Joomla! Discussion Forums

All this talk on the "Can Joomla Extensions be..." thread got me thinking - while there are many business models floating around, some of which I proposed or use currently, there has yet to be an innovative Business model that also supports the idea of a community, so here is my take:

A central hub for commercial Free Software Developers in the Joomlasphere
While the dreaded Joomla! Commercial Developer's Alliance fails to specify this, yet is clearly about proprietary extensions for joomla, we need a platform for commercial Free Software and Open Source developers. We need to make the point that "commercial" does not imply "proprietary", and that Free Software indeed has a lot of commercial value, not only to developers, but also to people who offer Service with this software or simply use it.

...and this time, its about the money
If it is done right, FOSS and money can get along very well. The problem mostly arrives when things are left unclear or have not been put up front correctly (as it now is kind of the case with proprietary extensions). In fact, Free Software and Open Source provide wonderful business models, just that you have to think a lot harder to come up with good ones that are at the same time ethical.

the problem
A lot of joomla! sites use commodity Free Software extensions without even noticing their value. Some times they are too small to justify a real business, some times they provide things that a user would take for granted in a CMS anyways and quickly moves on from once the software is "there". This kills the opportunity for a real business and is why most donation-based business models tend to turn into frustration for the developers.

However, most extensions have their value and often have a broad following, just on a "small scale". When a couple of thousand users use a component which does not make up an integral part of their system, it still means that there is a lot of usage. There is a long tail of usage so to speak.

How to turn a long Tail into money
Long Tails greatly benefit from small followings that make a large effect in the end. So what we need is a place to collect and redistribute the money according to the usage. If you use 10 small extensions to joomla!, you might not be inclined to give each of them a dollar, but what if there was a site that lets you choose your favorites and distribute money that you put in a pool to these developers. Maybe users would even be motivated to give a little more than 10 Dollars in this case.

We need a voluntary Free Software tax
We need a site that lets a user choose his or her favorites and put money in a pool. Then, say every month, this pool gets split up according to the selections each extension has in its user profiles.

Now small users who care to give a little, developers who enjoy this community and want to give something back and Service providers who have a business with Joomla and its Extensions can give something back without wasting too much time on figuring out where to give what.

Further thoughts
I put "Free Software Joomla+Extensions" in the title because I think that this would also mean that a certain portion of this pool should go back to the Joomla! project. Since without it, there would be no Extensions.

We also need a lot of transparency on this, which is why I would like to call all 3DP joomla! Free Software and Open Source developers for opinions on how to handle this the best way. All the transactions would of course be open, if anonymized, for investigation and developers would have their own overview on the support situation for their software.

I like the idea, though it would have to get a little more refined...

In a community as big as this, even 1 cent would make a difference.

My 2 cents... 

Well... go ahead

Excellent idea Skore. Thanks for the suggestions.

Curious if such a thing could be expanded in any way beyond one project. A lot of thinking would have to be involved, planning and so on.

Want to stay posted on this thread.

I believe that the idea of taxing can be good, but the idea of Open Source would have to be redefined. There are millions of people using open source software right now, and they know that their software is released "as is", many times without any kind of support at all.

That is but one of the differences between the proprietary software and the open source software. It means that even by using something so well written and powerful as Mozilla Firefox, I have no guarantee that the software will not fail me and / or compromise the security / confidentiality of the information I send and get from the internet. Proprietary software has its limitations as well, but they do offer better support because they have paid staff. A volunteer is always going to be a volunteer and can only dedicate his spare time.

Therefore the solution here is combining the development of Open Source software with well paid staff. Mozilla and Opera are great examples, and hopefully Joomla! will follow their thread.

Don't know if I got somewhere or said any sense here, really, but I meant to say that this issue is quite complex. Let's see what the community says about it... 

aoirthoir:

Well, I have been playing with this idea in my mind for some time now and I really felt that to test it out for the joomlasphere could be a nice proof of concept.

InnerFlash:

While you do have a point, I think that the future will become more decentralized. I have the feeling that ideas like mine are simply not tackled because they are so different from what we normally think about business and "having a job" and "getting a certain payment for something".

In the past months, I have experienced that this world is getting more and more ready for completely different solutions and this might be a proposal for one of them.

The dreaded Joomla! Commercial Developer's Alliance
[me=Vimes]proud[/me]

[quote=∓quot;jcd-a.org server rules"\]# I understand that there is a need within the Joomla environment for commercial plugins and that sometimes it is good business sense to encrypt those plugins.
[...]
# If I act in a way that is contrary to these statements I understand I will be removed from the forum, possibly without warning.[/quote]

Well, there you go - you have my vote for the "confused language concerning FOSS that you would not expect to still be around except hearing it from some hillbillies. In the 21st century."-Award.

Can't you see that you really do mean proprietary?

Oh, and I'm of course not endorsing the above statement as being "an alternative viewing point". There is a need for commercial plugins. There is no need for proprietary plugins. It is never good business sense to encrypt software. And its certainly telling that you guys need to put such a ridiculous statement up front as a sacrosanct consensus that will get you out of your coterie if you dont agree. I find it an appalling display of deliberate confusion and misguidance that is attacking not only the core of software development, but also of capitalism itself.

Now I have taunted you enough - I'm sorry for going off topic (and you probably don't deserve half of what I say about the general situation), I meant to put this discussion to your forums... But you don't want that. I'm certainly open for discussing this privately, although I'm not sure whether that would make much sense. This thread should be about serious business.

Snigger.

This topic does not fit into the Components board IMO.


I am moving it to the Lounge as I do not see any other suitable place.

Yeah, didn't really know where to put it either

A bit childish coming from a member of the 'forum workgroup', don't you think.

Thanks for the info skOre. Some good ideas.

Statements of such breathtaking arrogance don't deserve a mature response.

Just a note, a "constructive" discussion is fine. Please try and keep the tone of this discussion civil. Thank you!

And no, I am not direction that towards any one person.

I imagine some of yall have to know about this link:

http://www.affero.org/

I've been thinking for the affero model for a while now and I think that its very good for people who are deep within a large community. However, for a more general use, this could be too much to ask.

For the affero model, you have to be constantly involved AND have the will to spend money, you have to have a far broader audience than the community that is around here. I would also say that quite hard to get at first which would make the entry point to high for most users.