Ever since the PE version was announced my fear, based mostly on perception and gut feeling due to a lack of facts, is that DNN will become another SugarCRM where the community edition is just a teaser to pull people into the community and most of the powerful features that everybody wants and needs are only available in the paid PE version.

I understand that DNN Corp has to make money - nobody wants to work for free (although I am a little fuzzy on the Corp making money and the core team being volunteers). But I don't want DNN to turn into another SugarCRM either. Since human nature dictates that whatever is putting food on the table gets the attention the only solution I have thought of so far is to ensure the CE version brings in money as well. To that end I think if we were to use the power of the community we might be able to get what we want for very close to the same cost we are getting it for now.  I.E.  If the CE version were the same as PE version in fuctionality but Corp charged $20 per domain name would YOU still be interested????  Please post your votes to this thread.  There would be no transfer available as the overhead for such an accounting nightmare would eat up too much of the revenue.  Just a flat $20 per domain name.  Localhost is free, minor point releases are free, patches / security fixes are free, unlimited child portals, major point releases/upgrades are $20.

The way I see it we are paying for third party modules now and not complaining about it so why not for the core. And $20 is not going to break any wallets or sales quotes.  On the up side $20 from such a large number of sites equals a fairly large pile of money. Which means that the CE version would give the PE version some serious competition for Corp's attention and motivation. And in my opinion that $20 per domain just might save DNN from the deadpool as I have serious doubts about PE being the solution to Corp's revenue woe's.

So what do you think - is DNN 4.9.2 as it stands right now worth $20 per domain??

Good point Erik, 

This is my hope how DNN will move forward in the furture and the reason I'm keeping faith with DNN.  If I've got to pay anything, not matter how little, for each domain I create, just the logistics of keeping track of licenses would make the whole thing a nightmare.  If any kind of payment is created for the CE edition then the worst case situation will happen, DNN will fork into another open source branch.

I think that's exactly what you'll see, for a significant portion of users at least.  But that's not a bad thing in my opinion.  Yes, I support the individual or hobbyist who needs to keep costs minimal, but the bottom line on all free software is that you really do get what you pay for.  There are many free products out there that are excellent, many of which I use.  But even the excellent ones sometimes lack something I'm willing to pay for.  In every software choice, I'm making a decision to use the product based on the value to me, not whether it's free or not.

Jeff