Joomla! Discussion Forums

@Andrew

1) The talk of fork is not in this thread. Please read the title. With respect, this is a post to you and the others on the core and the purist. How can we live together IN joomla. Not how can we fork.

2-9 see point 1. please /paranoid off.

thank you

With the utmost respect it's perfectly relevant vscribe.  How do 3pd's make money in the GPL'd Joomla world - by doing everything they can to "strengthen" the Joomla! brand.  I will not mention it again, that was not my intention.  It was simply to impart some of my life experience seeing as I actually have experience orchestrating one and "know" the effect it can have on ones business.

Message: keep Joomla! strong to ensure that everyone has a strong market on which to establish a business.  It's not paranoia, it's business.  If Joomla! is diluted in any way, it reduces "our" capacity to a) make a business out of it.

We need some marketing people in here ...
It would be good to get some input on this from the marketing people that are watching.

[edit: adding:]

All I'm saying is that there are 9 of "many" reasons why it makes commercial sense to stick with Joomla and not fork, go to a different CMS, write your own, whatever ...

How do you know they aren't here?

Reworded.  Better?

Ha ha ha ha! Touche'

Well done!

Agreed. But Marketing implies captiolism, and I DO have to throw in on the deaththread comment,

both sides have retreated to the opposite corners (worded differently over there) and I tend to agree. If marketers are needed, then it implies (not putting text in anyone's mouth) that there is sales to happen. hence it makes sense for both camps to meet in a neutral place and resolve or agree to part ways.

Sounds good to me

maybe both sides should point an ambassdor.

In any case, I DO believe money can be made and I DO believe OS(ource) can exist as it is "idealized" to be.

I think the merits of both camps are not being considered by the other, which back to my question is how can we make money?

Or should I (seriously ask) ask should we? Should we all (the 3pd camp) go find new things to do? - a fair question, I think.

so my post stands - can I hear from some more folks with fresh ideas as to deliver OS(ource) code to paying customers and both parties (customers and devs) get what they need out of it.

My concern is that if the gnu is utopia, wheres the incintive to do it? -

Because they want to?  What is anyone's incentive to anything?  They get the incentive to things for any number of reasons, but wanting to is the first step.

Why does anyone want to become a policeman, an artist, a politician?  What is their incentive?

Hello Jennifer,

What business model, hence the topic, do you propose then?

Thank you

Are you looking for suggestions for someone that *only* has a, or a range of product?  I actually subscribe to the fact you need a fews eggs in different baskets.  But if you are wanting to home in on the hobbyist that wants to sell a few extensions on the side, it's completely different to the person who wants to establish a business.  So maybe clarify that up front??

@Andrew

That's a very fair question. Thank you for the clarification





I am refereing to the folks like Barrie, Phil, Vimes, etc. the hobbiest crowd is just that. Hobbiest.

Love em! I used to have a hobby before the TI-994/a then I was gone after that, but I digress...

I'd say a 1 to 8 man (not in the gender sense, so don't flame me) shop who is delivering a set of solution(s) to the small and medium businesses around the world.

Did I answer you? If not please let me know as I *think* I have the kresgin mode off but I'm never certain..

Obviously you missed my posts earlier in this thread.  Look up.

I have other ideas, but I have a feeling no matter what is suggested it will be shot down.  Just a note though, you can learn a lot from other independent business where competition is fierce and you have to be creative.  If you have the incentive to actually do what you love you can usually find a way to live a very comfortable and happy life.

I did not miss your point.

You did not answer my question. This is not a "philosphical" discussion. its a real question

It applies to other communities than Joomla.

No OS(ource) community can survive on "hobbiest".

My question does stand with the deepest respect to you, what business models can be offered to the 3pds that will allow them to conduct business, make money and honor the ideals of gnu?

Please don't confuse what I'm asking. My thread is very clear on this.

I never said you missed my point.  You missed my posts.  Earlier in the thread.  I have no control if you liked it or not.  I am not being philosophical.  I was being realistic. 

Many many people make their livings, living good comfortable lives doing exactly what they love to do.  They are able to do it because they want to do it, and they find the way to do it.  There is no free lunch, there is no free ride.  All the examples in the world of business models aren't going to make a bit of difference to anyone if they can't find the incentive in themselves to actually do.

A number of business models were suggested in the other thread. 

It makes no difference what line of work you are in.  When you work for yourself you have to be creative, you have to be driven, and you have to be able to adapt.  Owning your own business is hard.  Some people just aren't cut out for it.

There is no magic 8 ball that can say.. this is the best business model.  That is up to what the individual is wanting to put into their business.

So you don't know?

Is that it?

Just say so. Leave the ideals behind, I'm asking a valid question in an attempt to heal.

