the Web activity for Java, Python or c++ against the activity for Xojo … that shows how interesting the tool is and how amazing their market share is. Like nothing. Place 99 or 100 of TIOBE index. Wow.

So it is a dangerous situation for a small company and we can say: good job that it still exists. But I can also say: maybe time to move on for commercial tools.

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20

So the active Xojo developer counting goes like: the number all humans who have ever been born is equal to the number of humans alive in 2023.
Genius logic. My brain is too small for this.