MODX Core development team abandoning MODX development as 1st priority? Please read!

The answer to that question was its proactive and not in good faith to ask
https://twitter.com/splittingred/status/325954006738427905
https://twitter.com/splittingred/status/325954437220814849

Quote from: malcomreno at Apr 29, 2013, 05:35 PM

I saw on twitter a good question that deserves to be answered.

Has MODX® Cloud / SiphonLabs made an actual commitment to funding MODX yet? How much and when?

Ok, after spending the better part of the day trying to figure out if and how to respond and what to say, I think I've figured it out.

First of all, many of the people at SiphonLabs have spent many years contributing to MODX in both their time and opportunity costs, which is worth millions of dollars. Their move to SiphonLabs does not negate their past contributions; it is unlikely that any of us will ever contribute as much as they have, so before we ask how much more we can expect from them, we should be asking how much more we can contribute, ourselves and when will we commit to delivering on it.

In addition, for anyone who saw the move to create a commercial branch of MODX as a surprise, I would ask: "What do you think would happen when they sought and received an investment a few years ago?" This fact was never hidden from the community, and like any investor, the people who provided money to help grow MODX will at some point want the money back. I see MODX Cloud and therefore SiphonLabs as a direct result of it; higher visibility and goodwill towards a product on its own does not factor into any Return On Investment calculation I've seen.

I wish to convey to the entire MODX team that the author(s) of the posts (which I think are just meant to be inflammatory) do not in any way reflect the attitudes of the community. I know for myself, if I had invested countless hours of my life and had come through for a client time and time again, and then see a post which seemed like a slap in the face, I might think twice about how much I really wanted to help them in the future. I'm sure that the post from earlier today has been read by many, and many have thought to reply, but worried about how diplomatic their response would be, but I wouldn't want the MODX team to think that the silence of the community should be taken as tacit approval of the poster's comments.

I think the previous paragraph is especially important when a thread which starts as one poster's view of the creation of SiphonLabs gathers 20+ pages, yet the announcement in the blog (http://modx.com/blog/2013/04/18/modx-evolution-1.0.10-brings-70-improvements/) about the community releasing yet another updated version of Evolution doesn't generate a single comment or congratulatory note.

Regards,
Tom

Well, I'm looking forward to MODx 3 (or MODX 3, whatever...). Meanwhile, I'm spending all the time I can digging in to Revo's guts, trying to learn how this and that actually works. Better to spend my time (and my eyes) doing that than whining and complaining - which, admittedly, I spent far too much time and energy doing over the shift from Evo to Revo. I hope I learned to be more patient and pro-active from those years.

+1 For Tom,
this discussion is really curious, someone even argues for the name SiphonLab ...
I have had some experience with the open source world and it is really difficult to build a business on this, and it is also very difficult the dialogue with the community.
May be the modx team did some errors, but who didn't in its life?...
I think they have always accepted the various remarks coming from the community and have discussed friendly about them, recognizing past mistakes.
We must keep in mind that they are not 100 employees ... and that the continued presence on the forum requires lots of energy!

My opinion: if Siphonlab can be a way of making some money, I'm very very happy for the team!

I understand and share the concern about the future of modx, but I really trust the team!
Otherwise I would not spend my time as ambassador ...

Quote from: pbowyer at Apr 25, 2013, 02:39 AM

It's a shame my third post (on trademarks) has garnered all the response - any comments on the previous 2?

I couldn't help with your two (substantive!) questions, but I could contribute something about trademarks, so I did.

BTW, I have gone so nuts about this topic that I am donating actual cash $$$ to the MODX cause. I can ill afford to do that, being hideously under-employed right now. However, MODX has given me so much pleasure and is so promising a technology platform for me that I am compelled to open the wallet.

My webbie friends call me a sap, say that I should go with the Wordpress flow, that just CLAIMING fluency with Wordpress is enough to attract all sorts of foolish, highly lucrative, business. I suppose I will never know.

There's still no evidence or sign that SiphonLabs will support or fund MODX Development (in case anyone is more interested in that then trademarks). Only time will tell and I would LOVE to be wrong.

