Free Extended WPF Toolkit No Longer Permits Commercial Applications

[AaronWrightAdm]

A commit on Nov 26, part of the v3.7 release, replaced the MS-PL license with the Xceed Software, Inc Community License Agreement (for non-commercial use). This blocks myself, and probably many others, from being able to upgrade to the latest public edition of the toolkit unless we pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars in licensing fees.

Please revert to the MS-PL license.

[weitzhandler]

WOW!
Thanks for pointing that out.

[Dirkster99]

...but there are alternatives - open your eyes and you shall see:

• Dirkster99/AvalonDock
• dotnetprojects/WpfExtendedToolkit

I am having a feeling this issue entry won't have any effect as so many discussions that I've seen on similar subjects before. But rest assured your messages are red, classified, and addressed based on the demand.

[AaronWrightAdm]

Based on this, it appears their way of getting "version parity" between paid and non-paid editions is to switch from monetizing updates for x months to monetizing commercial entities. That's reflected in the new licensing.

I understand that alternatives exist, but I don't get to just swap things out and call it good. I have to start by proving out that there is no intent to revert this licensing change.

[Suplanus]

All in all it is/was great from Xceed to do so in past, thank you.

As startup or small company its not that easy to start with Xceed now. I think others (like Syncfusion) going better ways with a small business license for free.

[XceedBoucherS]

Hi,

The Toolkit is still offered for free for your personal needs (or internal projects) with this community edition (packed with around 50 different controls). If you want to make business with the Toolkit you should be able to pay for the commercial license. Xceed also offers a small business subscription for less (perfect for startups or small companies : https://xceed.com/product/xceed-toolkit-plus-for-wpf/).
Thank you.

[AaronWrightAdm]

Thank you for confirming the intent of this licensing change, @XceedBoucherS . I was only allowed to use this toolkit because the original licensing was compatible with commercial use for free. I will be putting an item on our backlog to migrate away from use of this toolkit.

[CenturySpine]

Given that the release 3.6.0 and under are licensed under # Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) is this possible to continue using these versions in commercial use as long as we don't update to 3.7.0 ?

[XceedBoucherS]

Yes you can. But to get the latest updates, features and fixes, you will eventually need to migrate to a more recent version, which will be licensed for non-commercial projects.

Thank you.

[XceedBoucherS]

Hi,
The important thing is that you (or any other developer or company) will NOT make money with the toolkit. License/sub-license/lease all results in making money : you can't do that.
But you can create an open source project which is non-commercial. This is kind of like the Toolkit on GitHub : an open source project free of use....but non-commercial.

[Suplanus]

And when is it a commercial project? The COMMUNITY LICENSE AGREEMENT doesn't describe that... and I think it's all a matter of interpretation.

Have projects where someone buys me a beer, is it commercial?
Have projects that are funded by donations, is it commercial?

[XceedBoucherS]

A commercial project is when you use the toolkit in your project and you
-sell your project
-sell a license for users to use your project
-get any kind of money for your project
The Community license agreement says it :
-"no re-selling, licensing or sub-licensing or any other rights of use".
-"sell or license/sub-license/lease the resulting work to anyone nor charge any amounts of money or exchange services for the said resulting work;"

1. Have projects where someone buys me a beer, is it commercial?
   If the toolkit is included in the beer project, the company creating the beer project is selling it to make money : they need a Commercial Toolkit license. The Community Toolkit on GitHub can't be used for that. The company creating the beer project need to use the Plus version of the Toolkit and pay the license from https://xceed.com/xceed-toolkit-plus-for-wpf/.
   When someone is buying you this beer project, you can use it, it has been paid. But if you want to modify this beer project (which include the toolkit) and you want to sell it, you also need to buy the
   Commercial Toolkit license.

2. Have projects that are funded by donations, is it commercial?
   If your project funded by donations includes the toolkit, you cannot sell this project with the community Toolkit on GitHub. By selling it, you make money : you need a Commercial Toolkit license, you need to use the Plus version of the Toolkit and pay the license from https://xceed.com/xceed-toolkit-plus-for-wpf/. But if you use this project for your own personal use, then the community Toolkit on GitHub is good enough.

[MarqueIV]

You shouldn't have changed it, dude! I was a person who was committing PRs to fix your code before, but because of how you treated people on the free version, as less-than-important, not just less features, I'm out. What you did was appalling. You don't understand how open-source works.

Yes, I get that you need to make money, and yes, I understand you have a paid version with more features. However, most companies say you get 'X' for free, but if you pay, you also get Y, plus support.

In contrast, what you've been doing is saying people who pay get X and Y and if you don't pay, not only do you not get Y (understandable) but you get a much older, buggier version of X that's at least two versions behind.

People like myself come along and try to support you, working on your codebase, pushing PRs to fix your issues... but you hold those fixes to the free version so you can give them to the paid users. Now you're taking from the free users too.

So where's my pay for fixing your code? Code that you now charge for? Code I wouldn't have submitted if I had known you were going to block people from using it commercially, even in the free version?

Like I said in that other discussion... not cool.

At this point, I'm switching to another open-source version based on your 3.6 branch which is still usable for commercial products, and a branch who actually stays on top of bug fixes. I really don't care if it deviates too far from what you have since what you've been sharing has been buggy anyway and they, unlike you, do stay on top of their bugs because they actually care about their users, even the free ones.

You really don't get Open Source, do you?

[XceedBoucherS]

Hi,

First, as mentioned in another post, The Free Open source version of the Toolkit and the Plus Version of the Toolkit are coming to the same point. Currently, The OpenSource version is v3.7, while the Plus version is v3.8. The Free Open Source version v3.8 is about to be released in the next few days. So saying the Free version is always behind with PR behind held away from the community users, in a buggier version will not be an issue anymore.

Since the beginning of this project, you get 'X' for free, but if you pay, you also get Y, plus support. This was the case from v2.0 to v3.6 (about 7 years), but some people where making money from it without any contribution to the owners. A decision was taken so that if a company can make money from the Toolkit, they can at least pay the "small business license" at a small fee, and if the company do not make any money, than yes, they can continue to use the Free version as they wish. This is plan for now. So the OpenSource version is for non-commercial projects.

The Free OpenSource version will continue to be maintained and when bugs are found, we will continue to fix them. The Toolkit is an important project for us and we will continue to make it progress in time.

[MarqueIV]

Well if that's the path you're taking, then why don't you just open-source all of the code, including the Plus version? Put the restriction across all of it. It's free for non-commercial, but paid if you use it commercially.

Having this double-whammy... not only do you not get all controls, but the controls you do get you have to now pay for, is not what most of us consider a good business decision. Sure, you made that decision in what's right for you, but you still haven't addressed how we, in the community, committed to fixing your bugs with the understanding that it was for all to use for whatever.

You've essentially taken the work the community has done, and are saying 'Any future bugs, you now have to pay for.' Again, this doesn't sit well with a lot of us. I personally was in the camp that if I needed the extra stuff in 'Plus', I'd have happily paid, but now since you're making people pay for the non-plus version, that just leaves too big a taste in my mouth, again, especially as someone who has either directly committed to, or via other developers helped commit to fixing bugs.

For instance, one bug around attributes I fixed before your license change, but you didn't merge it yet, meaning my fix is now going to go into a paid version if you're a commercial user. That is not what I did it for. I did it for the community, not so you can make money off of my work without compensating me. Like I said, not cool.