Commercially licensed addons.. point of view?

I like the idea of crowd-funding for plugins/addons. This combines the reward process (money) for developers and the social-coding-process (open-source) in a good way.

My point exactly! I came up with that idea a while ago. You could use a system similar like http://www.kickstarter.com/. In my opinion: this could really work. Developers know they get paid and people get exactly what they need.

Thanks for the great points everyone.

I can feel what you’re saying @smooth-graphics.. I’m also a huge fan of open source, and the great support that offers.


Perhaps the best compromise is indeed to use kickstarter/chip-in to fund development, while keeping the social aspect.

I am so glad this discussion is going. It has been so frustrating to me that commercial add-ons have not been more promoted. From a business perspective I would MUCH rather pay a license fee for a top quality, supported plugin than try to get the kind of quality and support that *might* be available in the community. I’m not saying there are not good devs in the MODx community (Mark is one I am thankful to have found) but I’d rather have them churning out amazing plugins and pay them a fee for it.

I have lost a number of clients to other systems because of this. Enterprise level clients want proven, supported solutions. Sure MODx is a great fluid platform, which is why I use it for 90% of my sites but many plugins and features lack consistency and stability and even more important constant progress.

So I strongly support a way for devs to release plugins that people can purchase. The question is, how do we start that process? It would be great if in the Revo package management a developer could release a product and receive payment right there.

Just my 2 cents,
Crawford

For completely new, custom addons: you could create a general MODx account on kickstarter.com. However, you’d have to setup a poll first to find out what people are looking for in new extra’s, compile a top 5 afterwards and put up that wishlist on kickstarter.com. Just a few thoughts. Or perhaps start with 1 custom extra request, so you can find out if this system even works.

I like the idea of requesting new features through GitHub by paying people, as someone mentioned earlier in this thread. Love the idea, but is it even possible with Github.com? I’m not THAT familiar with it.

No, actually github is what it means: social coding.
There are no options for payments. It’s not the task of github to provide that. It’s the task of the addon-devs to get their money.
I think anyone is free to contact a addon-dev, pay him for adding a new feature if you need it. I personally don’t think there are unsupported addons (for Revo) right now. If I need a funcionality for MODX for a client, I’ll get in touch with some devs like Mark, Shaun, Bruno17 or others here. They all knew the system and can provide good solutions. But if they don’t know what’s missing they coudn’t offer that.

Bounties will always be available, and wether requested through Github or email doesn’t change much to that imo.. but it’s an interesting thing to add to the discussion.

I think we are talking about more than just simple custom MODx work. A perfect example of this has been the lack of a true, full-featured e-commerce solution. VisionCart in my opinion, should be a paid plugin. I WANT those guys to continue to develop and expand the system. Not every coder, or small company can afford to devote countless hours to it without getting something in return. And that is the real issue.

So we have this amazing platform but serious plugins by nature don’t get developed, supported and released. There’s all kinds of examples of this.

I get ya. So the MODx.com Extras section should include payment options, as well as the Revo packet manager ofcourse. That would be sweet. Though I have no idea how hard it is to implement such an option inside the Revo CMS.

Maybe it’s as simple as offering 2 paths in the Extras section, one for free and one for commercial. The commercial instead of offering the download provides a link to the developer website where a license can be purchased. The same would be true inside package management. Once the user has paid for a license then that is inputted into package management to unlock the plugin.

Yeah I have no idea on how complex this is but it’s a concept right now. Can any of the core MODx team chime in on this and give some direction? It’s clear that this topic needs some serious thought and discussion.