We've been giving away our software to YC startups for nearly two years now. I never thought to make a website about it, though. I guess that's what sets the folks like Joel apart from the rest of us. That's a guy who knows how to give away software with style.
Seriously, though, it's cool and really good marketing. I've only seen Fogbugz in passing (it was trialed at a Python shop I worked in a few years back, but wasn't adopted), but I've heard good things.
Solid of them to do that, but FogBugz is terrible. Our dev team found it to be tedious (4 developers).
We've switched to Pivotal Tracker (also in free beta) and find it much more suited to rapid development and "agile" practices. In particular, we find the predictive tools actually useful.
If you like Jira you might not like the simplicity and clean UI of FogBugz. We switched from FogBugz to Jira at my last job and I personally didn't like it very much. But management liked the flexible reporting and complicated workflows they could invent.
Personally I think Jira looks like it was written 10 years ago and can get quite slow at times, which together with the fact that there's no AJAX and every click reloads an entire page means it can be a very unpleasant experience.
I haven't gotten to use FogBugz so I can't compare the use of the UIs. AJAX would be really nice, although I haven't had any performance issues. We replaced Mantis and Bugzilla with Jira at one place I was at, and it was significantly faster than either of them.
I'm in love with the ability to very easily create different issue types with different attributes, states, and work flows. That lets us use the same system as a project management tool with release schedules, features, sub-tasks, reporting on hours breakdown by resource etc..., and a customer facing issue reporting/tracking system, and an internal bug tracker, etc...
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Also love the great integrations with Confluence, Eclipse, SVN, Hudson, etc....
I just started using Zoho Project. I am fairly impressed with the task dependency, milestones, team integration and such. You can also embed files or edit within with integrated zoho writer, ppt, calendar, alerts.
It is free for one project and unlimited users, paid ones have more space and projects starting at 12$/mo
If that feature is useful at all it will be worth $200 per seat. Indeed, even if the data do nothing but tell me what I already know, but the software can turn that data into pretty graphs that I can put on slides and wave in front of my clients as I pitch projects, it will be worth $200 per seat. Clients looooove realistic estimates.
I'm currently using GNUe DCL and it's working out pretty well for me. We also use it at my day job (team environment) and it's pretty good. Can be a little hard to get up and running and is a bit rough in places. Used fogbugz at previous job and I'd take DCL over it - fogbugz is not too shabby though.
Mantis is an improvement over Bugzilla, for sure. However we saw huge performance problems once we hit the 50k issue level. It was also much more difficult to modify than Jira (which we moved to). Although I guess among free options Trac and Mantis would be my top two.
We've been using http://Acunote.com for agile issue tracking and it's been performing well. But going forward we're looking at Mantis (http://www.mantisbt.org/) and Jira. Jira's very expensive and Mantis is GPL and does most of what Jira does.
Could someone, in a sentence or two, explain how FogBugz compares to Mantis or Bugzilla?
Glad you are happy with Acunote. You probably won't have a reason to switch away from it, not in Mantis/Jira direction anyway :-) That's functionality-wise, the open-source angle is always valid of course.
That would actually be an interesting idea for a social news site, partnering with companies to give away schwag to users who hit certain karma thresholds. I wonder what would happen.
Seriously though, you could probably do it without karma farmers if you announced a free X for all users currently over a karma threshold. Could be a cool tool for building social news sites & there are all sorts of companies that want to give away their stuff - magazines.
This differential pricing helps satisfy demand (like student movie tickets). Most of the poor students/startups could not afford to buy anyway, so you lose little by giving it away.
But you gain potential customers, like MacDonalds targetting children: "get 'em while they're young [and poor]". Lock-in is stronger with software: UI familiarity (e.g. vi vs. emacs); data on their server.
If you had a dominant market position, this differential pricing can help a scorched-earth policy: by denying no-one, you don't start the seeds of copy-cat competitors - they have no fuel to burn (i.e. no customers, no interest). The danger with copy-cat competitors is that as they grow, they often differentiate into genuine alternatives in their own right. Better to nip 'em in the bud (or not enable the bud to grow in the first place).
Joel isn't in that position (there are several bug-trackers): here, it's just an earlier arena for the fight for customers (like employers interviewing earlier and earlier at university). For example, the Jira people offer free products for open source projects.
The above is a business interpretation, based on cynical self-interest, but I think the result is healthy: customers get high-quality yet affordable products; you get customers - to each according to his need; from each according to his ability (to pay). Meeting needs is a good thing.
But for customers, it's just as important to evaluate what they are getting, even though it's free. Otherwise, you watch free TV, browse free websites, and buy supermarket "specials" without making a decision about what you're really buying. You might have chosen to buy it anyway; you might not.
There are vulnerabilities with hosted data; e.g. if Joel had to change his policy, how would customers get their data out? These are questions common to all vendors, and it's not just because it's free - it's just then when it's free, it's easier to not consider these questions properly. It's up to customers to do their due diligence. All Joel can do is work hard to create something useful, and let you know about it. He can't tell if it's right for you and your specific needs or not.
Note: I think it's great Joel is doing this, and it's beneficial all round.
To the point about getting your data out. FogBugz On Demand lets you download a snapshot of your database, at any time, in three different formats: MS SQL Server, Access, and MySQL. The FogBugz database schema is open and fully documented here: http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/KB/dbsetup/FogBugzSchema.htm...
So, really what your saying is that Joel is giving away his software so he can keep tabs on what YC Startups are doing? Suddenly, the idea seems more evil. :)
Not really - Joel is smart. He knows that the marginal cost of a frogbuz account is almost nothing but that the price - if the company is acquired - is an entire company that use his software.
Seriously, though, it's cool and really good marketing. I've only seen Fogbugz in passing (it was trialed at a Python shop I worked in a few years back, but wasn't adopted), but I've heard good things.