Modx competition

Quote from: dev_cw at Jan 31, 2009, 11:31 AM

However, in looking at these models I think that they do more for the client and the application than for the developer. Some of the criteria is very subjective and a bit off with stuff like point systems, unclear approval process, fees, rewards. Who is to say why someone is approved while others are not. And what about the quality of the ’certification’. I have several Adobe and Macromedia certificates that once I learned the criteria for getting them I realized what a joke they really are (basically just pay for them, do a weekend seminar and you are certified).

I will voice the same trepidation I had concerning sponsored development, be careful to not divide the community. The MODx community is so well liked and gets much praise, but I never hear any good comments about either EZ, EE or Magento’s communities. In the MODx community we get as much support from hobbyist in the form of forum participation than we get from pros in the form of add-on development. It is hard to say which ’group’ contributes more to MODx’s success.

I’m not sure if very many people are aware or not, but Shaun and Jason work with me full time on MODx. Garry and Jeff and Zi are likewise key team members that get their paychecks from the same place. We’re 1000% dedicated to MODx, and we made the conscious decision to pour every extra dime back into MODx development. I’d be lying to deny that it can be more than a bit tight at times when payroll rears its head. I think it’s safe to say though that without this commitment, you wouldn’t see Revo anywhere close to where it is today, or the releases that have happened with 0.9.6.x in the past for that matter.

We have a lot of things planned for MODx, but it’s going to take some significant investment to actually be able to pull that off. One thing I can assure you though is that all of our plans focus on building the community even larger and being able to do things that add a tremendous value to the community. Think MODxpos (dev camps/meetups/conferences), better documentation, training programs that don’t suck, more and better add-ons, additonal full time developers, a killer support option for businesses that want a company backing a critical piece of IT infrastructure, etc.

My opinion is that MODx is at a pivotal point. We can become a better, more organized project with more resources that are needed to really make a difference for both MODx developers and users, or we can become a project that gets needed attention only after the bills are paid from consulting/client work. I personally would like to see a "RedHat of the MODx world" emerge and that’s what we’re working towards. Some people probably won’t like that and will move on; people tend to be resistant to change. That makes me sad, but it is likely a reality that I hope really doesn’t happen. I want nothing more than to see MODx become the #1 Open Source PHP CMS/Application Framework out there, and I think we’ve got the pedigree and base platform to achieve that. But it’s going to take creating a business and dollars to make that happen.

Interestingly, a similar thing has just happened on another project: Lucene/SOLR (enterprise search solutions)
http://www.lucidimagination.com/index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=90&p=20
http://ostatic.com/blog/lucid-imagination-launches-with-support-for-lucene-and-solr-search

More thoughts and feedback?

The teams commitment and effort is commendable, you guys are doing a great job. It is exiting to see the direction you have planned (although I must admit that the scope is over my head). I trust that MODx will succeed not only based on the product but also on your broad vision.

We can become a better, more organized project with more resources that are needed to really make a difference for both MODx developers and users, or we can become a project that gets needed attention only after the bills are paid from consulting/client work.

I think that I can speak for everyone when I say that a strong project is good for all of the community. An Open Source business model is not easy to maintain, I am glad the Project has the vision to keep things in perspective.

More thoughts and feedback?

Personally, as a user who is planing my own business plan around MODx services, what ever you need to do to keep the project alive and open source is OK with me. However, I get concerned about why people may "not like it and move on". What could be so drastic that could cause such a reaction?

Thanks for sharing some of your plans. I apologize if my comments seem negative, as I have said my vision is often narrow and upside down.

Nothing drastic is planned by any means. Some people just get funny when mixing money and Open Source. lol

Quote from: rthrash at Jan 31, 2009, 04:05 PM

Nothing drastic is planned by any means. Some people just get funny when mixing money and Open Source. lol

The last time I checked money was required to make Open Source a success. As long as there isn’t some crazy feature split based on if you pay or not I don’t see any problems.

I trust you guys to make it work without taking the fun out of MODx. Just one question though: What’s a business plan?

I found this good (at least I thought it was good) article on Open Source business model titled Open Source: The Model Is Broken. It pretty much supports what Ryan is talking about.

Open-source code is generally great code, not requiring much support. So open-source companies that rely on support and service alone are not long for this world. The traditional open-source business model that relies solely on support and service revenue streams is failing to meet the expectations of investors.

Thanks Shane. The challenge we run into with MODx is not so much that it’s not a great bit of code, because it is. To really grow as a project it’s going to take widespread adoption by larger businesses. MODx is actually currently in use by some huge companies, but they won’t openly admit it. I have a feeling a lot of this is due to the perception around the project including the disjointed documentation, the state of the marketing site, lack of enterprise-level programs, lack of conferences and SIGs on MODx and more. These companies include a US Fortune 50 (yes fifty) firm and one of the world’s largest engineering firms with more than $20-billion in annual revenues.

To address these problems, we’ve got to invest in people and create a more consistent message that demonstrates the value that MODx brings. Lots of marketing stuff that will come and we’ll be looking to recruit folks out of the community since they’re the passionate ones that really "get" and tend to be so appreciative of MODx. We’ve got a great base team of 6 community members working full time right now and it’s soon to become 7, but we’ll be adding many more. Once we’re able to complete working on the marketing sides and start executing those plans, the community should likewise see external demand for MODx sites increase. I think this too is a very good thing.

And less anyone get paranoid, we remain committed 1000% to keeping MODx open source, or we just won’t do it all! There will likely be some value added add-ons available to paying customers, but this is honestly no different than what’s a reality now. We’ve got some pretty tricky bits of code at Collabpad that we just don’t have the time to support outside of our own work. Paying customers would make that possible and it’d inevitably trickle down in spades to the more general community at large. I really do believe that MODx is going to become the #1 Open Source PHP CMS and Application Framework if we’re able to pull of some funding. Exciting times ahead and we hope to have the full support of everyone in the community.

One thing I really like about the modx community is the developers share their code. I feel that seperates us from joomla, ez, expression engine and aligns us more with drupal (which is good because drupal keeps gaining steam).

I feel the main difference is:
- when the best developers are creating commercial code
1. the CMS setup process becomes a nickle-and-dime process. $5 here, $35 dollars here and it can add up
2. addons are fragmented unneccessarily - multiple developers create their own solution to get their piece of the nickle-and-dime process

- instead we (and drupal) have a process that encourages working together which means
1. addons are progressively enhanced (think eform, webloginpe, quickedit)
2. we can work and share together
3. if 2 addons share the same features but have ’something special’ each, they are joined together to make one great addon (this is what you see in drupal all of the time)

you do see this some in ee and especially codeigniter. The current community collaboration really adds up to great value since we’re not competing with each other, we are helping each other, and we’re not nickle-and-diming each other.

commercial support is a great item too. and im all for it. some business’ need this. im talking more about development here (i do think modx could use some commercial templates)

Quote from: BobRay at Jan 31, 2009, 09:38 PM

Just one question though: What’s a business plan?

Apparently a business plan is a document designed to create (more) gray hairs, dark circles under eyes, sore fingertips and insane amounts of deliberation and forcing people into making decisions. It’s a lot of fun really, not nearly as insane as the discussion for keeping MODx in Wikipedia.

ChuckTrukk has some very valid points, one of the biggest deciding factors for us turning to modx is the support seen within this community.

As noted earlier I was an eZ Publish partner, starting during 2005 and finishing late 2008. I hope some points from my eZ Partner experiences will be of interest when considering the modx partner programme.

When I started out, I found eZ Publish to offer the best UI around with a formidable development platform. When considering the likes of Mambo/Joomla with it’s clunky tabled based approach eZ Publish was something special.

Working with a design background I quickly realised that I needed a developer and partnered up with a freelance programmer. Before eZ Publish had its Now line of products (offering suitable template types for most page categories) we would build all pages using custom attributes and classes. Similar to how modx template variables.

While we quickly developed many sites the first year my company was asked to join the partner programme. Having an aggressive marketing push behind eZ meant that big clients were coming on board with eZ Publish, an exciting time. Whist in the early days (2005 -06) finding developer support was possible it was later to become more difficult.

As large clients came on board eZ Publish started to offer the eZ Publish Now and later the Flow line of products, whilst initially very positive eZ Systems soon focused their approach on making money from large clients and maintenance contracts.

So in 2007  I found myself still working with local clients (which I do enjoy), with budgets in the region of $6,000 to $7,000 USD using eZ Publish. eZ Systems had moved on with marketing support contracts at 2,990 EUR per year per install. While not really a major issue as the Open Source route was and still is very active I found sourcing suitable developer support near impossible.

So to conclude, eZ Publish failed to engage and provide suitable Open Source community support. They failed to encourage developers to come on board and provide the type of services that companies like myself need. They became too corporate, they became too big and are now unable to undertake work without the strictest of management processes whether community or commercial based. Prime example http://ez.no/developer/forum/suggestions/2_years_ago#msg179668

When I faced an emergency, a pivotal point which nearly broke my company with an eZ Publish install (Open Source). eZ Systems failed to show any compassion and genuine interest and were only at hand to offer me support for for a large fee.

In short they lost my trust, they lost me as a company who would market eZ Publish as a suitable tool for my clients.

I hope modx, and am confident that will modx stay in tune with its community and grows with it to deliver income for both its users and the modx developers.

p.s. sorry for long post