comments on Reader poll: Textpattern Membership

FireFusion · 2007-04-20 16:06:04

Remember no one is saying Textpattern will cost anything in the future

The membership will just offer one or some of those features and be a means for them to continue with their excellent work. Textpattern will still be free.

Jeremie · 2007-04-20 18:33:24

To get back to the original vote, my little opinion on the vote and the choices:

First, it’s clear it’s an optional “add-on” of some sort. A way of keeping the software free and open-source, and yet to generate more income from it.

Let’s see the options:

Exclusive plugins or add-on features: it’s sort of happening right now with plugin’s ransom and subscription for Zem_Redirect_Pro and the Professional Series. So if that works, I don’t see the need for another “official” one. If that doesn’t, I’m not sure making it closer to the core in appearance will make it successful.
Official documentation: I’m very much against it. First, it’s not a good business move. Writing documentation is a huge task, one that require specific skills… if it was that simple, the core team would have written the upcoming Textpattern book. Besides, the documentation would have to be damn good to shadow the TXP community work overall, which is a very, very good one. And it would drain from that community… why bother solve someone’s issue, or write a piece of tutorial or documentation article, if you can sell what you produce to the Team Textpattern for inclusion in the official documentation? And finally, it’s a deterrent for new user: ask a question, get the answer “it’s explained in the official doc”, but the doc isn’t free, so you’ll join less easily the TXP users.
Improved support resources for members: bug reporting, additional forums: this is the one I voted, because I didn’t know what else to vote and the vote doesn’t allow any kind of granularity. It’s a way of serving people who need answer, but can’t find it or don’t have the skills for it. If a database goes haywire while running TXP, if massive spam is going on, if a site was hacked, and if it’s not a small personal blog but a major client’s professional website, you want the best and more knowledgeable to investigate the issue with you, and more important to commit to finding a acceptable solution (which can’t be promised of course, but that’s the closest thing available). But alone I’m not sure that would generate enough income.
Extra content: articles, tips, examples, etc: without insulting the core team, the makers are not the best users. I don’t see how they could best the community produced content of TXP snippets, website thinking, etc.
Inclusion in a directory of Textpattern web sites: that’s a pretty basic one, and I almost voted for it. However it’s so basic that I felt my vote was not worth it, since it will be done either way. It’s selling backlink, plain and simple, and yet effective.
Swag: a T-shirt, coffee mug, or other merchandise: not enough hype to justify a exclusive item. However, opening a small shop of TXP merchandise might be worth it. But it doesn’t need to be inside a TXP member program, the more it’s open, the better it will work.
Nothing, I’d just like to help support continued Textpattern development: quite much something I already do (in time mostly, but since I haven’t been able – yet – to use TXP professionally as much as I wanted, I can’t right now overgrow massively my $300 donated or so). And donation doesn’t work that well, we all know that, so I don’t think it’s a profitable move for the TXP team.

However I have a small idea of income for them, maybe alongside all that… I’ll mail it to Alex.

Last edited by Jeremie (2007-04-20 18:35:32)

DigitalRealm · 2007-04-20 19:28:01

Here is something to think about…..

First
Would people really pay for extra features (plugins especially), when they can go to another CMS or blogging engine that already offers that functionality, and a better community, and a better support system, plus so much more for free?

Second
What happens if you release a “Pro Version” or “Paid” plugin that provides X features. Then, someone comes along and builds that same plugin, with same functionality, and it is free.

I am assuming that a monthly fee would give access to the entire range of features, not just specific plugins, etc. so the second thing I mentioned above may be irrelevant.

In my personal opinion
I think that it would be better to figure out a way bring on more core developers. Forget the “submit a patch” crap for finding them. You simply offer the opportunity for people to join the team, narrow down your choices based on certain criteria, and put them to work.

Give them smaller tasks at first in order to work them into the core group and build that reputation, then give them more prominent tasks that really spreads the major workload of the core team. That reduces time spent for everyone and allows for better development across a wider range of developers.

I think that this is the way to really continue the AWESOME community here and grow it bigger and better than ever. I am just afraid that if you start offering “premium” content, you will start to lose the community, which is what has made TXP what it is today. Don’t forget that……..

maniqui · 2007-04-20 20:26:40

DigitalRealm wrote:

Here is something to think about…..

First
Would people really pay for extra features (plugins especially), when they can go to another CMS or blogging engine that already offers that functionality, and a better community, and a better support system, plus so much more for free?

Which one? Does it really exist? I think we’re already there! :D

hcgtv · 2007-04-20 20:46:58

maniqui wrote:

Which one? Does it really exist?

Wordpress ;)

Jeremie · 2007-04-20 20:51:15

hcgtv wrote:

Wordpress ;)

For a blog, not much anything else.

Jeremie · 2007-04-20 20:55:07

DigitalRealm wrote:

What happens if you release a “Pro Version” or “Paid” plugin that provides X features. Then, someone comes along and builds that same plugin, with same functionality, and it is free.

It already work, and even under GPL.

zem · 2007-04-20 22:12:36

Here’s how every one of the current dev team members joined:

1. We sent lots of patches.
2. We kept sending patches.
3. Eventually the existing team gave in and assigned us checkin permissions.

Dean didn’t hand anything over to us: we pestered him with patches.

Regarding the “more developers” meme: what we need is more code, more testing, more bugfixes. More developers doesn’t necessarily achieve that, and often has the opposite effect.

