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

Quote from: splittingred at Mar 27, 2013, 09:42 PM

Now, that said, a healthy OSS system will have a ton of contributors going through and contributing bug fixes (not just bug reports) and small feature additions, [...] Most of the work you see in MODX has been done by Jason and I. [...] There has to be far more community contribution to grow the product.

[Note: I do not intend this in a sarky way, but so we can learn from the past. What's happened has happened and MODX is a very different place to 12+ months ago]

Talking to people on other projects (and my own experience), most project contributors start by making small changes and fixes, maybe a couple of lines each. Over the last few years I submitted such patches as a way to start getting involved, both to Evo and Revo. After... 4? 5? submissions not being acknowledged (Evo) or merged (Revo) I gave up - enthusiasm wanes, and other projects (or doing something else in my free time) are more appealing than writing code which won't be used.

Now, maybe they didn't align with the roadmap; maybe they weren't wanted; who knows. Publishing a roadmap and/or a list of small features people can work on (to get familiar with the codebase) could help if the former. Having a place to discuss refactors and core changes first would be great (as numerous project owners have blogged about GitHub, "Talk to me before you create a pull request"). I'm pretty sure this has been taken care of in the new forums.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is first impressions count just as much for developers as for CMS-users. When there's thousands of projects out there, we need to grab the developer's attention and show them how friendly the development community is.

Question: What would make a developer choose to contribute to MODX rather than Drupal?
If we can answer that, we're well away [ed. note: pbowyer last edited this post 13 years, 5 months ago.]

Quote from: einsteinsboi at Apr 08, 2013, 10:03 PM

And while I'm at it, may I say that trademarking the phrases: { “Future Proof.”, “Sleep Well at Night.” and “More Time for …” when replacing the ellipsis with an activity} is a purely draconian measure in my opinion. People use those phrases aalllll the time, how the heck can you trademark them?

I know. I think this is baffling to anyone living outside the USA. I'd really like a clear explanation and thought I'd try and get to the bottom of it - and failed! These aren't registered trademarks but 'general' trademarks (source: MODX employee). What are general trademarks? Do they have legal standing? How do they differ to registered trademarks?

Note how all these phrases have to be accompanied with the MODX logo? There are already live or dead registered trademarks exactly matching or starting with these phrases.

MODx is a registered trademark in the USA.

It's not a community trademark in the EU (or any trademark). I cannot find any clear guide how trademarks are handled in these international days - has a US trademark become an international trademark to all intents and purposes? I believe not, given Python's recent EU trademark issues.

Would love clarification on all of this - when is a trademark valid?

I think we can agree that the MODX trademark policy needs to be updated to be clearer and simpler. I personally am fond of many aspects of the Drupal Trademark Policy. All OS CMSs protect their trademarks in varying levels of permission; WordPress', as an example, is far more restrictive than the current MODX one. E.g., "Under no circumstances is it permitted to use WordPress or WordCamp as part of a top-level domain name."

Our critical priorities at this moment, however, are moving ahead with getting MODX development and contributions back on track and our stressed infrastructure (read: server outages and forum 504s) resolved.

These are good questions, and I often wonder how they impact me since I don't live in the US. Will do some research but if you find out the answers I would appreciate knowing too.

Quote from: pbowyer at Apr 18, 2013, 11:30 AM

What are general trademarks? Do they have legal standing? How do they differ to registered trademarks?

... It's not a community trademark in the EU (or any trademark). I cannot find any clear guide how trademarks are handled in these international days - has a US trademark become an international trademark to all intents and purposes? I believe not, given Python's recent EU trademark issues.

Would love clarification on all of this - when is a trademark valid?

Ask any lawyer (not me, a non lawyer): The theory underpinning trademarks is avoidance of marketplace confusion, so that the consumer might know the difference between Blitz Beer and Blatz Beer.

The closer two goods or services are in enumerated customer bases, in modes of utility or in their origin dates, the easier their confusion. For instance, no one confuses an Apple McIntosh with a McIntosh Apple, but don't expect your garden-variety homo economicus to dip fingers into motor oil samples and thereby know which is Valvoline and which Pennzoil.

There is a derivative sort of confusion, too. That's why it's perfectly fine to claim ability to train others in the use of MODX, yet may be objectionable to claim the name "MODX Training."

In the United States, trademarks need not be registered in order to be effective. The non-registered version is called a common-law trademark. However, going to the trouble to produce convincing research of a proposed mark's non-collision with established marks and then paying Government to stamp agreement upon it and publish in a registry costs time and money. Should it come to a fight, trademark registration is worthwhile because it is conclusive; registration eliminates lawsuit over the mark.

Note that some countries operate according to an administrative legal code rather than common law. France is most notable in this regard, since this legal flavor is known by its shorthand name, the Napoleonic Code. (Hammurabi beat them to it by 3500 years, so the French shouldn't be smug.)

Sovereign governments insist on their own trademark conventions. (Getting away with arbitrary power exercise of that sort is why we call them sovereign.) They may agree by treaty to respect one another's conventions, or they may not.

Keep the consumer-confusion principle in mind. That's the heart of the matter.

One of the main reasons for defending trademarks is that if you don't, you can lose them. Kleenex and Band-Aid are a brand names, and they put a lot of effort into protecting them even though people routinely use the terms to refer to all brands of those objects. Had they not done that, the terms would have been declared "generic" and other companies could sell packages under the Kleenex or Band-Aid label.

There's a nice description of the issue here: http://robertplattbell.blogspot.com/2009/03/dont-xerox-my-band-aid-how-trademarks.html

I'm not sure how much risk there is of other companies distributing a CMS called MODX, but I can see why MODX LLC would want to err on the side of caution, and "MODX Training" is a good example of something they might want to reserve for their own company. Similarly, I can see why they wouldn't want domains like modx.biz, modx.eu, modx.ca, modx.edu, support.modx.com, training.modx.com, etc. popping up all over the place.

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

@modxjr1 how's that post helpful?

I really think we should all avoid unnecessary comments like these here.

I'm sure everyone has that one thing they don't appreciate about the state of affairs at MODX, but going over the top doesn't solve anything. When we're respectful and cordial, we can accomplish a lot as a community.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers!

EDIT

Well -- I guess the post has disappeared. [ed. note: treigh last edited this post 13 years, 5 months ago.]

Getting back to the topic of donations, under the current system do the profiles and links placed on the MODX site due to donations contain "nofollow" links like the ones on the site-gallery and forum signatures? They seem to link to specific resources which redirect so it's not easy to tell.

Promoting that a donation will create a "dofollow" link on a PR7 site could be another incentive to give back.

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?