JetBrains Moving Its Dev Tools To Subscription Model

esarjeant writes: For many Java developers, IntelliJ has been our predominant IDE. JetBrains is looking to make their tools easier easier to buy and use by switching to a subscription program. Their plan is to have people pay a monthly/yearly fee for access to the tools instead of upgrading when they're ready. Fortunately, if your subscription lapses it looks like you'll have 30 days to check all your stuff in. How does NetBeans look now? Many members of various developer communities are pushing back against this change: "For a developer with an unstable income, it might be perfectly fine to stay on an older version of the software until they've stashed enough cash to afford the upgrade. That will no longer work." JetBrains has acknowledged the feedback, and say they will act on it.

Comments

Rent seeking behavior

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

This is just another example of greedy, rent-seeking behavior, trying to force users to pony up cash on a monthly basis forever and ever and ever...heaven forbid you ever get to actually own anything ever again.

Re:Rent seeking behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

This is really quite simple.

The people paying for the upgrades consider the changes improvements. The people who don't pay, don't.

Now you can understand why so many people were on Office 2003 for so long.

Re: Rent seeking behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

People do pay for improvements. You come out with an improved product and I'll buy it--if I want to.

These rent seekers want you to pay whether there are improvements or not, and this may come as a shocl, but some people don't like that.

As a paying user..

[benjfowler]

... I'd feel a bit better about it, if they actually fixed some of the long-standing rough edges, like the completely-broken built-in compiler behaviour (something that Eclipse, despite being free and generally Old and Busted), and severe lag even on powerful machines, seeing as they're now asking for more money for the same product.

They promised this years ago, and it still hasn't happened. If I'm paying (and now, paying continuously), I'd expect them to lift their game.

Want my money? Give me software that works better than the free alternative.

Re:As a paying user..

[davester666]

They are claiming that with this new model, they won't have the constant pressure to come up with fancy new features each year to make you re-up your support agreement, so they will actually work on fixing bugs and releasing features that have fewer bugs as they are completed.

Somehow, I doubt it, as the subscription model removes any real impetus to advance the application, just to make sure it keeps running with minimal improvements.

Good point, Weak argument

[mtinsley]

For a developer with an unstable income, it might be perfectly fine to stay on an older version of the software until they've stashed enough cash to afford the upgrade. That will no longer work.

Just to be clear, "stashing enough cash for to afford the upgrade" means setting aside $100 for the year.

If you have to "stash cash" to afford the upgrade chances are you should save your money; you can get by with Eclipse. I don't approve of the new pricing model, but the "I can no longer afford to be a developer" argument doesn't work. The new model is actually cheaper per year for anyone who always renews their license.

Personally, I prefer to purchase something and be done with it. If I want the upgrade I can purchase that outright as well. If I don't then I think I should be able to continue using what I have already paid for.

I worked for a print shop

[rsilvergun]

in early 2000s. They had an invoicing package designed for print shops. The software was very popular. Apparently just about every print shop in America used it. The software was easy to use, install and maintain. It never broke and didn't need updates The company that made it is tits up. After they were done selling it to all the print shops out there there just wasn't anything left for them, and there weren't enough new print shops to sell to (what with the chains like FedEx/Kinkos muscling in).

Yeah, it's rent seeking, but I don't really see an alternative for a company that makes utility software. It's damned hard to get people to pay for it...

Re:I worked for a print shop

[ZorinLynx]

I find it hard to believe a software company with the talent to make software so robust and well written that it never needs updates couldn't come up with another blockbuster product to continue making money.

Also, if the product never requires updates, wouldn't that mean that if you're paying a subscription fee you're basically flushing money down the toilet? The money's not being used to fund new versions of the software, you're just paying the developer for something you already own for eternity.

