commercial templates bad for the community?

[artsUNMUTED]

Hi Lemur users,

As you probably know, as a byproduct of my studio work I create commercial templates as arts|UNMUTED. I have announced a new product in the Project section, which got bashed a bit because it is not free. Somebody said that commercial templates have a chilling effect on the community because nobody wants to publish more advanced stuff. My question is:

- how Liine Lemur differs from other great piece of software like Rapidweaver, FinalCut etc. which also have got strong community base but nobody seems to be angry about premium (paid) content - quite on the contrary - great templates for Rapidweaver are enthusiastically welcomed.
- how does Lemur templates differ from premium sound banks, premium Kontakt libraries etc.
- how does Lemur templates differ from the templates for Pagemaker, MS Word, Framemaker etc.

Should we rather be enthusiastic about some new solutions and quality stuff released - I would rather pay my money to have my templates done than spending months of my free time first to learn Lemur and then to create something I consider good enough. There are just a few complex free projects for Liine - and to my mind it is not that nobody wants to share but it takes awful amount of time to make them -add to this documentation, tutorials, etc. - and you get hundreds or sometimes thousands of work hours per person. Is a hundred of your work hours of your time worth $30? Probably we all earn much more.

To be honest, arts|UNMUTED project is far from being a commercial success (it is peanuts compared to my day job and it would be much more profitable for me to quit it) but it doesn't put me off creating new projects - it may sound weird to you but I do treat as my contribution to the music community and my great passion for controllers. There are many users who have bought my templates and send me lots of raving comments about arts|UNMUTED templates.

So instead of the "we will show them, those greedy paid template makers - lets make something as good as better - let's reverse engineer etc" attitude, should we rather welcome these modest attempts as a contribution to Lemur community - more quality stuff, means more users and more development for this great product. I am really curious about your opinion. And please let's not be hostile to each other.

[wul]

Suppose it's a good business plan
Collect all the 'free' ideas, scripts , modules, templates, help, etc.
and make them available commercially.
If you know what I mean!!

[artsUNMUTED]

That's simplification. I will be speaking for myself though - I only twice used the advice from other Lemur users - I thanked one person in the manual and he got the free x1 template for helping me solve my problems with Mackie Control display and the second person got a free copy of qb for the solution I haven't implemented because it is not perfect. Why do you assume that I take your work, your templates and sell it? I have never followed anyone - look at my templates - and telling the truth I am not using any other templates apart from mine. I started only with the manual and learnt it by heart. It is just recently since I have started examining two amazing Jay's templates - they are absolute masterpieces - I would easily pay for them a lot.

[Softcore]

You were hostile in your first response while I wasnt. Now you ask for decent replies with no hostility.

Ok here's my opinion then:

Yes, for a sharing community with marvelous pieces of coding offered completely free of charge, it is wrong to come along, without not even contributing to one topic in the forums, just to sell your templates.

However you present your work hours, the fact remains I cannot call "contribution to community" something that you get paid to do - sell. Its not contribution its "selling". If you have a problem with the correct definitions of the words perhaps we can alter the english language.

[lABl]

I am interested to know what other user thinks about it too.

I usually release my stuff for free, I tried to plan a product for the lemur and I felt like ****, don't ask why! I have not the answer But I could change my mind if I see more people selling, my business is more custom template works anyways.

People can compile some good concepts from library, or whatever, and start selling them, with the bad practice of excluding "credits to the original /idea/author/code".

Anyone is "forced" to release stuff for free of course, it's a decision of the template builder, and the decision of the user to buy it.

Now seeing it like from a user perspective, I would like to have some "work reference" from the man/girl selling templates, maybe with any free content, where I could evaluate some aspects before to purchase something.

Just my two cents,

CHeers,
AB

[artsUNMUTED]

@softcore
It was not hostile. I didn't contribute because trust me or not I am not using the community resources - look at my post above. And I posted once or twice - I just don't have time for participating - however, I helped many Lemur users by email to solve their problems - not related to my templates. Absolutely for free:-). And I go to great lengths to provide support for my templates. So don't judge me harshly. English is not my native language.

[lABl]

@artsunmuted, by the way, please let me to clarify I am not talking abouf of you using user resources, just talking in general, I think wul is saying the same?

There is not need to get angry with this imho.

Cheers

[artsUNMUTED]

@iABI
Thanks for your response. I am not angry - just surprised by some assumptions:-). And I am totally for proper credits and enumeration for the people who directly or indirectly contributed to commercial projects.

[Joe Soap]

This is obviously an issue that people have been thinking about, glad to know I wasn't alone in feeling concerned about the proliferation (not that there's so many) of commercial templates.

Deighted to see AB pop up here with some input, as his work (among a very few others) sets the standard for most aspirational builders here, I'm certain you all would agree? Antonio, your route to monetizing your work probably hews closest to what I consider acceptable practice for work such as this - work-for-hire . . . personal opinion only, I'm not trying to set myself up as the arbiter of universal morals here.

Another thought I had on this whole matter is where, or how Liine could fit into some incentive-scheme for the many talented people who by dint of hard work and man-hours bring great value to the platform? Particularly for flagship templates like QbEdit and the like. I presume ST8 didn't do LC2 out of the goodness of his heart, and I actually do appreciate the time, effort and talent it takes to pull off something like a comprehensive DAW control-surface in something as barebones as Lemur.

I had even thought about the notion of barter, or trade among the community here as a way to unlock what is probably REAMS of good code people are sitting on for one reason or another. But hey, this is all economics, and that's far from a solved problem no matter how much guff the econ guys come up with.

As has been said, there's nothing to stop anyone from attempting to sell Lemur templates, and nothing except what I am absolutely certain are very weak technological protections to stop others from despoilng that notion. Or, as would be the higer road, clean-room reverse-eng.

I have a feeling Liine will probably take the road of an in-app purchase mechanism - whereas from both a user and devloper perspective I personally feel the better way to grow the platform would be to purchase major works that would otherwise be sold commercially like the unMUTED (terrible name! wanna hire some decent marketing chops lol?) . . . or otherwise reward or compensate the developer for adding value to their product.

These are some of my thoughts on the matter, without hostility or ill feeling.

But because that's not very me, I'd just like to add a hearty "f*uck you all!" for good measure. And for forcing me to think somewhat cogently at this ungodly hour of the afternoon, damn yous.

[wul]

- creating one good template doesn't make anyone King Julien XIII, if you know what I mean:-).

Wonder what the king has to say?