Raptor Services

After almost 10 months of work - EZ Realty version 6 is due for release on Monday, 14th June.  Version 6 is a major release point, as it represents a rewrite of the EZ Realty code base into MVC code structure.  As it is a major release - I've decided now is the best time to implement changes to how EZ Realty will be licensed and distributed.

EZ Realty version 6 will be released under the terms of the Creative Commons GNU GPL license, and in addition to this change in licensing - it'll be distributed via my site at justjoomla.com - rather than my commercial business site.   justjoomla.com has traditionally been used to distribute my GNU GPL products, and it's for this reason that I'm moving distribution there - to clearly delineate between my GNU GPL products and those previously distributed under commercial licensing.

The change in licensing will take effect from EZ Realty version 6, so this change won't affect previous versions - and they'll still be subject to the commercial license terms that they were released under.

While I'm sure this decision may take some by surprise, I suspect others won't be surprised at all given the changes I've made this year - such as full source code distribution and discontinuation of the licensing server.  Moving to an open source business model is simply the next logical step in where my software development is now taking me - and I hope users of my software are as excited as I am about this change.

As part of the preparation for launching JustJoomla.com and releasing EZ Realty verison 6 - I'll be taking all commercial software sales on my raptorservices.com site offline for the next week - as all of my software will be following in the path of EZ Realty.  If you simply must purchase one of my software products and can't wait for the new versions - please contact me via email - otherwise I look forward to seeing you over at JustJoomla.com in the coming week.

I know any change can be a bit of a challenge to cope with for some - so I'll take a moment to address some of the questions which are sure to be on the minds of existing commercial customers.

Availability of upgrades for EZR version 5x:-

Will there be any further upgrades to the EZ Realty version 5x packages?

Yes there will be further upgrades.  Even though version 6 will be released in the coming week - version 5 will go into maintenance mode - so I'll be releasing bug fixes as customers report bugs to me.

Price:-

Will license holders of previous EZR products receive a discount when upgrading to EZR6?

No, there won't be discounts available as existing customers don't really need to upgrade at this time - and they will be managed under the current commercial business with maintenance upgrades.

What will the new license include?  As in will the product be ion cubed or open for editing?

EZ Realty version 6 is to be released under the terms of the Creative Commons GNU GPL license.  This means you will have all of the freedoms associated with GNU GPL licensing - so there will be no encryption and no limits on how many sites you can install EZ Realty version 6 on.  You can read more on the Creative Commons GNU GPL license here:- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/

Upgrade:-

Will the upgrade process from EZR5 to 6 be automatic or are the systems incompatible?  In so much as, will changes or custom modifications be incompatible in EZR6?

EZ Realty version 6 is a rewrite of the code base into MVC code structure - so there is little in common between the file structure of version 6 and previous versions.  Upgrading will be a simple process - however you will lose all custom modifications made to the version you're currently using.

Will the database structure and naming change potentially invalidate any custom scripts?

There have been no changes to the database structure, so 3PD scripts that interact with the EZ Realty database should not be affected.  This statement is based solely on the premise that the 3PD script only interacts with the database - and not the EZ Realty files.

Will the upgrade invalidate custom addons, like Denis Dulicis SEO plugin?

It will depend on the addon.  EZ Realty version 6 uses controllers and views in the frontend URL's in line with the new MVC code structure - so addons for SEF systems will potentially be affected.

Changes:-

As mentioned earlier - the major change is version 6 is a rewrite of the code base into the MVC code structure used by Joomla 1.5, and this work was done in preparation for Joomla 1.6x.  Now, as for other changes and new features - version 6 has a couple of changes - but nothing significant in terms of features at this stage.

The admin cpanel has been redesigned and has new graphics, the auto-calculation of decimal coordinates has been removed due to problems some customers have with server settings not permitting use of the fopen() php function - and as a result - the popup find coordinates map is now embedded in the add/edit page and will populate the coordinate fields when the map is clicked.  External feeds to property sites have been removed - as I'll be writing a new single component to handle feeds for all EZ* components.

Current commercial customer support services and other stuff:-

What will happen to support services for commercial customers?

Support services for commercial customers will continue as normal at www.raptorsupport.com for now - as there is still much work to be done for EZ Autos and EZ Rider.  It is expected that EZ Realty support should begin to taper off over the next couple of months as customers get their sites built and launched - however that is just an estimate of how much demand I think there will be for EZ Realty-related support and nothing more than that.

What about the licensing server?  What will happen to my site?

Keeping up with news is important - so all customers should have upgraded their sites to the unencrypted versions that I made available to my commercial customers over a month ago.  These packages can be downloaded from your customer accounts at http://www.raptorservices.com/customers/ - and they do NOT connect to the licensing server.  Unencrypted packages are ONLY available for J1.5x installations - so if you're still running EZ Realty on Joomla 1.0x - you should think about upgrading.  Apart from making the unencrypted packages available - the licensing server is NOT going anywhere - so you're not going to wake up and find your site not working if there is a delay in getting your site upgraded to the latest version 5x package.