Requirements for offering a plugin in the Marketplace Store

[Eugen Mayer]

Hello,

what are the requirements to offer a plugin in the store?
1. 30 days of trial
2. 25% of the charge are going to Atlassian
3. any time-limitation how to offer the trial key (or specific method?)
4. exclusivity? (i guess not)

In addition, what are the requirements for the plugin-code. Do i need to implement UPM licence management, or can i use our own existing licence validation?

[Kinto Soft · Accepted solution]

You are free to support the Marketplace license model provided by Atlassian or create your own license model.

If you use the Atlassian's model, then:

1) Yes 30 days

2) 25% goes for Atlassian. If you allow Experts to re-sell your plugin then 25% goes to the Expert and the next 25% to Atlassian.

3) user can generate up to a maximum of 6 trials

4) No exclusivity is required, but you have to offer the plug-in at the same price than in the Marketplace.

Based on my own experience, the license model provided by Atlassian is the best choice. You do not have to build/maintain your own license management systems nor contract a payment gateway. Really, the stuff provided by Atlassian makes implementation process quick and easy. And the reports provided by Atlassian to track your trials and sales are enough good. And most important, the overall buying process is easier for your customers: a simple and homogenous license model, few clicks and data required to purchase and a more confident process because Atlassian guarantees 30 days to refund the money. Even I would say that allow Experts to re-sell your plug-in is also another good choice: they will improve a lot your sales mainly for big clients.

You can get much more information from this link:

https://developer.atlassian.com/display/MARKETFAQ/Licensing+and+Paid-via-Atlassian+Listings

Hope this helps.

Pablo.

[Eugen Mayer]

Hello Pablo, thanks for your verbose answer.

In the mean time i found nearly all the informations you provided, i just did not had the time to answer here

1) corerct

2) partially correct. Experts get UP to 20%, what excatly, actually decides Atlassian on case by case

3) correct

4) correct + there are much more limitations, such as if you opt our form the expert programm in the marketplace, you are not allowed to give third party resellers a discount on the list price on "Similar Services", or in other words, third party channel sales

I do follow your conclusion, but its only one side. Yes, i just handled the UMP compatiblity using atlas + tutorial in a very short time = point given. that is easy for the dev and later easy for the customer.

On the other side, the API for the licences is very limited. You cannot use the API validation in non-confluence enviroments, e.g. you cannot protect applets AT ALL. This makes the current API useless for e.g. our scenario, eventhough its overall an interesting concept.

Iam not sure you have studied the full EULA of the Marketplace, but in most terms you give up a lot of freedome. You cannot set prices yourself on other platforms EVENTHOUGH Atlassian gets a reasonable fee for doing the licence/payment job for you. Its not like atlassian gets nothing and in return wants you yo have enforce such limitations. They get a reasonable price, while at the same time, cutting of a lot of your own freedome - and thats, at leas for me, ist at least not very "kind".

[Kinto Soft]

On the other side, the API for the licences is very limited. You cannot use the API validation in non-confluence enviroments, e.g. you cannot protect applets AT ALL

You can. Add a servlet in your plugin and call it from your applet to check for a valid license.

Iam not sure you have studied the full EULA of the Marketplace, but in most terms you give up a lot of freedome

Right. I would say that from the Atlassian point of view: simplicity and consistency boost the overall sales, even it implies some freedom lost.

[Eugen Mayer]

no you cant. A simple get or post with something like "hey, is the licence valid" with a status 200 "ok" is plain useless. I can use a company wide proxy or even varnish to handle this "check" to always "succeed".

Dont get encryption into this, you neither ca use AES nor RSA, since the private key/symentric needs to recide on either the applet or the plugin side, making that private key a rather "public" key, since ressources our "extractable".

The real issue is, that Atlassian does not provide the public key for there encrypted licence and a utility library to run validation-check

[Kinto Soft]

Right, but how much impact hacker customers have on your sales? Do you think that if you protect your plug-in by using an un-hackable method then your sales would be increased?

[Eugen Mayer]

argumenting this way, why does conluence / atlassian even use licences then, if that does not matter for sales?

Iam with you, that you cannot protect yourself against ( more complex ) hacks, but a licence check using a HTTP request (unencrypted content) is absolutely waste of time. This request can be answerered by a proxy company wide - that is not a hack, thats 2 minutes work.

In that case, it does matter, because its way to easy.

Thanks for that interesting discussion!

[JamieA]

It's also 2 minutes work to decompile the licence manager in any plugin and have it return A-OK. But subverting the licensing for any software is a dismissable offence in most reputable companies.

[Kinto Soft]

In my opinion, do the things in the right way: first: sell as much as possible, later: worry about hackers.