We regularly hear from people who want to form some kind of committee, get appointed to some kind of official position, or be handed control over something. Their assuption is that by creating this position or group, work will magically get done. That’s backwards. We’ve gone through this a number of times before. What happens is, they get the badge they were seeking; have fun for a few weeks, then lose interest.

Build stuff first. If it’s good, we’ll do what we can to give you what you need.

If you’d like to contribute something to the Textpattern project (anything at all: code, design, ideas, testing, evangelism, documentation, articles¹, whatever), then we’ll welcome your help, and do what we can to make it “official”. There’s an entire forum dedicated to organizing and coordinating those things.

If you’d like to organize a roadmap, by all means do: post on the Contributions forum, and find some developers who will commit to building those features. Send patches.

Please don’t ask to be appointed sheriff.

Regarding the discussion of paid versions, commercial versions and so on: please re-read the article. The ideas posed there are all about finding a way to grow Textpattern without needing a commercial version.

¹ Seriously: I’d love for some community members to get behind some of the ideas on this thread. Write some “why you should use Textpattern” articles. Write some how-to’s. Write more docs, or find a way to make them more accessible. Organize a gallery of top Textpattern sites, a portfolio of designers, a directory of plugins, or come up with a better idea than those. Let us know when you have a draft ready.

Last edited by zem (2007-04-20 23:19:20)

zem · 2007-04-20 23:30:34

Writing documentation is a huge task, one that require specific skills… if it was that simple, the core team would have written the upcoming Textpattern book.

Mary is one of the authors.

Pedro wrote the original Textpattern tag reference.

I wrote the Plugin Anatomy series.

Jeremie · 2007-04-21 00:12:01

Yup I know, I meant sooner and by itself. Not that you, or Mary, or Sencer, can’t wrote technical documentation, just that it takes a lot of time, and has never been done (still to this day, the only documentation of Textile is mostly Dean’s in comments from the Textile’s class PHP, and the source itself; to take one example).

hcgtv · 2007-04-21 14:08:51

zem wrote:

Here’s how every one of the current dev team members joined:
1. We sent lots of patches.
2. We kept sending patches.

From following the mailing list and SVN, I would think both ruud and wet would be candidates for the dev team, that is if they so desire to join.

ruud seems to know his way around the code rather well and wet, well he’s a pro ;)

ruud · 2007-04-21 14:32:19

I agree with most of what Jeremie said about the potential 7 membership benefits, except for one thing: bug reporting and additional support forums:

Is it reasonable to expect people to pay if they want to report bugs? Instead I’d welcome a public bug tracker and am willing to help fix those bugs.
Who will be answering the questions in those additional support forums; just team TXP or other community members as well… and do they have to pay to be able to answer questions?

Of all the options offered, if I were to cast a vote (and I’m not) I’d donate only to help support continued development of TXP. Instead of donating money, I prefer to donate time.

what we need is more code, more testing, more bug fixes. More developers doesn’t necessarily achieve that, and often has the opposite effect

Absolutely. Even though there are plenty people around here who can write good quality code, I don’t see why there’s a need for them to be part of team TXP. You can write patches and send them to txp-dev. It’s the job of team TXP to decide whether to include them or not and provide (more) feedback to patch submitters especially when rejecting patches. For a project like TXP, I doubt more than 3 or 4 people are needed to make such decisions. The world needs less managers, more workers ;)

The Wikipedia article that zem is linking to has some very interesting ideas, especially the parts about “Conceptual Integrity” and “The manual”. I’ll quote the ‘manual’ part here:

What the chief architect produces are written specifications for the system in the form of the manual. It should describe the external specifications of the system in detail, i.e., everything that the user sees. The manual should be altered as feedback comes in from the implementation teams and the users.

I think ideally, team TXP writes less code and spends more time documenting how textpattern is supposed to work (both existing and future code). Writing such a “manual” is not a small task, but does enable people outside team TXT to:

transform those technical specifications into an accurate user manual. Textbook is great, but IMHO it still depends too much on reading the code and guessing how it’s supposed to work.
help find bugs and send in patches to fix them. Right now that’s difficult, because without proper documentation it’s difficult to see what is a bug and what is a feature.
write new chunks of code that implement new stuff as described in such a manual.

mapu · 2007-04-21 18:02:29

Jeremie wrote:

Swag: a T-shirt, coffee mug, or other merchandise:

Haha, I’m still waiting for my TD VC200 T-shirt for… 2 years… 3 years…?

Mary · 2007-04-21 18:11:01

Here is a clue-by-four. These magical people, constantly invented in the imagination by the usual people, who are both insurmountably talented and can give unlimited amounts of time for nothing: do not exist. Can we all not think about this rationally and fairly?

Not that you, or Mary, or Sencer, can’t… has never been done…

Jeremie: You just totally dismissed several existing and in-works stuff right there: Alex just listed only three of them.

The world needs less managers, more workers

Ruud: Please trumpet this to the hills. Paint it on your forehead. Make it your theme song. As you can tell, if I or Alex says it, it is… not acceptable (and I quote: “crap”).

Haha, I’m still waiting for my TD VC200 T-shirt…

Marcus: :) Note whom was offering that. :)

mapu · 2007-04-21 18:14:07

Mary wrote:

Marcus: :) Note whom was offering that. :)

I know, I know, but that was the first thing that came to my mind… and btw the first for a long time that I was remembering that promise ;)

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