[feedback] Developers pay

zem · 2007-04-30 02:37:29

Another classical answer is “make into a plugin”. MLP for instance never should have been a plugin/hack thing, which is way too hard to maintain, and is doomed to die anytime soon.

I’d love for the MLP devs to send us ideas, suggestions or code for the core. No doubt they’ve learned a lot about the issues involved and how best to deal with them.

And regarding the rest of your answer, you seem to be confusing “to-do lists” with “will-be lists”. We’re not asking for promises. We’re asking for directions as to where we can help. You know, the kind of things you must be telling each other on IRC. We’re not asking for ressources, we’re offering, and would just like to know where and how they might be useful.

That’s great, thank you. We’re already working on something like that (a kind of target “wish list”) with help from Matthew Smith.

Last edited by zem (2007-04-30 02:42:16)

hcgtv · 2007-04-30 03:12:16

guiguibonbon wrote:

I have rather seen the opposite : everytime the community is showing willingness to contribute (take Image Improvement thread, and Admin facelift for instance); it looks as if devs are intentionaly refusing to give any direction.

I concur, when I was working on a templating mechanism, it was like creepy eerie silence. So I went ahead and did something, not knowing if it fit into the grand scheme of things but what was I to do?

There’s obviously an interest in Textpattern, and seeing zero’s thread over at Textdrive, there’s also loyalty in the face of adversity. I don’t see how the status quo can continue forever, no matter how good the code may be, a community needs something to cling onto.

maniqui · 2007-04-30 06:10:47

Denn Zeit ist Geld (= time is money).

guiguibonbon wrote:

I have rather seen the opposite : everytime the community is showing willingness to contribute (take Image Improvement thread, and Admin facelift for instance); it looks as if devs are intentionaly refusing to give any direction.

An idea that doesn’t try to become a word is a bad idea. A word that doesn’t try to become an action is a bad word.
“Feature ideas” forum is plenty of words (ideas born previously in our brains). Then it comes the next step, so those words doesn’t keep as words but become actions
I understand this are some possible actions:

submit a patch
hire a developer to develop it
wait (and be patient) until someone else does one of the above actions.

Although it happens, we can’t always expect for someone to take the action we are thinking (and needing).
Action takes time (hey, thinking ideas and writing them down in a forum takes time too, but that doesn’t usually make things happen).

Having two TXP versions? (one free, one commercial, like EE).

I don’t like the idea at all, mostly because it won’t be beneficial for me.
Many of us likes the idea of open-source software, not just because software has to be free, but because we love free things. But also, we love a useful thing for free.
And we even love it more when the free thing is the best thing out there, even better than any paid version. I love free things!

Also, my magic ball tells me that two TxP versions will lead to some disruption in the community, people leaving, probably a TxP fork… ufff… i’m really scared looking at my magic ball.

Well… now a question: what do you think about next major TxP release (4.1) released through a ransom funding? Is that possible?

Paying for TxP to make it free! (as free beer and free speech!)
That could be a good measure to know how strong is this community!

The price?
Once, Zem has ponted to an online tool that tells you how much a software development cost by analizing some variables.
I have no idea, but if we analize TxP it will probably cost thousands and thousands of hundreds of dollars.
Yeah, paying for a very high ransom price may fail, but if we take a look at the ransomed TxP plug-ins, they all were real success!
And consider this: plug-ins are little pieces of software and aren’t usually needed by all of us, so in plug-in ransoms, just a minor percentage of the community participates.

But ransoming a TxP releases may be different. We all need it, we all desire it.
Of course, the problem is: people wants to know what are they paying for, so, they want to know if not just the infamous Feature X, but the Feature Y and the Feature Z will be included too.
But then again, we are not paying a fixed quantity for one copy of the product. Each one is contributing an amount to make it free.

Thanks and excuse my english.

nardo wrote:

here is a Textpattern way of doing things (maybe Maniqui can define, he is elegant & eloquent from that point of view!)

Thanks for the compliment. Did I do it in an acceptable way?

zem · 2007-04-30 07:06:36

I concur, when I was working on a templating mechanism, it was like creepy eerie silence. So I went ahead and did something, not knowing if it fit into the grand scheme of things but what was I to do?

Bert: I do believe I saw your initial post about templates, and took a brief look at the time. Perhaps I’m overlooking something, but I don’t think you’ve ever contacted the dev team about it.

What exactly are you waiting for?

marios · 2007-04-30 07:59:34

I don’t think, that I do share most of the opinions, that have been expressed on this thread and already feel sorry, that I mentioned the 10%revenue options of the VC II hosting deals. ( That’s also the least thing that I am concearned about )

It happens also, that I spend a lot of time on this forum ( Since it is a valuable learning resource to me ) and my impression is, that Zem ( and the core developers in general ) are beeing judged in the wrong way here.

I have seen the following things ( No links here, but they are out there )

When a crucial bug get’s reported, it usally get’s fixed pretty soon
When a marginal change of something happens in the codebase, it get’s anounced and discussed here almost immediately and transparently. Users are asked for their opinions, and changes are being mase accordingly, as not to break anything. ( Textile changes are a recent example )
The WIKI get’s updated consistently ( Mary is a good example ) and the changes are visible to anyone
The community get’s asked to contribute, to keep the documentation up to date ( Which mostly doesn’t have any effect )

I would like therefore to defend Zem’s contributions ( The commits, commitments, his reliability and consistency for all the above mentioned things and more )

The work that has been done ( and continues to , I think speaks for itself ) , it’s much better to take a look at what has been done, instead of what has been sayd.

I also voted originally for a registered plugin support, but changed my mind later on, and think, that a premium support option is more important to me ( which I posted thereafter underneath )

Textpattern already has around 300-400 plugins with which you can customize it in one way or the other.
It is relatively easy to implement about any feature, but it isn’t esy to combine some of them so they all fit together homgenously and yes, some of them already should be core.

Something inbetween a plugin/premium support option somehow would fit my needs.

The current votes at treshholdstate shows, that the plugin option by far superceedes the support option
( Why is that, with hundreds of plugins around ? )

However, if I can get the premium support , I’d be more than happy with it and be willing to pay for it.

That’s all I have to say.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2007-04-30 08:02:05)

nardo · 2007-04-30 09:38:47

I have rather seen the opposite : everytime the community is showing willingness to contribute (take Image Improvement thread, and Admin facelift for instance); it looks as if devs are intentionaly refusing to give any direction.

certainly possible for non-coders to work thru big feature requests: specify key functionality, mockup admin screens, discuss language, usability etc. but for it to be useful needs some form of final report that synthesises the proposals & assumptions behind them … have these been produced?

many here would have the experience of trying to implement html/css for a designer who hasn’t thought thru their visual design comps for the multitude of circumstances that arise from a complex site managed by a script; and the markup takes many times longer to write

don’t intend to slight community projects or contributions that have been or are ongoing!! (or suggest they have not been thought thru) … just know from experience that even with the best of intentions sometimes things aren’t brought to a conclusion … also I don’t think u need developer direction where the first instance is not code at all but time-consuming discussion, negotiation and specification

be good to see more reports back from people deploying large or unusual sites – regarding where Txp worked or didn’t work… case studies for other txp users & valuable feedback for developers; will try to do this

Maniqui – that’s good; the zen of Txp you once said… it does teach patience and composure! Marios, I do agree with you

Bastian · 2007-04-30 10:37:03

Sometimes this forum discussions has a tone that i don`t like.
Maybe while i’m not a native English speaker i feel like there is a tone of reproaching:

The dev team should do…
Couldn`t the dev team…

And the devs have to defend what and how they are doing.

I am around with Textpattern for more then two years and since i started several new versions have been released. Nearly all of my questions in this forum has been answered within 24 hours and even a couple of mails i send to dev team have always been answered quickly.

So from my point of view there is no reason to accuse anyone!

Textpattern is free and and its running stable.
There is a lot of time and work in it.

I´m a student and i do these web things in my spare time. My housing is paid and my fridge is not empty. But i try to keep in mind that others have to pay bills by webworking.

Of course no one gets rich and famous working an an open source project, but maybe there is a way to make sure that the devs don`t loose money working on TXP.

So i`m open to any ideas for an reliable and regular source of income through TXP for the devs.

Maybe it will not be much, but even a small reward can make a difference.

hakjoon · 2007-04-30 14:24:32

What happened to Textpattern Pro and Bannister? I thought they were supposed to address this.

One word of caution on the premium/plugin front. It is a delicate balance to not give the impression that you are leaving things out of core in order to be able to provide premium plugins. I know that was abig hubub over in Mabo-land because one of the core team had a commercial clean URLs plugin and that or similar functionality was never brought in core. It was perceived as a conflict of interest. This of course does not always have to be the case (I’m a Redirect Pro subscriber BTW).

There is one model that I found interesting from when I was heavily involved in 3D animation. Lightwave 3D has a big 3rd party plugin community (free and commercial). If a plugin provided enhanced enough functionality and implemented something that should be part of the application the Lightwave team would buy the rights to the plugin and often release it as part of the next version.

Now that means that some people now get for free what other payed for, but there was normally a fairly large time difference. The logic was that if you made a living off Lightwave and that plugin saved you time or allowed you to do something you couldn’t without it you probably payed the cost of it 3 or more times over by the time it was bundled in core.

I thought would be a neat system along with Zem’s subscription plugin model. I think redirect pro is extremely valuable and more then worth the price I payed for it, but I also think it’s functionality that belongs in core. So what if the model was that something is available under a subscription or payed model for an initial period and then eventually got rolled into core? Those that need the functionality for projects right away could pay for it but eventually it would lead to increased functionality of the core package. The time frame could be up to the developer maybe after a certain amount is reached or an arbitrary number of releases. Of course it could remain commercial forever too.

Anyway just thinking out loud. Don’t know if this would work or if there is any interest but it is a model that I have seen work in another industry.

HedgeHog · 2007-04-30 14:40:52

I think the problem between the Devs and the community is one of perception. Zem is an awesome developer, just look how well Textpattern works, but Zem is not the Texpattern evangelist. The community wants an evangelist, a visionary, a leader, a driving force that propels Textpattern to new heights. Since Dean left, the community just thought Zem would pick up that role since he is the lead developer. I believe it is a role that he does not want. He loves to code, he has a family, he needs to make money, it’s really that simple.

I think two things need to be resolved. 1. Finding a new or old evangelist (Dean?) to bring vision back to the project. 2. Find a method of paying the developers so they can work on Textpattern more or full time.

Wordpress and Six Apart have found ways to generate cash, I think we can to.

Your thoughts?

Thank you.

hcgtv · 2007-04-30 15:29:52

zem wrote:

Bert: I do believe I saw your initial post about templates, and took a brief look at the time. Perhaps I’m overlooking something, but I don’t think you’ve ever contacted the dev team about it.

By posting on this forum, I thought I was contacting or at least letting the dev team know about my templating ideas. Would you like us to email someone in particular when we have an idea?

colak · 2007-04-30 15:37:41

@ HedgeHog
This is not about finding a new evangelist. Dean did not work on the project for long enough to have become one. TXP is neither Apple nor Microsoft. We do not need another Jobs or Gates.

@ txp team
I’ve been working on a zero money project for 2 and a half years now and I know how frustrating it can be.
I have to say that I am very confused about certain issues expressed in the past few weeks since zem’s announcement/poll. For example there is this in txd and there is this post by zem. Up to now all added up with the fault on txd, but then there was this zem statement pointed to me by Christopher which he topped it by this post by noel. Noel’s post actually admits that he receives money from txd. Admittedly $600 is not a lot but he says he received it nevertheless. I believe that even $10000 would not be enough for the txp team considering they are a team and not an individual AND the amount of work they have put into this software. Nevertheless I would like to know the whole picture.

Has the txp team been offered money by txd and they refused it?
Has the txp team receive any money from txd, doesn’t matter how little?

This post is written not to attack the txp team but for me to resolve some questions expressed in the txd forum by many as well as by me . And I am not talking about T-shirts here… I am talking about this response

>Edit… typos

Last edited by colak (2007-04-30 18:42:41)

hcgtv · 2007-04-30 15:49:10

HedgeHog, I believe we have a leader in Zem but an evangelist who conveys the TxP vision would be nice to have.

colak, Noel works for Joyent, I’d like to hear from the other projects before I lay this to bed.

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#61 2007-04-30 02:37:29

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#62 2007-04-30 03:12:16

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#63 2007-04-30 06:10:47

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#64 2007-04-30 07:06:36

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#65 2007-04-30 07:59:34

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#66 2007-04-30 09:38:47

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#67 2007-04-30 10:37:03

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#68 2007-04-30 14:24:32

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#69 2007-04-30 14:40:52

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#70 2007-04-30 15:29:52

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#71 2007-04-30 15:37:41

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#72 2007-04-30 15:49:10

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

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