Netbeans is looking just fine

[brendan.robert]

I've been using Netbeans since version 3.6 and am quite pleased with how it works, even in the recently released 8.1 beta. I've tried JetBrains and it seems fine enough for what you pay for (except the maven support feels very clunky and not very seamless, IMHO.) But feature comparison vs. price paid? Netbeans wins, hands down. I've tried Eclipse many times over the years also, but come to the same conclusion: I still don't personally like using Eclipse. Therefore I keep going back to Netbeans because it has 90% of what I need and there's plugins for the other missing 5%. The rest? I have a command line and I'm not afraid to use it. You can use whatever tool(s) you like, but I've been coding in Java professionally since 2000 and you can uninstall my copy of Netbeans when you pry my harddrive from my cold, dead hands.

Re:Not going to work out for them

[dinfinity]

The hate for Eclipse is so terribly outdated.

I haven't heard anyone come up with one single proper argument against Eclipse that stands today. Any dev worth his salt has an SSD, plenty of memory and a half-decent CPU. In addition to that, Eclipse has come a long way, which make the "It's slow as hell!"-thing quite outdated.

Even if it would be marginally worse than other IDEs, it has some great advantages:
1. Multi-language, hell, multi-purpose even.
2. Cross-platform
3. Free
4. Open source
5. Designed to be extended with plugins and as such, a veritable buttload of them exist.
6. Generally consistent interface

I've used it (professionally) for editing and debugging PHP, Twig, HTML, XML, YAML, CSS, Android, Java, C, Shell scripts and Javascript code residing in CVS, SVN, Git repos (and even via FTP - shudder) in the past decade and in general being able to use the same hotkeys and UI elements to perform similar tasks. I will readily admit that the different languages have varying levels of support for the more advanced features, but on the whole it easily beats other multi-language tools and saves me from having to use and become proficient in the use of a multitude of language specific editors.

It's probably not the best example, but due to the lack of plugins for Objective C in Eclipse I've been forced to use XCode for iOS development: Talking about donkey shit..

Anyway, I am genuinely interested in which features/properties for any of the above-mentioned languages are lacking in Eclipse and make it worth switching to another IDE for that language.

Re:Hello Bitrot

[dgatwood]

You know that Lightroom is still available for sale, right?

When Adobe announced the "Creative Cloud" nonsense, I bought a copy of CS6, upgrading from CS3, knowing that if I didn't act, I would never be able to do so again. At that point, I immediately began phasing out my use of Photoshop. Unfortunately, I haven't created any big new projects since then, and I'm stuck using Photoshop for existing projects because Pixelmator doesn't handle manual text kerning changes correctly on import. But the cover art for my fourth novel will be done entirely in Pixelmator.

You see, Photoshop hasn't added anything I really care about since they added layers and layer effects. There are a few minor enhancements that are nice to have, but I was happy on Photoshop 7. I buy upgrades to Photoshop whenever an OS X upgrade breaks it badly enough. It annoyed me badly enough paying for bug fixes when I was doing it on my own terms. When Adobe tried to push me to a monthly fee schedule for Photoshop, I walked away and haven't looked back.

I still buy Lightroom about every second release (about $40 annually), because unlike Photoshop, its upgrades actually provide tangible benefits—new camera support, face recognition, etc. (Yeah, theoretically Photoshop upgrades technically add new camera support, too, but I've imported RAW files into Photoshop a total of three or four times ever; typically, I start out with the processed output from Lightroom.) The problem with Photoshop is that it is a mature product, and there aren't any cool new features left to add that provide enough benefit to pony up an extra $80 a year to get them.

That's a serious problem for companies like Adobe. You see, they're in a position where they command the market. The only place to go from there is down, and the writing is on the wall. Flash is a failure. Photoshop is rapidly seeing the bottom portion of its market worn away by competition. This leaves Adobe's last remaining market—big graphics shops. Those folks will keep buying Photoshop until they no longer find themselves exchanging Photoshop files with other companies. Adobe is thus bleeding those companies for every possible penny they can before Photoshop eventually fades into obsolescence. Or at least that's what it looks like from where I'm standing.

Re:Put down the pitchforks people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only until November 1st, after which they will no longer sell perpetual licenses. If you want the latest and greatest, you must subscribe.

BTW, nice job knowing what you're talking about before ripping into TFS.