General question on Freelance...

I have a question on the scope of your 'Freelance' service. While I appreciate and probably at least give it a try for it's functionality of sharing preference files and team settings, I get a bit of a bad feeling at the fact that using update sites not in the pulse catalog also requires the freelance service. What it looks like to me is that you removed a function from eclipse (configuring update sites) and are now asking money for me to get it back! Don't get me wrong, I think the freelance service looks promising, and I will probably use it. The price is right and everything looks OK, it's just that I think the update-site function should not be in it.
But maybe I'm the only one thinking this

Mark, we appreciate your feelings and are working to ensure that users don't feel that anything is taken away. For that reason, it is still possible (albeit not overly easy right now) to use the base update manager within Eclipse to do some changes to your system. Look for some improvements in this area for the GA release that should make life much easier for you. Cheers.

Thanks for your reply. I am looking forward to the GA release

Originally Posted by Pulse Support

... For that reason, it is still possible (albeit not overly easy right now) to use the base update manager within Eclipse to do some changes to your system. ...

Could you elaborate on HOW to do this? When I try to do this (using Help -> Software Updates in eclipse) I can't get the "old" software manager where I can add URL's. Is there a way to get this back?

You have to enable the capability for Legacy Update Support via the capabilities under preferences. When you do install, please make sure to setup the installation to go into an alternate directory.

Originally Posted by Pulse Support

You have to enable the capability for Legacy Update Support via the capabilities under preferences. When you do install, please make sure to setup the installation to go into an alternate directory.

Ehhhm. There is no such capability under preferences! (I assume you mean: Start Eclipse, goto Window -> Preferences, and find the option). I can't find any preference option containing the word "Legacy". I also browsed them, and nothing appropriate shows up.

So my question, still, is: how do I use the base update manager without using Freelance!

Hi!
I agree with Mark.. my initial feelings with Pulse ("Wow!") has been slowly degrading to a "What?! Can't install my favorite, but obscure plugin on my own?"...

I understand the services you provide and the need of the pay-per model... but I think that the capability of installing additional plugins from a Pulse-managed Eclipse is essential: I couldn't be working without it..

Thanks

Vittorio Scarano

Guys quick update (Mark sorry for taking so long to circle back around).

1. To re-enable the Classic Update Manager, go to Window > Prefs > General > Capabilities and check it there, you'll get the old Software Updates menu back under the Help menu (you'll actually have two listed)

NOTE: If you don't see the Capabilities menu, some base profiles don't ship it turned on, but Eclipse Classic does, so you could try rebasing your profile on Eclipse Classic and then turn it on from there (MyEclipse-base profile also has it enabled)

2. Vittorio, you are exactly right that adding custom/local installs of plugins is much harder than it used to be and in the GA release of Pulse 2 we are addressing that with a nice GUI flow. We really never intended of *removing* any functionality, but during the beta cycle we implemented our provisioning methods and flows, locking out all the rest to make sure everything was working, and have slowly been opening the other provisioning scenarios up and testing them to make sure things are still working.

We just didn't want to throw everything into the bag right out of the gate and end up with an impossibly complex provisioning scenario and not know where to start debugging.

The good news is that we should get the GA release out here in the next few days.

In my company we are currently 10 developers across 2 teams that are using Pulse. One team works mostly with java, and the other also work with flash and is therefore dependent of commercial plugins (powerflash; amongst others)

We have also discovered this "feature", that actually removes the freedom for every single developer to install their own plugins via update sites.

You are removing something from Eclipse, trying to build a business model from it by charging money for functionallity that used to be free.

You should:

• ·allow every single user to add update sites (like in Pulse 1)
• ·allow adding global update sites on your team profile for free
• ·allow adding commercial plugins for free (without need to be a ’freelancer’)

My impression is that you are:

• ·removing important functionality that people are dependent on
• ·forcing users to subscribe to a freelance service as a business model to make money

It is very clever to call it a Value-Add service, but isn't the value for the pulse developers, not for the end user experience.

And why have you enabled the capability option ’Classic update’ only for certain profiles like ’Eclipse Europa Classic’, I will have a hard time convincing a team of 10 developers to switch back from Eclipse EE to Eclipse Classic. The quality of the service you provide is deminishing by doing this.

Especially since the update feature don’t work well from pulse2 right now (perhaps since it is a beta), so if we use the ’classic update’ to install a commercial plugin (as we now have to without beeing a 'freelancer'!), and then add software in our pulse profile we have to click ’Reinstall then Run’ to get the new software to install. This erases the plugins that we added through the classic update.

