[feedback] Developers pay

Neko · 2007-04-30 16:42:18

alexandra wrote:

The TXP world is very, vey small. The idea people buy something for TXP projects is far out for me. There are too many other CMS out there in the wild net you get for free.

True. But I’d like to stick to TXP, not only ‘cause I like it and like here, but also because by now, after three years, I’m a kind of “pro” TXP user :) and switching to something else and new to me means that I’ll have to start from the scratch, learning all the way up here.

Zem says, hire us, pay for the next long-awaited feature and then we will release said feature into the next TXP core. That makes sense. Problem is I don’t have the means to pay ~~5,000~~ X,000 USD for a TXP based e-commerce solution or multi-language solution or multiple-categories or anything else. I can pay 500. Anyone want to share with me the development costs? If so, hook me up and we’ll talk to Zem. Otherwise I stand for my idea of a “pro” version. /ducks for cover

Last edited by Neko (2007-04-30 17:25:26)

alexandra · 2007-04-30 16:51:09

Well Neko, the trouble is a handfull of people willing to pay one time is not enough … you constantly have to attract new users. As soon as they read: you have to pay for it, the turn to WP or whatever .. and WP f. e. is deadeasy to setup and use.

goncalo.dumas · 2007-04-30 16:57:03

Neko wrote:
bq. True. But I’d like to stick to TXP, not only ‘cause I like it and like here, but also because by now, after three years, I’m a kind of “pro” TXP user :) and switching to something else and new to me means that I’ll have to start from the scratch, learning all the way up here.

From time to time my curiosity leads me to try other blog/cms applications – being symphony the latest, but I always end up returning to textpattern.

Jeremie · 2007-04-30 17:02:13

I strongly reject the idea of a commercial, not open source, “pro” version. If this pro version should stay open-source, well myself I have nothing against it, but I’m not sure it’s a good move overall.

However, I’ve participated in several plugin ransom and in Alex’s pro member program with eagerness. But the limit of plugin ransom (and plugin pay) is tied to the plugin status: it’s not safe in the long run, it can cause someone to delay a TXP upgrade (and it definitely shouldn’t). Maybe part of the plugin money could be saved to support a core integration of the plugin, once it has been fully tested by the community (and of course, if’s something that belong to the core)?

alexandra · 2007-04-30 17:10:08

patchwork schrieb:

From time to time my curiosity leads me to try other blog/cms applications – being symphony the latest, but I always end up returning to textpattern.

You are familiar with the system…. newbies don´t care. You did return not turn to TXP. Okay people of course turn to TXP but how many turn to WP/Joomla/ModX daily? I have stats in mind …

colak · 2007-04-30 18:30:28

Due to the unfortunate title zero has used in the txd forum regarding open source funding the thread is disintegrating into jokes and sarcasm. I have started a new thread here which will hopefully emphasise the seriousness of our questions regarding the txd pledge.

mamash · 2007-04-30 19:03:16

hcgtv wrote:

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

Noel does not work for Joyent in any way. He’s an open source developer and is a customer of Joyent.

alexandra · 2007-04-30 19:15:15

@colak, make sure the links on txd thread are correct.. i just ended up in nirwana… ups perhaps a server issue again…

hcgtv · 2007-04-30 20:22:19

mamash wrote:

Noel does not work for Joyent in any way. He’s an open source developer and is a customer of Joyent.

Would you believe that I was mis-informed?

zero · 2007-04-30 21:11:20

I think the two threads over at Text Drive demonstrate how TXD has moved from a community inspired company to a privately owned one. They just do not want to discuss anything about profit sharing or developer support. One moderator accused me of a flame fest when his/her comment could easily have started a flame war. Another moderator posted several schoolboy remarks, and of course most other posters have constantly gone off topic with their silly references to t-shirts. Samuel is constantly abused and told he is a troll.

I should not have chosen the t-shirt subject line but I explained why and it is a valid point that makes me wonder if it is symbolic of TXD intentions, ie promises but no delivery. Apparently there have been other threads about t-shirts and their non-appearance. TXD could clear it up with one post. They would then show their honest intentions, and it would be great for Public Relations. Instead I am left with doubts.

The attitude of the moderators and posters on the TXD forums is awful PR. Both threads were serious and relevant, but both turned into something else and not helped at all by moderators. Someone said “who other than Jason and Dean would really know the answer to this question?” How about all the OS developers? I think the topic should have been left open to at least give them chance to have their say.

There is no mention of the 10% or 50%. Perhaps Colak or someone will get an answer from Jason, if they are emailing him. As a business, the details do not have to be disclosed. But it could be cleared up for all to see with a simple statement. Instead doubts and uncertainty remain. I believe Jason and others are doing their best in pressurised circumstances. Perhaps that is enough. Is it enough for you? It is enough for me if the devs are happy with that situation. But a simple statement would remove the doubts that others have. Who knows how many have those doubts?

Finally, I stated at the start of this thread that the developers must love what they do to do it in such circumstances. Zem, your reply to Jason seems to indicate that you are happy with things the way they are. Have I read you right? Would you care to comment or is it none of my business?

Have a beautiful day everyone! (off-topic) (or is it?)

graeme · 2007-04-30 21:28:11

zero wrote:

I think the two threads over at Text Drive demonstrate how TXD has moved from a community inspired company to a privately owned one. They just do not want to discuss anything about profit sharing or developer support. One moderator accused me of a flame fest when his/her comment could easily have started a flame war. Another moderator posted several schoolboy remarks, and of course most other posters have constantly gone off topic with their silly references to t-shirts. Samuel is constantly abused and told he is a troll.

(Edit: Sorry, but let’s not descend into blatant name-calling, however much we might like to. -Mary)

Jason did a good job explaining the situation here. If money is owed to the core developers then they clearly need to speak to Dean and/or TxD. It’s not really a matter for anyone else.

Last edited by Mary (2007-04-30 21:50:14)

Neko · 2007-04-30 21:30:07

graeme wrote:

Jason did a good job explaining the situation here.

Word on that. Sorry Zero, but I think the case is closed.

Mary · 2007-04-30 22:21:45

If you’re bummed about TxD, for whatever reason, that as they say is that. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about it. If they want to talk to you about it, that’s up to them.

We can’t read and respond to every single forum post. If there is something you want to speak to us particularly about, let us know via email or IM (a link to the forum thread and requesting our response is fine).

As to comparisons with WordPress or other software: if you think it is better for your needs, no one is stopping you from using them instead of Txp. “May the road rise up to meet you”, etc. I do find it odd that you’d care what happens to Txp if you find it insufficient.

This all got started because of the fact there’s just the handful of people working on Txp, with limited time frames. For most of us, we’ve come to the point where if we want to maintain our involvement, it means we need to get some kind of reasonable income for the time spent, as otherwise we’ve got to do “real” work. We’ve been told over and over we need to be more involved and spend more time, but at the same time told it’s not worth compensation. We can’t have it both ways. Remember that web dev is how we make a living. And it’s the sort of job where you don’t necessarily work 9-5, Monday through Friday.

We’ve been experimenting with various ways we might accomplish this (there are limitations given this is open source), and some kind of subscription model is likely to be something that will be attempted (where you have multiple people giving just a little to get something extra). The reason we would ask rather than just “do” is because that costs more time – what if we did the work to set it up and then discovered no one wanted to go that route?

Last edited by Mary (2008-04-05 05:25:52)

mrdale · 2013-11-22 08:01:13

Just quoting this because it’s interesting and cute in relation to how horrible TXD ended up…

Jason and dean sitting in a tree… H-O-S-T-I-N-G…

jason wrote:

Let’s keep timelines straight here, when Textdrive started there was one Textpattern developer and that was Dean. There were no “developers” (plural). There wasn’t even a 1.0 release of textpattern. The release of textpattern under an open source license, putting out the trac site, releasing a 1.0 and then a 4.0, and expanding the commit team all happen after textdrive and were honestly as a result of a lot my efforts there (the first commit was me, I wanted a bigger commit team so it could survive, thought it had to be open sourced to stay relevant etc etc.). And txp’s use of trac and it’s model was replicated by the Ruby on Rails and Wordpress projects at textdrive.

Now Dean has done more then fine and will continue doing so from my estimates. All the initial VC200 payments went directly to Dean, and then I “professionalized” that “project” by forming an C-corp (“TextDrive Inc”) and functioning as it’s COO, and despite having enough for servers (no salaries or anything like that) for a couple of months, we’re still around 3 years later and there’s 18 full-time salaried people. Payments from textdrive for the textpattern project have always gone to the French company that Dean operates through and that “owns” the project (this is a business paying a business). How his project is managed beyond that, I don’t know. My attempts to employ the entire textpattern team at textdrive way back in the past (I think Alex is great for example) was stifled because Dean wanted to keep textpattern a separate thing (he could have folded the entire thing into textdrive whenever he wanted to), and I’ve been involved very little with textpattern or following it at the “business level” since then.

Now if the current and active development team thinks they’re doing a lot of work on the project, and it’s apparently for not a fair share of whatever pie, then I imagine I can either fix some aspect of that or figure out a way that they can begin to, but someone needs to actually let me know.

Last edited by mrdale (2013-11-22 08:18:05)

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#76 2007-04-30 16:42:18

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#77 2007-04-30 16:51:09

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#78 2007-04-30 16:57:03

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#79 2007-04-30 17:02:13

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#80 2007-04-30 17:10:08

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#81 2007-04-30 18:30:28

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#82 2007-04-30 19:03:16

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#83 2007-04-30 19:15:15

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#84 2007-04-30 20:22:19

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#85 2007-04-30 21:11:20

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#86 2007-04-30 21:28:11

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#87 2007-04-30 21:30:07

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#88 2007-04-30 22:21:45

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

#89 2013-11-22 08:01:13

Re: [feedback] Developers pay

Jason and dean sitting in a tree… H-O-S-T-I-N-G…

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