Simon Galbraith - The future of .NET Reflector

[SaltWaterBreather]

You really should have stayed with the freemium model. Now, a year after your bad decision, I bet your Reflector sales are pretty bad and competitive freeware is taking over. Goodbye SQL Dependency Tracker, Data Compare, SQL Compare, Relector, etc… It was nice, but now it is time to bury you and your company.

[SaltWaterBreather]

“...the intention of $35 is widely affordable.” So, now $70 at the current price is widely affordable? Keep jack”n the price dumbass! A great insurance policy to really shrink your customer base.

“As a decision, we”ve agonized over this.” Well, I sure hope you”re really agonizing over THIS decision now. Really stupid business decision. Stupid!

[SaltWaterBreather]

"There is no crossover." Bullshit! I have spent thousands of dollars on your SQL Server products (Dependency Tracker, Compare, Data Compare, etc...) And I came in as a Relector user. I have referred your products to fellow developers and clients, and they also wasted their money on them and a lame compny. Not anymore. I'll use other products or write my own and sell them as your worst nemeses.

[SaltWaterBreather]

Red Gate Sucks!

[shehabsalhab]

Reflector Fail

[alexgrinkov]

ILSPY works perfect for me. Didn't notice much difference since I don't use all that shiny stuff they added after Lutz Roeder sold the app; basic decompiling functionality is all I need.

[admiralbob77]

Reflector crossover didn't happen? News to me - we bought ANTS.

[lazyberezovsky]

No more free edition of reflector - no more red gate tools for me. Sorry guys, I'm really sorry. But I will not use your stuff any more. Now I see there is good free disassemblers (eg telerik). Also I will not recommend anyone to use ants profiler and other red gate products. Because I'm not sure that one fine day my current version will disappear and you will ask $1000 for new one. Sorry guys.

[matgyver31]

This interview is great!! Brown sugar likes it :-)



[stprem]

you guys suck.. why would you delete the existing version

[madjam002]

You can download a tool that's better than .NET Reflector that was made because this product became commercial. It's made by the same people who made SharpDevelop, so it's very high quality. You can grab it at wiki.sharpdevelop(dot)net/ilsp­y.ashx

Thumbs up so people can see, and this "Redgate" piece of crap falls to the ground.

[atlantez]

dotPeek is a free alternative from Jetbrains. Allthough it is lacking some nifty features from Reflector, at least its FREE!

[romkyns]

ILSpy does what the free verison of Reflector used to do. I suspect everyone who doesn't care about pay-for features (95% of the user base?) will just switch over to free alternatives.

[oneibus]

I have a feeling that there is a HUGE amount of ill will towards Red-Gate over this ... I know I feel like you guys can kiss my ass. You people are idiots!  I will find another tool free or otherwise from a company I can trust!

[MKDXAzm0dAn]

"Modest sum of money"... Who is this guy kidding? for the basic version we don't even get the VS plugin... What a ripoff! GOGOGO ILSpy!

Well, good thing this happened now, i was tempted to tell my company to invest in some of redgate's software but now...

[signingupisretarded]

You purchased reflector to incorporate it into and improve existing RedGate products -- that's why you made the initial investment and purchased it, you dishonest cock. Then you got greedy and tried to force people to "upgrade" to a paid version, instead of allowing them to keep using the version(s) that was working for them -- that's why we all got pissed. It wasn't about the money.

[siegemos]

Hi, We're Redgate, we buy awesome free software, ruin it, then charge for it.

[JPaulDuncan]

YOU SUCK YOU SPUTTERING MONKEY!

[JPaulDuncan]

RED GATE SUCKS ASS FOR DOING THIS AND FUCKING *DELETING* THE WORKING VERSION.

YOU PEOPLE SUCK. I FUCKING *HATE* RED GATE. LEAVE THE OLD VERSION FOR FREE YOU STUTTERING MONKEY!

[kingluke2]

Charging for future improved versions is fine - time-bombing and obseleting the old versions is pretty evil.

As many others have mentioned, check out ILSpy, an open-source reflector alternative.

[kirchikgmailcom]

just google: ILSpy

this is free alternative and I believe ILSpy has a great future!

[kirchikgmailcom]

Liars



[xquiky]

Corporations that back out of promises don't generally fare well. Adding new features for a PRO version is acceptable. But taking away what was once free and then charging for it is not smart. Silly Europeans, that's why American business is better.

[xquiky]

Corporations that back out of promises don't generally fare well. Adding new features for a PRO version is acceptable. But taking away what was once free and then charging for it is not smart. Silly Europeans, that's why American business is better.