You are creating a great solution for Eclipse users, and thank you for that, but consider the following when you are planning your business model.

Many users of eclipse sdk are users of free software, and they will be happy users of Pulse as long as it is provided as a free service for the end user. Many developers are dependent of commercial plugins and that is where the business modell is for you guys, charge the guys with the big bucks, not your end users!

If you force users to subscribe to a ’freelance’ service when installing commercial plugins you will only force users to buy these ’behind your backs’ and install them with the classic update manager (as long as you will allow this). Instead you should sell commercial plugins through the Pulse framework, and get %$ from the creators of these both for making them available to hordes of end users, and for selling them through pulse.

By continuing what it seems like you are doing, pulse will not have ’hords of users’ and it will be no reason for commercial interests to sell plugins through pulse.

These points are not just mine, but they were discussed at the goOpen seminar in Oslo with 500 people present dedicated to free software.

The changes you are making, if I understand them correctly, will be a good reason for the majority of businesses to stop using pulse, until a truely free competitor comes along that have understood what the marked needs and how to make their bucks by providing a free service.

I hope that you will remove this "value-add" feature as soon as possible, and re-think your business strategyl. Shortly: Put the free back in freelance!

i am wondering :

- if you pay the $6/user a month is all commercial software free or do you still have to pay for it?

- what is the GA release, and which issues mentioned in the previous post will it address? will it for example enable the update manager for all profile types?

- what will happen to pulse1, will it phase out or will it still be available? we have several users on pulse1 now, that run commercial plugins that are not available in the pulse catelog and that don't want to use eclipse classic just to use the update manager.

Rune,
You bring up a lot of requests/comments/concerns from others (in this thread and customers sending us feedback directly) that either have been addressed as we have made more preview releases of Pulse available and will eventually be addressed by the final 2.1 GA version set to release this week.

I want to make it clear that the restrictions you have on you now for managing update sites *for free* are only there because we didn't have the alternatives ready for the EclipseCon build of Pulse 2. In our 2.1 GA release we have actually added a couple of ways to add update sites or software to your profile for free that are easier than using the update manager, they are:

* NEW: We added back support for an /addons directory for installing local software that either doesn't have an update site or you just want to install by unzipping quickly.
* NEW: You can select to add an update site from Pulse to a profile. You then walk through a wizard deciding how you want to add the update site, either as managed (Freelance) or unmanaged (Free). You then get the nice Pulse management to handle what you want to add from that update site to the profile regardless of which you chose.

With the Pulse 2.1 release, we are not removing any capabilities available in the traditional Eclipse install, instead focusing on streamlining those services for simplicity, efficiency and better management whether using the Pulse free offering or the Pulse Freelance paid service.

Freelance ($6/mo or less for larger teams) comes into play when you want to start sharing custom profiles and workspaces across a team. This is a major value-add when it comes to synchronizing large teams and we think it's a fair shake to ask people to pay for that. For example, customers have told us directly that it can often take days for a new team member to get his tool configuration, workspace and preferences in sync with the rest of his team. For situations like this, companies have found the price point of $6/month to be very reasonable, as it's saving them dozens of man-hours in just that one scenario.

If you look at any other service attempting to do what we are doing, none of them come close to the functionality of Pulse (free version or Freelance) and all of them are more expensive than us by a decent margin.

To address your comment about commercial software. You can *always* add commercial software locally for free by using the new features mentioned above. Commercial companies that have a listing agreement with us are available for any user to add via the interface as well using Drag and Drop and we welcome any additional companies that are not currently available to everyone to discuss a listing agreement with us.

To address your issue with "Update Classic" not being enabled for every profile, this is a limitation of certain software profiles *not* shipping support for capabilities out of the box, this is not something we are doing.

We invite you to continue trying out the freelance service and general updates being made available as part of the Pulse 2.1 release and make your own decision if it is worth $6/month (less than the cost of a trip to the movies). We feel strongly that Pulse Freelance provides great value at an affordable cost and provide the free and paid levels as a way for each user to make their own decision.

Also as a quick clarification/reminder. After we ship 2.1 GA we are resetting everyone's Freelance trial period so you have an additional 30 days to try all that stuff out at your own pace since there were some big additions in there that we know folks will want to evaluate.

We have worked hard to make the price point of Freelance as accessible as possible to everyone from the single developer to the enterprise group and we think we've hit the perfect price point. I hope for the Freelance folks out there, you feel the same way.