We want to share some changes with our community that are coming soon to the free editions of our platform. Starting in our June release (version 9.9), Team Edition and Enterprise Free edition (also known as E0) will see Mattermost branding along with a ‘Free edition’ label.
This labeling and branding will display on the login screen and in the main application header.
This label will also be displayed in the bottom of the product menu with some additional language to indicate that the free edition does not include commercial support.
Why we are making these changes
We’re making this change to make it clear that Mattermost’s Free Edition doesn’t include customer support via email and tickets from Mattermost, Inc. In the current state, without this change, we are receiving too many support tickets and emails from non-paying users, which complicates our ability to support paying users effectively and efficiently. This is unfair to our paying users.
By making it clear to end users using the free and unsupported version of Mattermost that they aren’t entitled to paid support will increase our ability to support paying customers.
How will these changes affect you?
- For customers with Professional or Enterprise licenses, your workspace will not be affected at all. In fact, we are looking at ways to add more value to the experience for our Enterprise customers with enhanced custom branding tools in the future. Have a look at this forum post if this interests you.
- For those using the free Team Edition or Enterprise Free Edition (commercial, free version), you will begin to see Mattermost branding in the application along with a “Free Edition” label.
- For those who wish to compile their own version from the publicly available source code and change or remove these labels, this option is always available. If you are compiling from source code and distributing the modified version to an outside party, you need to remove “Mattermost” branding so the outside party doesn’t think your version is a paid offering from Mattermost, Inc. You will also need to follow the requirements of the open source license in the Mattermost code base.
Share your feedback with us
We’re interested to hear from our community on these updates. If you have thoughts or feedback for the Mattermost team, please feel free to share with us in a reply to this forum post.