[hdsor]

You should try use ILSpy

[hdsor]

FUUCKK U mr Simon Galbraith

[TheStonkie]

Reflector brought your company to the attention of an enormous community of developers. Then you turned around and slapped us in the face!

Maybe I didn't make the stupidity of your move clear enough... Do you need a pie chart?

[eewik]

I will NEVER buy ANYTHING from RedGate EVER! It'snot that $35 is "too much", it's that you bought a product that was free at the time, deliberatelylead users to believe there would always be a free version available to allay their fears of the product becoming commercial, & then went back on that. I'll never believe anything you have to say ever again. I'm so glad that JetBrains have stepped up & done what they have. There's was an brilliant business decision, RedGate's was woeful.

[852derek852]

Hahaha, 0:27 - he looks like such a spineless sniveling toad! I wouldn't install that sad excuse for a pluggin that he calls the "pro version" if it was free.

Truth is, If they spent half the time they used trying to figure out new ways to ram their products down the reflector community's throat actually contributing something of value, they would have been doing great right now.

I don't think it's truly going to dawn in him what a huge f-up he made with this stunt for another year

[luger111]

VERY DISAPPOINTING!!!

[daverayment]

"$35 isn't much more than free." /sigh

Do the honourable thing and open source v6, remove the time-bomb from the final v6 version and reduce the price of v7 to something affordable to the hobbyist. Reflector has long been a fantastic educational tool, and charging for it is just going to take it out of the reach of those who quite possibly need it most.

Also, you DID say that a free version would remain available. Time-bombing v6 is a low move and you've lost my respect.

[KeepReflectorFreeOK]

You guys should be ashamed of yourselves - you are killing the .Net community. Java has great FREE tools for reflecting Java code and that was the whole reason Lutz created this great tool (great when it was free). Think of all those students who use this tool as part of their education in .Net. How do you think they feel about paying $35 now for this and God knows how much in the future!

Utterly dispicable!

[uglybugg33r]

"We didn't promise that, but it was very much our intention."

Utter garbage. If you're going to mince words like that then your word - and that of your company - is worthless.

[uglybugg33r]

How did you ever expect owning Reflector to *ever* make sense if this isn't what you planned from the beginning?

[sgcleaver]

The $35 is not a problem for me although it's still very hard to extract this small amount from the developer community so I doubt it will actually generate much revenue.

The problem I have is with product activation, if I pay for this developer tool I want to be able to run it where I need it without having the hell of product activation.

[asmi06]

I will buy other product EVEN if it would be more expensive than $35 just on principle. I never have any business with liars.

[marockee]

hey, you should try politics!

[JPeregrine]

This was probably the tipping point for me to actually purchase some of the 'cross-over' development products that Simon mentions. I ponied up for the .NET Developer Bundle --not just because it would include the pro version of reflector, but because I really need some good profiling tools!

[flamingodan]

This will generate a lot of bad press. I guess their competitors are rubbing their hands together!

[kiquenet]

Bad bad news... Lutz Roeder promise free edition !!!

[carndt124]

Redgate makes great products.  Reflector is absolutely worth the $35 min.

[IDisposable]

I guess it is time to put a proxy that keeps 6.6 alive update checks)

[codemonkeylabs]

Reflector is great software - I use it nearly every day - and I don't think $35 is too much to pay for such a useful tool. What I have a big problem with is the time bomb in the current, free version. Way to hold your users hostage, Red Gate.

How about this - don't time bomb v6. As you pointed out the .NET framework is always changing and evolving...eventually people will need an update. At that point I'd be happy to pay, and I think others would too.

[ratfink8888]

@codemonkeylabs Agreed.

[tednyberg]

Charging for the Visual Studio plugin and other "Pro" add-ons made perfect sense, did you just grow impatient?

[Zambonilli]

Donate button?

[tednyberg]

@formerScientist Haha, I did the exact same thing! :)

[formerScientist]

On a hunch, I Reflected Reflector to see if it was obfuscated. It was.

[tednyberg]

Doesn't make commercial sense? So... Why did you buy it?

[krysrod]

A very bad decision, an expidient business decision made at the expense of the community, I don't know what we all expected though, I know you are there to make a profit, but this tool was used by many to learn the .net framework deeply those people often went on to reccommend redgate tools on the back of your reputation. Just remember it is those people you have now disappointed.

[azamsharp]

Greedy greedy people! Charging for a product that was meant to be FREE!

[RoryBecker]

I think people are upset at being forced to pay for something they already understood they had been given for free.

Seems like you're forcing people to pay for your new product when they don't want it, by removing their ability to use your old product which you gave away for free.

Not a good way to treat the community.

Not Good Marketing.

Wonder how much trust this will cost you.

[traverse1000]

Google OSS if you cannot afford to maintain it.