I frequently see another host, Skytoaster, using the forums to contribute to MODX by helping the community troubleshoot issues regardless of who they host with.
Point being those that care about MODX help MODX, somehow. While SiphonLabs does employ some of the top MODX contributors to date, I don't think they care about MODX right now.
Which is fine, they understandably have a ton of work to do addressing serious scalability and downtime issues all the while adding cloud support for several other platforms.

I think the best thing for the actual MODX team is to stop associating them with SiphonLabs because if you google 'MODX core team' the title of this post is still the first thing you see.

I think that one of the most slippery slopes we can get on when dealing with open source projects is developing a set of expectations for a product that has been freely given to us by people who have devoted their own time and money to it. And when we contribute to these open source projects, one of the most dangerous things to do is to do it with an expectation of something in return, because then we start to feel entitled, to feel we're owed something, when in reality, we're not.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the prerogative of Siphon Labs and the MODX core team to do as they please, regardless of what we think. I believe that they, just as we all are, are trying to balance their needs for sustainable income streams with their commitment to the community, with the relationships they no doubt have built with each other over a long period of time, and I respect that. I may not agree with everything that's going on, as I have voiced before, but I do think we need to give them the space and time to figure it out. If it all works out, then yay, we're all the better for it. If it fails (which we all hope it doesn't), then everyone moves on. But at the end of the day it's their call what path they choose to take.

I think they have heard our concerns. What they do with them is entirely their prerogative.

It's a good place to vent though, and then we can move on to studying the problems and their solutions with clear heads

Quote from: einsteinsboi at May 02, 2013, 09:50 PM

I think that one of the most slippery slopes we can get on when dealing with open source projects is developing a set of expectations for a product that has been freely given to us by people who have devoted their own time and money to it. And when we contribute to these open source projects, one of the most dangerous things to do is to do it with an expectation of something in return, because then we start to feel entitled, to feel we're owed something, when in reality, we're not.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the prerogative of Siphon Labs and the MODX core team to do as they please, regardless of what we think. I believe that they, just as we all are, are trying to balance their needs for sustainable income streams with their commitment to the community, with the relationships they no doubt have built with each other over a long period of time, and I respect that. I may not agree with everything that's going on, as I have voiced before, but I do think we need to give them the space and time to figure it out. If it all works out, then yay, we're all the better for it. If it fails (which we all hope it doesn't), then everyone moves on. But at the end of the day it's their call what path they choose to take.

I think they have heard our concerns. What they do with them is entirely their prerogative.

Hi Mary,

I think your point regarding a sense of entitlement is spot on.

I will respectfully disagree with one part of it though: "If it fails (which we all hope it doesn't), then everyone moves on." Revo succeeding or failing is not something out of our hands; the community has a really big say in what happens to MODX: in some of the 200+ posts, there are people who are 100% sure that since some staff have moved over to Siphon Labs, MODX Revo and MODX 3 are doomed. Evo was in danger of the same fate, yet as we know, Evo is still alive and kicking because of a relatively small group in the community who are so passionate about Evo that they're working to improve it. Revo still fits in the same bucket because it is up to all of us to contribute.

For my contribution, I want to continue discussions to better understand what people are looking for in an ideal Manager, which started in Utrecht during MODXpo in November (which I didn't attend but watched the videos). This is an area which the community had a lot to say, and I want to make MODX better for myself and others. Since what I use MODX for (I use it for application development on my non-work hours, and I don't use MODX or anything really web related at work) is not what most of the community uses MODX for, I want to better understand what the community would like to see. Once I understand, I'll come back with some actual design ideas and build it.

I understand that this may not be squashing bugs to get us closer to a release, but it's still a start.

For the conversation on getting feedback for a new Manager, please see https://forums.modx.com/thread/84237/discussion-on-modx-manager-changes.

Regards,
Tom

I suspect you'll find that it's not as easy as you think it is. I hope I'm wrong, but only time will tell.

Quote from: stalemate at May 03, 2013, 05:15 AM

Revo succeeding or failing is not something out of our hands; the community has a really big say in what happens to MODX: in some of the 200+ posts, there are people who are 100% sure that since some staff have moved over to Siphon Labs, MODX Revo and MODX 3 are doomed. Evo was in danger of the same fate, yet as we know, Evo is still alive and kicking because of a relatively small group in the community who are so passionate about Evo that they're working to improve it. Revo still fits in the same bucket because it is up to all of us to contribute.