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Plugin Developer Discussion

I had been planning on creating a plugin distribution and selling site, that would offer both free and licensed plugins. It would also provide tools and resources for common plugin tasks. Since FBOD will be providing the distribution interface, it greatly simplifies my job, because I don't need to write code to login and upload plugins. I still need to write a web service for plugins to validate their licenses. My plan is to offer monthly and yearly licensing options with all non-free plugins offering a free month trial (extendable on request). Is the recent announcement of FC requiring approval of all plugins going to prevent this? (If so, it greatly decreases my motivation for writing plugins.)

We're going to provide one central place for plugins in our plugin store in the same vein of Apple's AppStore or Salesforce's AppXchange.  One thing we don't want is to have to have people searching all over the place for plugins.
This probably won't preclude you from selling your plugin for self-hosted installs from your own website, but we will be providing a mechanism for doing this in a FogBugz sanctioned way.  It is however likely the case that On Demand will only allow plugins through this mechanism. 

It will also likely be similar to the revenue sharing model that Apple is using.

I am fine with this in general terms, though it sounds as if a lot of the important details have yet to be decided, and the interfaces and policies should have been nailed down before the beta started. When can we expect to see the details and usable interfaces for plugin development?

I too am very interested in getting some more details on licensed plugins, I have a bazillion questions about licensing, such as:

Will there be different licensing models, i.e. per active FogBugz user, per specified FogBugz user, Per Month, per Year?

What if I have a product that can be licensed through my own mechanism and I build that mechanism into a "free" plugin, totally cutting you out? Do I get a horse's head in the bed?

Will we be able to do free for 10/15/30 days trials?

Will we be able to do feature restricted trials or full for 30 days then "dumb-down" to feature restricted?

My wife just bought 5 (yes five) pairs of shoes for our daughter, I've got to be able to pay for them!

I'll put up a doc for this, but the short answer is:

1) We're going to make a store, but not until after FogBugz 7 launches

2) You are free to sell your plugin however you want.  Even after we make the store, you won't have to sell it through us.

3) The details of the store have yet to be determined, but we'd likely offer automatic billing of On Demand customers on a monthly and/or per-user basis.

4) All On Demand plugins will have to be approved.  See the plugin approval process in W131.

FAQ on selling plugins available at W133

Thanks for the FAQ on selling plugins, it looks very sensible and flexible.