Revenues generation brainstorm

[RobS]

The problem with Hack-a-thons in some people's opinion, mine included, is that they do not produce very good code.  The whole concept is to rush and get things done as quickly as possible because you have a long list of things to get to.  It also does not agree with everyones work style or ethic.  Personally, I like to work for a few hours then step away for a few hours to think about the problem, then go back and work for a few more hours, etc.  It is hard to have thinking/reflecting time when you are in a time crunch.  I believe a good analogy is, you can make a baby in 9 months with one woman but you can't make a baby in 1 month with 9 women.

[55thinking]

@ Rob: I don't think the point is to accept any kind of code. But it would certainly be interesting to select the best piece of code produced, and help the people who produced it to reach the Joomla quality levels. That would required indeed some actions from the core team

The event in itself is good for the buzz. But that's not enough to me. We have to find innovative ways to shorten development cycle and have Joomla core grow in basic features. Hackathons might be a way to do that.

Google summer code is another way to do that, but truth is that from one year to the other, the level of implementation of the projects in the Core is still to be tuned.

Another way to do that would be sponsoring projects with companies. The exact degree of involvement of the Core team would be to define (interesting extension, specifications reviews, technical instructions, basic review of advancement), but we could have external code produced outside of the Core team, then somehow re-inject in the project. That requires a priori coordination from the Core

[RobS]

Well, to be fair, the last 2 years of SoC projects have mostly been about researching ideas and concepts.  This year will be very different in the sense that we chose projects that we specifically saw a future for with the Joomla! project and some in the core even.  For example, Enno's project for doing a NBS system and the project that I am mentoring that will be integrating semantic markup and micro-formats.  These aren't intended to be research projects, they are intended to be used in some form in the Joomla! core after 1.5 (1.6, 1.7, etc.). 

[brian]

I've got a really good blog post to explain the good and bad of this type of activity from a leading ubuntu developer. As soon as find it again I will post it for you to consider

[brian]

found it. Mymemory did a disservice and it wasnt related to a hackathon but to "parallel peer programming". Its still a good read though so here it is
http://www.netsplit.com/blog/articles/2 ... rogramming

[Vimes]

Interesting read, but I'd probably end up ripping the keyboard out of their hands.

[brian]

I think that is what Scott was saying. He wanted to but at the end of the day it was better because he fought the urge

[brian]

I just can repeate myself:

If Joomla would incorporate any kind of callback method, I would leave this project and I'm sure other devs would do, too. Your proposition, ravenhall, is exactly that, a callback method. Besides, to ensure that the whole process is not compromised, we would have to encrypt the joomla source and make the whole project closed source, otherwise the method could be analyzed, modified and directly allow every extension to work. In the end, this is something a 3PD has to implement himself in his own extension, which then needs to be encrypted.

The new beta test badges may not be a callback but it is a usage logging and analysis ploy.

[Vimes]

Only if you link directly to the image. I prefer not to because if there's a slowdown at j.org it'll dent my page rendering.

[brian]

Exactly. So why suggest people do it if its not to harvest ip addresses etc. Sadly most people are not aware of issues like this and will blindly follow the instructions

[Tonie]

Any more conspiracy theories?

[brian]

Sorry Tony but it is not an issue to be flippant about imho. It is a serious issue

[55thinking]

Some data about contribution in Open projects - Food for thoughts:

To put this in perspective, Wikipedia is updated by only 1% of the user base actually updates information. In January 2007, the site registered 42.8 million unique visitors while only 75,000 registered contributors.
The actual number may only be around 100. Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia says that instead of the hundreds of thousands of people we might imagine contributing information to the site, it’s actually written by just a few hundred people, known as "super-contributors. Jacob Nielson remarked User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule: 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute); 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time; 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs.

More info here

@ Brian: Unit testing is indeed very interesting. This suppose having extremly clear ideas of what are the expected outputs, r focus on top priorities

[RobS]

Just a note: we are already working on a unit test suite for the new Joomla! framework.

[brian]

I wasnt talking about unit testing

[RobS]

No, you weren't but the article you posted was talking about it.  I was simply posting that in an attempt to keep this thread from going off topic.

[brian]

Ah ok

[ivo.apostolov]

Ah, but you couldn't 

[Michelle Bisson]

I wish to thank everyone for brainstorming in this thread.  Since at this stage, we are only brainstorming, I wish to encourage everyone to continue to submit ideas.

When brainstorming for ideas, there is no good or bad idea. 


Thanks!

[ChiefGoFor]

Joomla! Development training. (Extensions/Templates)

[55thinking]

SHORT RANGE IDEAS

Donations like ideas

Money - Make donations accessible from various places

• Back End Administrador
• At the end of the Installation process below the button go to Site or Admin
• ….

Promote donators at front page of Joomla site in a small module (last 5 or best donators), that could incentive donations too

Merchandising shop

Definitively something to extend

Directory advertising

Extensions - I guess only GPL extension will be listed there in a while … for which we’ve lost the possibility to have commercial extension to pay to be present

• You can try to offer a presence at front page of Joomla for people who are willing to further expose their extension…for an acceptable fee

Local Service Provider

• Free for the listing (submit like, do-it-yourself)
• Small fee for front page directory exposure

Ads management

Go on as-is

Newsletter management

This is definitively something to set-up. Brian’s idea of the Weekly Joomla Review was good and did provide excellent value – I don’t know why it has been dropped off. Do the same, maybe on a monthly frequency - Don’t place add in the newsletter itself, the newsletter is a viral tool, that will bring more traffic to your site = more money from ads. Not all members are Joomla addicts & come everyday to visit the sites

MIDDLE RANGE IDEAS

Donations like ideas

Code – The idea is to have the code produced outside of the core team based on Core directives, review & Integrated in Joomla Core

• OSM-sponsored Hackathons
• Define Bounty rules for the Joomla Project

Corporate sponsorship

There are definitively more things to move onwards that direction. Prepare a sexy value proposal, and you will see how large advisers/corporation will be willing to participate

• Platinium
• Gold
• Silver
• Bronze

WHO THE HELL KNOWS RANGE IDEAS

Certification programs and derivative

• Official training done locally
• Official Core Team support
• Official Core Team pre-sales (lead management & help during bidding process)

For me, all this requires a permanent structure at OSM/Core Team, with full time employees and coordinators. Will this ever happen?

[Michelle Bisson]

ChiefGoFor, 55thinking,

Thank you for your suggestions!

Michelle

[technopuzzle]

I didn't read this entire thread so I'm sure it has probably been mentioned, but if not...

SOBI2 could be modified and used and all commercial extensions could be charged a small fee for being allowed to advertise their wares. GPL extensions could be listed for free as an incentive to the developers to create GPL (or compatible) extensions.

This could also work for templates, template clubs, etc. Anything commercial could be charged a small fee.

[Michelle Bisson]

unixboymd,

Thank you for your suggestion!

[Tonie]

I'm definitely not in favor of charging anything for any listing on the Extensions Directory. It's a service to the community and developers, and that should stay that way.