I think something that would help this discussion move forward would be to see a list of people who have made money selling GPL'ed software. It could be that not many people have tried and we're charting new territory. It could be that there are great successes out there we haven't considered. I think we've come up with a good collection of hypothetical GPL business models: let's list out some examples.

Know what?

I gave a valid answer to a question that has no right answer.  You are asking for a specific answer to a question that has a million answers.  As I said no matter what anyone says you will find a way to be contrary.

Just because you don't like an idea, doesn't mean it isn't valid. 

@joe - Hello - good to see you. Congrats on the book! (I hear you have coming out - can we feature it on the podcast??)

Would love that. Am waiting

@jennifier - Please....answer my question. or if you don't have any business models, that's really ok. Ideals are fine, the topic how do you MAKE MONEY in the GPL'ed Joomla! world.

I know your position that it should be free [of commerce], I understand. You have said, no one is against making money, again I understand, but if you don't have anything, this is a thread of peace, understanding, moving forward.

The other thread is the place to argue. Not here.

Ok, just further clarifying.  I don't know about Viems, but Phil and Barrie I'd call SMB (Small/Medium Business) owners, in other words it's their full time job and you are looking to gross sufficient to cover running costs and some sort of stipend.  I consider myself past technically past the "hobby" stage because my income derives 100% from Joomla! related services.

A hobbyist, to "me", is someone that has a day job, and they do this in their "other" time.

The two would require slightly different strategies to me, and obviously the "break point" between the two is a whole 'nother story.  I'm probably of more use to the SMB person.  For the hobbyist trying to "break in" per se, we are going to have to be a little more creative with our ideas.

@Andrew

Then you and I agree. 100% full time income as you state. The hobbiest, well, this would be pointless waist of energy (the deaththread) if we were debating that.

You have nailed it - 100% (or at least on the way past the hobbiest stage) - what business models.

This is a smart community, high-IQ's, surely there are answers?

thank you

Beaudy mate!  On the same page now.

Something I did up a while ago for some people.  Might help some people out.  I'll follow up with some numbers to put into the example when I get time.

--- --- ---

... it's a calculator for working out how much we should charge out for staff time.

But I hear you ask, "I get paid $50 an hour, isn't it as simple as charging the client $50 an hour...that covers me doesn't it".

The answer is actually no, and a big no typically by at least a factor of 2.  How so?  Well, there are a number of things that affect what you are paid and what needs to be billed.

I know we work odd hours and such, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to work on the fact that there are 52 weeks in a year and 40 hours in a working week.

You might ask, "ok, so it's 52 weeks times 40 hours to work out what income I generate, right?"  I wish it were so.  For salaried staff the number of weeks in the year and the number that are actually billable are different.  Salaried staff usually have 2 to 4 weeks of annual
leave a year, have 2 weeks sick leave a year to be allowed for and, depending on the country, there are at least a week or two when you
add up all the public holidays.  So that's at least 5 weeks that you can knock out where the staff member is not productive.

In other words, I can't bill for 52 weeks of the year, so for the 47 that I do work, I have to charge a little bit more otherwise the company will run out of money.

Ok, that's cool, but it doesn't stop there.  In the 40 hours I legitimately work, it's highly likely that not all of my time is billable.  There are staff meetings to attend, admin duties to perform, etc.  So in my day maybe 80% of it will be billable, so in those billable hours I have to charge a little bit more again to cover my non-billable hours.

Unfortunately the complications continue because not everyone is billable at the same ratio.  The sales people for example might only be able to directly bill 10% of their time, or maybe none at all.  So now my billing rate goes up again to cover the costs of the sales people (people with an important job of finding more work for me, so I can continue to bill out to support both them and me).

This is great and dandy, until the first bill for rent or the phone comes in.  Crumbs we have to account for that as well - so that bumps everyone's billing rate up a bit more as well.

For contract staff it's a little bit different.  They are usually paid a higher rate anyway to account for the fact that they are not paid sick leave, or annual leave and there is usually a job security factor thrown in as well.  However, their presence usually contributes somehow to overheads and so they need a multiplier as well, but not as high as salaried staff.

Are we there yet?  Nearly.  We can now add up all our expenses (overheads, salaries) and all our project income.  The last thing we usually factor in an allowance for bad debts (no! people wouldn't dare not pay us!).  If we allow for, say, 10% bad debts, we take that off our income.  After this we are finally ready to calculate our profit margin which is hopefully in the black.

Ok, that's written in a fairly casual style, but it hopefully emphasises the complexity of the issue, and how easily it is to under-estimate what needs to be billed to meet expenses in the long term.

@Andrew

Completly get it. I have a staff of 12. we have some who are pure "billable" and some who are adminstrative (non-billable). I have some who are SALES-yet have overhead.

