The most common question we get about Codename One is: “Is Codename One Free”. The direct answer is “Yes” but we don’t want to mislead. You can work with the open source code, which is just as free as any other project. But it’s not for the faint of heart…
The build servers have quotas so we won’t go out of business. This is perceived by developers as “not free” but since no one else offers build servers I have an issue with that perception. To battle that perception we’re increasing the build quotas.
Sort of…
To keep us sustainable paying users essentially pay for the free users. Worse, it’s only the pro/enterprise accounts that cover these costs.
So in order to increase the quotas we need your help. We’ll give you increased quotas for friends of yours that join e.g. you bring your friends and we’ll increase your build quotas respectively.
For every friend we’ll add 512kb to your jar size limit and 50 build credits. This is a permanent addition that will come into effect during the quota reset (it isn’t immediate). We’ll also count that friend as if he referred one person already so he’ll have more than the default count!
Currently this is capped off at 15 friends which should give you plenty of room to grow.
These benefits are perpetual and aren’t dependent on your friends staying or paying. However, we reserve the right to revoke these credits for abuse of this system!
Here’s the kicker, we just updated all the users in the database currently to 1 referral by default. So all active Codename One users should already have a larger build credit by default. Due to technical reasons we can’t do it to old users that didn’t use Codename One since our migration from App Engine…
How Does it Work?
You can invite friends by sharing a special URL which you can see in your console here under the Account tab. E.g. mine is: https://www.codenameone.com/index.html?ref=baa9d923-b26a-430b-a814-02cf55605231.
| You might need to logout and login again to see this entry. It should be below the token |
The important aspect here is the ?ref=baa9d923-b26a-430b-a814-02cf55605231 part. You can attach it to any html URL in this site including this page e.g.: https://www.codenameone.com/blog/increase-your-build-quotas.html?ref=baa9d923-b26a-430b-a814-02cf55605231 would be valid.
However https://www.codenameone.com/?ref=baa9d923-b26a-430b-a814-02cf55605231 isn’t valid as it doesn’t contain an html file in the URL.
Terms and Questions
Does this Apply to Paid Users?
Yes. If you ever cancel your account you’d revert to paid mode and still have your increased credits. If you signup for a paid program and downgrade you won’t lose any signups during the paid duration or after.
How does this Work?
The referral URL sets a cookie in the users browser that is active for 6 months. If during those 6 months the user signs up he is counted.
You would need to promote Codename One to your friends/social network to get the additional credits.
What if a User Clicks two URL’s?
The last one is counted. This is the industry standard.
How can I Monitor This?
Right now you will only know when the build credits are reset. However, we plan to introduce a UI that will let you see how many users you referred.
How do you Check for Abuse?
We only count activated users. We check user behavioral patterns through an automated system that alerts us of potential abuse.
Future Directions
We’d like to extend this to push notification as well. We have some ideas on how to provide push support for free/basic accounts but for that we would probably want to redesign our push servers.
That’s a bit of an undertaking and we’ll only start that off if this program proves successful.
I hope you all take advantage of this as much as possible!
2 Comments
I’m free user for now, I have several developer fiends invited, where can I see my total Quotas in my account…?
On the first of the month when your credits are reset you can see how many clicked and created an account based on the build credits you would have.