The drama that passed by us, or how Xamarin wanted $ 12,000 a year from a client

In early November, an interesting event occurred, completely unnoticed, but for some developers it may become critical.

It began with an unremarkable topic on the official forum where one of the users wondered why the licensing terms changed in the official FAQ.
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Until November 1, the following was written

Your Xamarin license is perpetual. If you choose, you’ll not be able to renew your subscription.

and after that is completely different ...

A small digression from the topic

Xamarin is an American software development company. Engaged in the development and support of Mono and application development tools in C # for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac. Based on Mono, they developed the Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android libraries, which allow developing native applications for mobile platforms in the C # programming language.

If someone does not know, then xamarin is bought with a subscription for a year. There are 4 subscription plans, with a different set of features. Subscriptions can be renewed every year at full price , thereby receiving new updates and support. Separately purchased subscriptions for each platform (Android, iOS, MacOS)

Trouble

Instead of the old licensing order, the FAQ has a new order:

Your apps will continue to run even after your subscription has expired. You must have your app.

Those. now, after the end of the license, there is no possibility to assemble or deploy applications, update or modify them, in general there are no possibilities.

On the same day, one of the co-founders of Xamarin, Joseph Hill, gave the answer


In short, for existing users, the license is permanent, and new users will be forced to update it every year to develop and maintain applications. Thus, if you have 4 developers and a license is required for each, say 3 platforms for $ 999, then you spend $ 12,000 a year only on the possibility of development / improvement / updating .

This immediately caused an outburst of indignation in the official forum. Here are some quotes

I’m trying to make it hard for our company but I can't justify this. Who knows what you will charge after that?

I need to get it right xamarin and fast :(

I’ve been trying to get it. Microsoft. Too expensive. That blew my mind.

They didn’t email those of us currently evaluating. There is no mention of any recent license changes on their web site or blog. At least I couldn't find it.

You can’t be surprised. They just hoped that they didn’t care.

The company has been focusing on profits.

Here I will say that the idea of ​​Xamarin that "no one will notice" almost succeeded. A little later, forum users noticed that the topic where the licensing change was discussed was slowly falling "down" despite the fact that it was under discussion.


In general, after a couple of weeks of indignation, Xamarin changed his mind


Thus, the licensing procedure was returned, the license was again permanent, but the sediment remained ...
Despite the fact that the idea with a subscription for $ 999 per year was rolled back, many Xamarin users on the forum express doubts about the advisability of using this platform in the future. It is also indicative of the absence of any statements on this topic from the founders of the project, especially from Miguel de Icaz, who as you probably remember, was awarded the prize for promoting free software.

Such events sometimes pass by us.