We have a factor called 'loaded cost' that is, their salary * a mulitplier that includes, healthcare, workmans comp (state required), etc.

that would say (imagninary numbers) take a person who grosses $46,000 USD a year. You remove their cut of insurance, their contribution to their retirerment fund and TAX then they end up with say, (again imaginary) $36,000 take home pay.

Hmm...gee, if he or she is "billable" then I divide that by the 47 (per your very respectable post) weeks a year by 40 hours and I derive a number. can't do the math at this second, but let's say its $35.00 bucks an hour.

sounds easy eh?

Nope - add "loaded cost"

My "cost" to have them as an employee - workmans comp, MY part of their FICA (USA TAX STUFF), other assorted stuff, then ALL THE SUDDEN they are a lot more expensive for me to have them out "billing" -which doesn't happen every day, eight hours,etc..


net: its dang hard. You recogonize the challenge. I like this thread. Please don't let it die!

Here's something I posted elsewhere when asked the question.  Note it's "raw" thinking.

Mods, can we have a little latitude with things that could be considered self-promotion.  It's kinda easier to work in real-case examples and it's for the greater good?  If not, I'll adjust to "hypothetical" examples if necessary.

In answer to "so what would you do" :

--- --- ---

... I can't really say what's proper, but I can tell you what I'm going to do - at least so much as I've worked out the details.

Ok, the first thing to say is I don't put all my eggs in the one basket.  By the end of the year I hope to have a business that is going a bit of consulting, a bit of professional training and a bit of product development.  Each has it's seasons and one is able to support the other through the respective winters.  This is important because if you have one guy that lives and breathes off selling one component - if his sales go down, so does his support and development.

I have three commercial products: a Zine (like iJoomla but not really), a Catalog come Commerce solution (like VirtueMart only usable and skinable), and a simple forms component (like mosForms, less functionality but actually usable).  These fund a few free components; RokReporter that's been around for a while now, and RokACL which is 1.5 on "true" ACL (finally yay! ... catch is I don't know who much support I'll have for Joomla! native components).

These commercial works are all GPL but only available for download after you pay for them (hopefully I get more than one sale).  There's no domain restriction, you get it, you install it where you want.  After you pay your bucks, you get access to a few things - and these are the things I need to have to be the incentive for people to part with their dollars - and obviously allow me to keep doing cool stuff.

You get the extension, obviously, and usually a suite of modules and plugins that go with it.  You get access to support forum areas.  You get access to private areas for other purchasers to be able to discuss stuff.  You get access to premium documenation and hopefully videotorials (neither of which are GPL).  I'd like to be able to throw extra goodies to you throughout a versions life-cycle, extra modules, whatever, generally value-added stuff.  You obviously are the first to know about updates and patches.  We might do a newsletter, or tip letter, dunno yet.

I do mega-components, insanely flexible, but a bit of a chore to configure correctly ... something SAS that reduces that chore would obviously be an advantage.

Because it's open source, you can see what you pay for.  You can modify it in-house, etc.  ONe caveat is that there is nothing stopping you from buying one copy and then posting on your site for 10 bucks less.  It's legal, but I would kinda hope those people reap what they sow.  But I hope I can offer sufficient quality and service that I generate enough loyalty to keep a healthy level of development happening.  On the financial side - I just need enough to be comfortable and the rest I want to push more and more into my nominated charity (I'd love to be at the point where I keep 10% of my income and give 90% away - that's my goal).

I'm not worried about the warez sites because I don't want those people as clients anyway.  I'm not overly worried about the "freejoomla.net" sites because a) I can do some trickiness with copyright notices, that I give paying customers permission to remove, and b) it's free advertising!  I'm not worried about people seeing my code because everyone knows how I code anyway.

Honestly, I have a *tonne* of code lying around drives that I just want to see the light of day, and charge a fair amount to be able to sustain a business to deliver that.  And as I've mentioned, my only motive for more profit would be so that I can give more away and make a difference in the world.

Watermarking has limited effectiveness because it just keeps the honest people honest.  Nonetheless it a technique that can be used.

The GPL allows for a copyright notice to be displayed during execution of the script.  In the example of a component, it could output:

// NOTICE: This is an official copyright notice
// and cannot be removed without permission
echo '© 2007 Foobar Inc.  All rights reserved.';

It is my understanding you can grant an individual permission to remove that (c) notice from their site, but if they distribute then they will be required to pass on the original sources with the notice intact.

The downside is that you have to explain to the user how to remove it which could cost you more in support than the conversions (sales) it would entice

That said, watermarked may have a place for "demo" versions.  That's a possibility.

Well...demos are an easy fix. Yes

The false promise of the GNU is that it 'assumes' that locks keep honest and dishonest folks out. In other words, it 'requires' that you put the copy(c) on and pass it back, etc.etc. - that puts a lot of faith in mankind that is highly idealistic and highly misplaced.

With that said. Demos. Yes - lots of a ways to handle that.

Warez sites - all scum - easily handled with proper customer support policies - noted QUITE clearly on the (your) site.

If you wish to Gnu, (i.e. Joomla) getting ripped off is a fact of life. The difference I see, Andrew, is as I believe you are driving to is a services model and support of a growing customer base.

i.e. : 1 ) customer has to find you.. (that's a seperate problem - marketing)
      2 ) you have to 'court' the customer and convince them you are the product (lots of methods beyond the scope of this)
      3 ) they have to 'convert' to a paying customer and you (the developer) need assurance its not a "bs" fraud on paypal - iow..gos..someone got MY PASSWORD and MY PAYPAL addy and bought YOUR ext. Yes my email addy is xzy@extentions that match what I need.com.. ---this is where it gets weird and the ideals of GNU break down
        4) Support and repeat or further business.

That's the way I see the transactions, but I like the way you are headed.

Ivo has a good concept...
I mentioned this in the death thread briefly but here it is not offtopic to expand on....

there is a loophole in the GPL in regards to the definition of distribution...

Distribution normally defined means any disemination of the code but it is generally accepted that it is not considered distribution when that code is passed between developers as no license is defined yet in that transfer. If I was to work on project "A" I would not need a license or have to set a license to share my ideas with Developer "B".

We could have a simple Verbal Agreement about who to show it to (no different than a non-disclosure agreement which pertains to the company not the code) and pass the code between each other without it being considered a distribution under a GPL definition as distribution in the GPL generally applies to PUBLIC distribution not private!

The reason for this is it is reasonable that any entity will pass information between themselves while developing the product. You might show it to investors, Managers, Other developers in the company despite the fact the product is still unlicensed. I do not believe the GPL covers in house distribution at all which is where the loophole comes in.

If you set up a subscription site where the subscription made you a shareholder or a developer of the project you could then give them a copy of the program for thier own use. They would have a say in what future versions of that software did, they would get updates and newer versions and as a partner they would be held to the companies non-disclosure agreement which does not allow them to disclose that software to the general public.

It would not be much different than a coding club getting together and paying dues to make a project that everyone who is using is part owner, no license needed as it is no different than a company adding code to Joomla for their own personal use. In fact you could even try the coding club model if you wanted to. you do not need to license a program you yourself own and use for your own personal use. That is where the loophole on DISTIBUTION is...

What is the catch to this?
Well once in you would get free updates without further charge and if the people who want to buy into the club dries up so will the money to develop the project further. But if you got to that point you really wouldn't want to waste much more time in developing it anyway! The return would not be worth the effort! You could then PUBLIC license it under the GPL and continue to sell to the general public. Sort of squeeze the water from the rock. You could squeeze more from it providing a support service for it if you wanted.

Good observation.

I don't much care about loop holes because officially there ISN"T a legal standing () to base on.

Within the confines of the perceived as the 'core' has interpreted licensing, I am asking the question.

I would say, you are on to something, but a 'different' something.

How can 3rd parties make money in this current enviroment and stay "legal" to the perceived LAW of the license. Note: NO ONE has proven its law so please DO NOT quote it is unless you have case law and legal standing.

With that defensive posturing  = how can the Joomla! community continue to GROW AND attract new 'customers' to its base WHILE allowing 3pd's to make money....



thanks for putting up with semi-rant.

Andrew - you would know the answer to this better than anyone I suspect...

how hard would it be to create a GPLed (or LGPLed in this case may be better) sub program that would allow you to create a stand alone add on that did all of it's communication with J! via the LGPLed proxy?

Since you would be creating an LGPL link you would legally be able to meet the GPL conditions for derivatives and also legally interface a non-compatible GPL licensed code using the LGPL system...

It would seem to me to be quite easy for the 3PDs to get together and make this LGPL code and they could then do all their talking through that system.

(you gave this idea during your death thread explanation of the different examples of what constitutes derivative and what does not.)

function jdisplay = gdisplay (I think it was something similar to that...)

the LGPL would be derivative but it would also be compatible with the GPL of J!
I suppose you would have to add some code to comply with copyright law but I would have to think the 3PDs are smart enough to come up with a reasonable solution that all 3PDs could use to hook into the system.

Call it the 3PD library system
LOL


LOL VScribe I'm not particularly into loopholes myself...but as an engineer I am trained to look for them to solve impossible problems! LOL

Ha ha ha

Back at cha...engineer turned mgr... AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH