Donations

I been using modx for a very small amount of time but I am comfortable enough with the features, planned development and the prompt feedback on the forums to know that Modx is for me.

The sites I develop are for small businesses and they are paying for my time in customization and website development. It seems to me that there are a few very dedicated people putting a fair amount of their time into Modx. I was thinking that I would like to make a small donation or something each time I install Modx for a commercial project that maybe could be put towards your direct costs or something. After all without the dedication, expertise and time provided by the key team it would not be possible for these commercial businesses to benefit from such a great product.

Clearly I love the idea of "Free and open source" but how do you feel about this and do you have such a thing as a donate option or other plans? I know not everyone likes to use "make a donation" etc but I somehow feel guilty by using the software and not being able to give something back. This may be a view others share.

Hi edge,

Lets wait for Ryan’s (admin/founder) input on this, but mean while read this old topic (back in August),

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,809.0.html
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,809.msg5008.html#msg5008

best regards,

zi

I have to agree to this. I haven’t make any money out of MODx yet, but I can see the needs of ensuring the development of this CMS/CMF project. Donation button is great, but I don’t think that one button is enough to support it. I would propose of building a foundation, which was being taken by some of major OpenSource CMS. I can see the real benefit of having this kind of thing. I know it might sound awkward and controfersial for opensource software, but I have to admit that there is no free things in this world. If somebody want a professional, reliable, flexible, and pwerful system, then they have to see it in a professional manner, which means resources, money and time involves in developing it has to be invested.

So my conclusion is, by having a better structure in MODx core members, which can be achieved by foundation, we will be able to secure the future of MODx for the next few years. In terms about paying the core developer team, I believe there has to be something that the foundation need to give back to the team, and this is something that can be achieved by this so called foundation...

If anybody agree with me, please shout it out.

And thanks edge for pointing that out, somebody need to point this out somhow, soon or later...


Best regards,
Wendy Novianto

Quote from: edge at Dec 09, 2005, 06:20 AM

It seems to me that there are a few very dedicated people putting a fair amount of their time into Modx. I was thinking that I would like to make a small donation or something each time I install Modx for a commercial project that maybe could be put towards your direct costs or something. After all without the dedication, expertise and time provided by the key team it would not be possible for these commercial businesses to benefit from such a great product.

LOL ... if you only knew... I don’t take on any projects any more that can’t help forward MODx. I litereally live and die 100% by MODx now.

Clearly I love the idea of "Free and open source" but how do you feel about this and do you have such a thing as a donate option or other plans? I know not everyone likes to use "make a donation" etc but I somehow feel guilty by using the software and not being able to give something back. This may be a view others share.

I really have been meaning to get something together for this. Guess it’s time. Time excluded, I’ve personally donated five figures to fund development of various pieces of MODx that are now back in the project. Any way I can make it better only makes for a better, more robust project, that in turn will one day hopefully make it even easier to do jobs for clients.

I know it might sound awkward and controfersial for opensource software, but I have to admit that there is no free things in this world. If somebody want a professional, reliable, flexible, and pwerful system, then they have to see it in a professional manner, which means resources, money and time involves in developing it has to be invested.

Open Source doesn’t have to mean free. Look at MySQL, RedHat and so on. But I agree with you in our context, some "monetary sponsorship" would be really nice!

So my conclusion is, by having a better structure in MODx core members, which can be achieved by foundation, we will be able to secure the future of MODx for the next few years. In terms about paying the core developer team, I believe there has to be something that the foundation need to give back to the team, and this is something that can be achieved by this so called foundation...

I don’t know much about foundations or the accounting and legal issues surround 503(1)c entities they’re usually structured as (and I could be wrong here) in the US, but I do suspect it’d take about $2500 just to get one put together, and about the same annually (accounting, taxes, compliance checks, etc.). This is something I’d really like to check into for 2006, but I can’t/won’t commit to supporting without knowing absolutely it’ll be funded .

I don’t know much about foundations or the accounting and legal issues surround 503(1)c entities they’re usually structured as (and I could be wrong here) in the US, but I do suspect it’d take about $2500 just to get one put together, and about the same annually (accounting, taxes, compliance checks, etc.). This is something I’d really like to check into for 2006, but I can’t/won’t commit to supporting without knowing absolutely it’ll be funded Wink.

That’s for sure, without having a good plan, I’ll disagree with this whole foundation thing. Wasting money without having a clear pictutre of what’s it’s going to be will be a waste. I would like to help on that too if possible, because right now I’m working on some type of foundation thing for one of my non-profit organization, which is knowing all the legal, taxes, structure, and etc for this type of foundation in United States. Maybe this can be a help for MODx as well.

Another things that need to be considered, considering the globalization era, will this foundation able to support multi national member and support? If somebody has an experience in this kind of field, it will be great as well.

I’m looking forward to hear the next year plan for MODx. Not only all the nifty stuff from TP 4 or etc, but also all the plan, vision, mission, team, organization, marketting, branding and etc...

All the best for MODx, and thanks to all the core team, who have brought us this far.


Best regards,
Wendy Novianto

And since you asked for it and it’s been under consideration for a while ... http://modxcms.com/donate

It’ll be interesting to see what happens!

Personally, for whats its worth if there was a way to move from a simple donantion system to a proper business model more like Redhat use that would seem to make a lot of sense to me.

My experience of Open Source CMS (limited I know) is that new projects start with a fantastic energy from a few key people. Given time, more members, more question, requests, increased hosting costs and such like and it gets harder. Maybe a key person has to move on and then development slows down and members start looking around at other new CMS products.

I know that I have lost orders to businesses who will not buy into Open source products unless there is a proper business structure in place. Right now Modx is looking really good but lost to do (thank you) and it would seem sensible to consider the options carefully (You know how its difficult to make structural changes later, having owed a sucessful business for 17 years myself that I sold in 2004, I’ve been in legacy situations that were difficult to move from more times than I care to mention)

As you have a pretty tight group of regular users you could solicit their opinion via a survey, for example how many of your key forum members make a living using Modx? This may give you a better feel for who is using the software themselves or commercially.

Another consideration is maybe a professional members group. These are people like myself who develop sites for a living. Maybe this group could also work together on projects so we win bigger orders, share development skills at agreed rates and offer businesses a more global service, rather than just being independent small businesses. Maybe this group could offer end-user support 24 x 7, have some members who can integrate eCommerce and other applications or offer a global hosting solution. This could involve an annual members charge, with additional costs for extra services, access to development resources etc (See below)

I don’t have the answers but someone using Modx for their own personal site will be a do-it-yourself person and happy to rely on the forum, I think this group are unlikely to pay, but might make a donation, but commercial customers and professional web desigers are different, as I say its how we make our living.

In summary I think that no project that becomes really successful can survive without funding. So I guess my conclusion is that the main money should come from commercial projects and that by using some of this to create a proper business structure (Something that sits between free services and expensive commercial services to also help Modx developers make a fair living) may be the may to go. A commercial services presence could provide funding for example, to list approved Modx Resellers on a commercial website which itself could generate leads whilst removing the barriers to installing free open source software, that stops this commercial group taking it serious. You may even be able to fund the production of maketing material via this global commercial network such as a Modx CMS sales brochure. Why not?, if you get this right and provide territory management etc then this really is no different to Novell Linux products or Redhat’s selling methods other than small business will remain very price sensitive.

I would certainly like to see some open debate on this subject myself, overall whatever you decide, if its commercially driven it should provide a beneficial structure for everyone involved and be compelling enough that those of us working commercially would buy into it, confident that Modx will not get derailed in the coming months and years whilst wanting the benefist that a commercial network should be able to provide.

Well as I started this thread and I am doing my first commercial project in jan using Modx, seems fair to make the first donation so I have just done that !

edge,

Thanks for being first in line and stepping up to the plate!

Great insights and very right on with many things that have been discussed for about a year now. Before running off and creating a business around MODx, though, I personally wanted to prove we’re in it for the long haul. The fact that we’ve had a lot of releases and have been around for over a year, and that a major rewrite (very enterprise cable, btw) going on now, I hope puts that to rest.

In the spirit of openness and transparency, here’s some things we’d like to do or have discussed:

• create a private, paid professionals forum that can be accessed for a nominal fee (probably $50-100USD per year)
• offer premium, per incident paid support
• Early adopter paid access to beta code similar to SMF’s forums ("Charter Members")
• a commercial projects system where projects are handed off to MODx devs, and MODx recieves a modest fee for sourcing of the projects (10%)
• be able to hire some folks to manage the project or a foundation that supports it full time, including multiple developers
• taking a page from the SugarCRM book and emulating a proven business model around commercial support and customization
• and many, many more things.

Regardless of any ultimate commercial prospects, MODx will always remain Open Source and be run in a very open book manner. There are not hidden agendas here!

And now I have to get to work on that donor page pronto! lol

A great problem to have