[BlueOnyx:26814] Re: BlueOnyx 5210R: New GUI: Officialy released!

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Chris,

> We've had the opportunity to knock around with the new GUI on 5210R for 
> a little over 24 hours now under beta, and in my opinion, it's a big 
> improvement!   Kudos, and THANK YOU, Michael, for bringing the new GUI 
> to 5210R.    That's a big deal to those of us who, for various reasons, 
> make a conscious decision to stick with the platform.

I'm glad to hear it!

> Just for purposes of clarification (and correct me if I'm wrong) I 
> understand that packages under current subscription will update just 
> fine.   However, if a server does not have an active subscription 
> (either via extended support of an individually purchased PKG or via 
> current BOPE/BOEE subscription) then the PKG as installed on 5210R with 
> old GUI (Adminica) that upgrades to new GUI (Elmer) will not function 
> correctly in the GUI.   It will need to be re-purchased.   Is that 
> correct?   (BTW, I think that's certainly fair.)

Yes, there was no other way to do this. Before the update BlueOnyx 5210R 
was using an really old CodeIgniter framework and the GUI pages for it 
have a particular format that's entirely different.

There was no way to make the old GUI pages compatible other than 
swapping them out entirely with versions that are (from the ground up) 
designed to work with the newer CodeIgniter.

So yeah: The updated PKGs in the Shop are available at no additional 
cost to anyone who has purchased the related product(s) with support 
that covers at least the release day (today). Or who has an ongoing 
rental agreement for the respective products.

If someone purchased the software in the past and the period for support 
and free updates has expired? In that case a support extension has to be 
purchased to get access to the updates. We do offer volume discounts and 
very fair prices and even if that's not enough? We can be reasoned with.

BlueOnyx is available free of charge. But that's only because the shop 
PKGs and their respective updates somehow keep this all afloat. Not by 
much, but we scrape by.

The development of the new GUI for 5211R and 5210R took around +1200 
hours of work all things considered. If regularly billed as a commercial 
project that would be in the region of 60-100k EUR of contract work and 
would have taken more than twice as long.

In the time I've worked on this donations for around 300 Euros (give or 
take)  came in, which is much appreciated. But was just a drop on a hot 
stone in the face of such a massive undertaking.

OTOH: We all have to thank Dirk Estenfeld of blackpoint GmbH for a 
considerable down-payment towards the new GUI that he made a few years 
ago. That always kept the pressure up to finally deliver.

At the end of the day it's within the power of the users to keep 
BlueOnyx alive, modern and viable by supporting us by purchasing shop 
packages and the ongoing support for those.

It are tough times for all of us and I fully understand that. If some of 
you have it bad at the moment and can't afford the updates for recent 
purchases that may now be outside of support? Contact me in private and 
we'll sort something out.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber