The Joomla! Forum ™

In recent months I have secured a domain name that was to one day be used for several pet projects regarding Joomla. The idea behind this site's purpose is essentially to assist in promoting Joomla and rewarding those who have made major contributions to its community. I wasn't looking to loose much money on the project but certainly not looking to make money. I have presented a similar idea to Soren of Virtuemart and have received an excellent response that wound missing during a computer transition. I'm not certain if this idea of mine would best be served by the Joomla core or by my own accord, but thought I'd vaguely make mention of it in the event it sparks interesting dialogue.

PROMOTIONS - Develop rewards systems that would reward members of the community with financial support for their work.

MERCHANDISE - Develop Joomla merchandise to support this effort. Originally, I was only looking to make a few knockoffs for myself. That was until this evening, once I put some more thought into it. I'm not certain if this would coincide with the Joomla Core or something I should seriously pursue myself.

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http://www.MediaArmory.com - WEB | PHOTO | WRITE | MARKETING | DESIGN
http://www.ActionArmory.co - Live Extreme Action Sports Lifestyle

under the usage terms for the joomla logo you cannot make merchandise.

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"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

While I take pride in the fact that I am not a lawyer, I am still well aware of trademark and copyright issues.

Pertaining to Joomla, my only desires were to make a set of decals for at least one of my vehicles and possibly a hand-painted t-shirt for myself. While I realize a massive void in the marketing of Joomla through merchandising and the like, my meek effort was merely for my own self identification and to serve as a my support for the project and its beloved community and a way of making others aware of Joomla legacy. Joomla just isn't doing this for itself or its community as of now and can't possibly chastise me for such a meager means of showing my support upon my own back or my own vehicles, particularly since it is a rarity to see any logo upon my clothing or my vehicles that is not paid for and supported by myself.

To clarify, if Joomla is not willing to ignite its resources toward producing such an effort and would rather continue concentrating all of its efforts to burrying its head in code, I would be willing to toss a few bucks and some time to launching the objective that we came up with here upon this forum. My intentions were never meant to be a seperate and totally commercial merchandising enterprise of my own. My suggestions were merely to provide a means of financing what little I can to get the effort going.

As for the website I had referrenced below, this again was to fill a void. I for one realize how much time can be wasted upon these forums.

After helping to develop and manage a primarily static website that garnered millions of unique visitors per month, I realized there had to be a better way of getting the job done than copying and pasting a handful of odd ball scripts together around static HTML pages and calling it a community. Off and on for the last three years I have searched for the ultimate system that would enable a true community to functionally emerge without having to have twenty different logins and usernames to manage each user. I have tried virtually everything and have gone from average HTML and Javascript skills to PHP and Ajax. I am still no code slinger. I'm just an average Joe withing this community.

And as I referrenced, I realize just how much time can be wasted upon these forums. If a person such as myself with his limited coding abilities can spend this much time and still manage to contribute something, I seriously have to hand it to those who are more adept in their knowledge and have gone to greater lengths than myself to accomplish the massive success that Joomla has become.

For one, I seek to find someway with my own adept skills to reward the saga and plight of those dedicated individuals. I highly doubt Joomla can stray in such a direction but would hope that it does. If not, as my time and resources permits, I will consider creating a means of doing it myself. AND NO!!! This would not be a commercial enterprise based upon Joomla merchandising. It would merely be my own pet project that would tribute and identify those making a difference in OUR community.

Might you have anything more to contribute than the stated limitations of the Joomla logo?

_________________
http://www.MediaArmory.com - WEB | PHOTO | WRITE | MARKETING | DESIGN
http://www.ActionArmory.co - Live Extreme Action Sports Lifestyle

Brian is right:



You would ask Brian Brad (sorry, it was my mistake) about this issue and I am sure you will find the best solution (may be some kind of partnershipbeetwen your project and the official Joomla! shop). I said Brian Brad because he wrote about the shop some time ago and I am not sure who is working on it.

This is not trying to cut off your initiative, which seems to be a positive effort.

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...nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses...
http://www.todosjuntos.org
http://inmo-e.com

Hmmm. Let's say then a member of the community served as a form merchandise by opting to tatoo Joomla! on his or her forehead. How would that fly with Joomla! logo licensing?

In all seriousness, I don't have any great ambitions to setup a shop or even hassle with such endeavors. I'd like to see Joomla! evolve into its element of potential than remain static with its head burried in the code. You see, the code and its momentum is incredible. It is so incredible that its progress has overlooked some highly valued elements of virtually any community environment.

Now, are you suggesting that a shop is currently being built? Please provide some details that can be disseminated to the masses. Thanks.

_________________
http://www.MediaArmory.com - WEB | PHOTO | WRITE | MARKETING | DESIGN
http://www.ActionArmory.co - Live Extreme Action Sports Lifestyle

Yes:



http://dev.joomla.org/component/option, ... 33/cat,22/

_________________
...nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses...
http://www.todosjuntos.org
http://inmo-e.com

I wonder what's taking so long to get this up and going? All they need to do is set up shop over at SpreadShirt.com. It's free, and it looks pretty easy to do.

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http://www.corywebbmedia.com/
http://www.howtojoomla.net/

That´s true if you want to have a spreadshirt shop.

But I am sure they are working with a different (and a better, IMO) idea.

PS: and, of course, there are priorities. Sometimes we use to forget that a year and some months ago we don´t have anything... We have now a set of websites, the forum, the forge, working groups...

_________________
...nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses...
http://www.todosjuntos.org
http://inmo-e.com

I've got a concept for a user group and it does tie into a significant merchandise stream, albietly in a variant way.

So we have the chicken or the egg scenario. To get sufficient revenue for what the group will do without sponsorship (I don't want to drain the J! coffers by doing it), marketing materials need to be produced and sold.. yet you can't have marketing materials due to the shop being non-existent and/or logo restrictions.

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Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

With SpreadShirt.com, you don't spend a dime. All you do is create some designs and put them on the products available for sale at SpreadShirt in your own store. There is no need to keep inventory because of SpreadShirt's system. They print a shirt only when it is ordered, which saves all of the overhead of having to buy a large quantity of t-shirts just to make it profitable.

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http://www.corywebbmedia.com/
http://www.howtojoomla.net/

Hehe, before we are going to have the whole discussion again about how easy it is to set up a shop let me re-assure everyone it isn't as easy as it seems. It might be easy if you want to sell a handful of shirts but if you are a truly global project that wants to ship merchandise across the globe at decent rates it becomes a completely different story. Not to mention tax, financial and management issues that are involved. But rest assured as Brad said work on the shop is underway ... as always it will be ready when it's ready. 

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Johan Janssens - Joomla Co-Founder, Lead Developer of Joomla 1.5

http://www.joomlatools.eu - Joomla extensions that just work
http://www.nooku.org - Extension development framework for Joomla

I've got contacts elsewhere for the actual merch production. It's more the logo restrictions on a shop that's non-existent, and not having any visible management structure for that commercial shop that's holding me back.

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

I absolutely agree!!! Thanks for chiming in. I am certainly glad to see such dialogue to this end and am very surprised to see there is a movement already underway in the Joomla underground to make this reality. This thread at least served the purpose of uncovering this underground operation.

_________________
http://www.MediaArmory.com - WEB | PHOTO | WRITE | MARKETING | DESIGN
http://www.ActionArmory.co - Live Extreme Action Sports Lifestyle

Interestingly enough, Drupal has their logo under a GPL, anyone can create t shirts for it.

http://drupal.org/node/15101

Makes money for Drupal, probably not as much as their own shop.....
Spreads the Drupal name to the community.. most definately....

The code's is GPL, why not the logo . Solve the store problme in one easy step

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Follow me on Twitter @compassdesign
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Which does beg the question of who gains in an open source community with licencing and usage on the logo that is closed, restrictive and well.. the opposite of open source... especially when that logo was decided by the community and designed by and large by the community.. If it was GPL'ed like Drupal, we wouldn't have this problem..

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

IMHO the license restrictions of the logo are a good idea and were specificaly placed to ensure that the logo could be used as a reveue source for the project.

Johan has said the problems have been nothing to do with the license of the logo but with financial issues such as tax etc

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

And don't Drupal's GPLed logo do exactly that - provide a revenue source ?

Examples:
http://www.cafepress.com/drupal/
http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop.php?sid=49100



That is.. if you want to buy through the 'official shop' that's not in existence. If you are purchasing elsewhere, there should be sufficient channels for user groups create a branded J! logo for funding of their groups. There isn't these channels, since the modus operandi seems to be running on the assumption that there will be an official shop and that's all there ever can be.

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

I'm not geting into a disucssion about why we dont have a joomla store yet. Several of us worked really hard to get it going

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

The store is immaterial. The fact the Brand Manual goes into minute detail about the Logo only being used inside the Official Shop merch as part of the licencing agreement is the kicker.  If the licence was different, as pointed out by Barry, we wouldn't have this problem.

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

If the license was different then anyone could take the logo and produce merchandise and then do whatever they what wth the money.

There is little enough income from donations to miss the opportunity to get revenue from merchandise

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

They could. However, what do you think would happen if someone unscrupulous was documented as abusing the logo ? You don't think there would be a grassroots rebellion against that venture. (70,000+ users distributing news of the licence abuse through the blogosphere / Net) ?

Considering Miro and a few other people (not naming names) have been scolded by passionate open source users for various claims they've made about J! over it's history (even back when it was Mambo, too.), they'd either be plain dumb or intentionally want to gain a bad reputation in intentionally abusing the logo..



Then rethink the business model if it's not working.

Let the user groups self-finance using the logo under a more relaxed licencing arrangement, with a cut of the sales going to J!. At which point, you'd have tailored merch for each demographic, and you'd have a consistent stream of income for J! itself based on the UG userbase.

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

Well we are already seeing people in certan locations producing joomla merchandise with no "cut" going to the project.

Personaly I dont see the problems with creating a official store using spreadshirt or cafepress but I know that neither of those options are favored. And that imho is the reason for no store

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

So you make sure the people doing merch actually do provide some benefit to the project. It shouldn't be too hard to include that in the revised licence, now should it ?

See, even with the gate fully shut in terms of licencing, you've got licence abuse. You've also told me that we have a problem with donations and revenue. Obviously therefore we need some form of restructing of the business model in order to increase cashflow and maintain control over the logo in some form or other.

UG's are a way of capturing "customers" within the open source community. They should form part of the J! revenue stream, as the UG's need to survive somehow (independently of the cash flow of J! / OSM), need to pay for rooms, marketing and so on to meet.. and need to more than break even.

The logo is part of this. Without the logo, user groups are starved of a way of informing the community around them: "Hey, we're your local Joomla! outfit. Come join us to talk about websites and design. Come meet developers and designers who you can work with in your local community to deliver your websites", since they have no marketing materials due to the licence not allowing them to create marketing materials. And without that information stream locally, nothing may happen to get those UG's off the ground. At no point should a UG have to raid the main J! coffers to start or survive in the local community.

You can then potentially get J! subcultures with their own merch:

• DJJ! - DJs who use J!
• J! Women
• J! CSS Samurai
• J! Usability Ninjas

Considering we have officially 70,000+ people inside the official forums, that's a lot of different demographics... and a lot of potential revenue streams. By making UG's a revenue stream, you then help finance against licence abuse since part of the profits goes to J!.

I may raise this with Brad when we meet on the 23rd as well.

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

Lawrence perhaps some misunderstanding.

Local groups have been granted permission (on request) to create merchandise what has not been allowed is the creation of a general store selling merchandise with the joomla logo.

Perhaps Pete or Shayne could comment more on why the store has never happened

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

Where's the document that confirms this, and why isn't it part of the brand manual ?

And is there any stipulation on the store used by the user groups to create the merch in the first place ? (If the store is online in any form, does it make it a "general store"?)

My point still stands regarding making UG's part of the ongoing revenue stream for J!. Donations won't be enough. I've worked at too many NFP/NGO's which have faced this problem. We need to guarantee some form of ongoing revenue.

_________________
Design with integrity : Web accessible solutions
http://www.absalom.biz
http://twitter.com/absalomedia

To the best of my knowledge the only merchandise that has been approved has been related to events such as Joomladay (I know of  holland and the UK) and the shirts were sold at the event and not online

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

I think I fall with Lawrence on this one. Having a GPL logo sidesteps the problem of managing a store, which is a HUGE overhead. I would be convinced that community volunteers would step up and create merchandise as has happened at Drupal.

It would also seem to be obvious to me that the ones that made the commitment to returning a % of profits to Joomla would be the ones that got the links/advertising from joomla.org.



Sure some abuse might occur round the fringes, but it would be small compared to the revenue from the main site links.

This to me seems like a no brainer. An ecommerce store is a big undertaking, bigger than the extensions site, with all sorts of legal, tax and logistical issues in it. Opening up to a community solution is:

1. More efficient
2. Mind bogglingly easy to implement (its just a decision and a signature)
3. A solution more in spirit with open source. A licensed logo and store is all about control control control.

My 2 groats...

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Even better, keep the license as is, just let volunteers start vitual cafepress type stores....

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Various people, myslef included, have offered to do thi several times in the past but each time we have been told not to. (And these were for stores where 100% of the revenue went directly to joomla! not even passing through the store owners hands.


Please dont misunderstand me I dont see why a store cant happen either and I cant see how a cafepress or spreadshirt store is anything more than a miniscule task.
[me=brian]would prefer everyting todo with joomla to be gpl including code, logo, documentation[/me]

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"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

LAWRENCE/ABSALOM: Write on!!! 

We're on track with the spirit of this conversation and its overall direction as led by Lawrence.

There are certainly some elements of the logo license that are odd and even questionable. This open source project has a potential monopoly on its own highly-restrictive logo license. So far, it has yet to produce a profitable platform even with this restriction and a market that it supresses. The result remains that its devout following is left with nothing. Now, should Joomla rise to the occassion and develop a store in spite of its logistical nightmares mentioned in this thread, do you think that its highly restrictive structure controled (control control control) structure would actually allow it to function to its fullest potental by serving the needs of its many international markets? At this time, I highly doubt Joomla Core is savy or even flexible enough to make this work. Furthermore, such control would certainly miss the mark in allowing sub-communities (such as geographical and ideological sub-communities and social clubs) to fully develop and mature.

My idea behind the creation of the site I mentioned earlier would be to support Joomla Core, devout Joomla contributors  and its sub-communities (organizations) by allowing the community to dictate the recipients of much of the site's revenue beyond the essential operating costs. The site would serve as a social environment and provide for the organizational backbone of sub-community development and prosperity. Virtuemart would be deployed with such an asset as the wholesaler addon recently created operate as a hub for an international dropshipping network, meaning products would be handled by its assigned retailer and a portion of those proceeds would be directed to the community effort and adminstrated by the site.

Moving forward, should Joomla Core choose to proceed down its current avenue of restrictive logo usage, I'd suggest setting up a sub-site and follow a similar line as that mentioned above.

Gots to go. In a hurry.

_________________
http://www.MediaArmory.com - WEB | PHOTO | WRITE | MARKETING | DESIGN
http://www.ActionArmory.co - Live Extreme Action Sports Lifestyle