Thanks for commenting, really appreciate it
What I didn’t get is the thing with "custom plugins" - do you mean external packages implemented in HandyMan or sth. else?
Why is Custom TV input type frmwork after custom plugins?
Custom plugins would extend what the package can do. Per the specs you will be able to edit resources, but plugins could then be made to extend the behavior. There could be a plugin to add chunk creating/modifying to it, user management or even display a random message of the day, but also addons can be ported. As most use ExtJS right now, that would need to be modified to jQuery Mobile or just html/css to work in HandyMan. The start page will list the core functionality, as well as the enabled plugins.
The custom TV input type framework (couldn’t think of a more descriptive name) allows TV input types to be used in HandyMan. In the specs I added what input types will be supported in the core, and additional input types could then later be added which will be integrated in the resource create/edit page.
About the timeline - you already gave the answer. It’s too hard to make a solid ETA, and I would rather commit to a three-weekly released package than a release date. As time progresses, I would then get a better idea on how long it will take to complete and provide a date then. From what I can tell now, the funding stage will take another month or so, after which I’ll get to work. I’ve estimated part 1, 2 and 3 to take about 95 hours, and the customization part another 20-30-ish iirc. I could probably allocate about 10hrs/week on this, which would mean 2 1/2 months to develop part 1-3: June 20-ish. But maybe I can only spend 5 hours in a week on this, or perhaps even a week full time. If I can get this funded, this will be treated as a priority though and perhaps I could wrap it up earlier... There’s just no real way to tell at this stage. I will think some more about this, and try to find details on test weeks, holidays etc from school to see if I can come up with a schedule.
As for the licenses.. The price is more of a gut feeling than something I spent hours calculating for. I want to give people contributing in the beginning a distinct advantage in return for their trust, and from a continued development point of view a licensed style of funding is probably the best one. New people will join the community, need a mobile manager for their clients, try it, would like to get rid of the attribution, and in the process of buying a license for it help continue development on it, to see it receive more functionality and perhaps one day even being able of doing nearly anything needed from MODX.... *keeps on daydreaming*
I don’t see this as double funding a project, and although I hope to receive some steady income from licenses later, it is not my intention to get rich of this. If it was, I would’ve upped my rate, added some VAT and would definitely not have taken off €500,- as my own contribution.
By contributing € 25,- now, you get a license code which kicks in when the PL release is ready which I have valued at € 50,-. So that’s a benefit for you (you get a license at half the price) as well as for me (I’m sure I’m getting paid, even if it’s at about 60% of my usual rate, which is way lower than average rates already as I’ve been told). Will you need to get a new license after a year? If you want to keep on using it without the attribution notices: yes. But you don’t have to, and you can just ignore the message after login and at the bottom of the page. Functionality remains the same whether you decided to renew the license (and help keeping development going) or not.
For every € 50,- you donate, you’re also getting an hour of premium support. So that’s two licenses and one hour of support for € 50,-. When it’s developed, you will get the same number of licenses and hours of support at €50,- each. As I’m not offering you two hours of support for € 50,- in the funding stage, I keep costs down and can focus on developing rather then supporting. And during the beta stage I want to iron out bugs anyway, so I probably wont charge for support during the beta stages anyway.
So what I hope to get across here is that I’m not making "double profit" as what Dimmy seems to be illustrating by selling licenses after development, but that you’re sort of pre-ordering a license and will forever be loved by me, and anyone who uses the addon, sees your name on the list and is thankful you took the chance to fund it to enable people to get a mobile manager developed.
Quote from: smooth-graphics at Mar 07, 2011, 06:27 PM
That’s why I’m asking how he thought. Maybe development is worth $7800 and it’s cut to half?
It’s not (or at least, not at my rate) worth € 7800. The € 3900 is the hours I estimated (which I’ll probably go over big time, but that’s my responsibility), times my hourly wage at this time of € 30. Usually, I would also charge 19% VAT on top of that but I chose to not do that here, and also take of my own "contribution" of €500,- to get the basics started. Leaving € 3400 for the full set of specs, and € 2200 for the editing. That’s the development costs as far as I’m concerned.
After development of course I hope people will start using it. That does mean, however, that when people use it, people find bugs, want additional features or can’t get it to work in their environment. Still working on VersionX, I’m realizing how much time it takes to get things right for everyone. When I released the first alpha, it was working perfectly fine on my localhost and I was aiming for a PL in 2, maybe 3 weeks time. Months later now I’m not even out of alpha due to all the complexity involved in different setups, dependencies, features, bugs, etc. I think VersionX is nice as thing on the side, but this project deserves to be actively maintained and developed after the release as well. To keep it a priority though, there would need to be some flow of money coming from it or it would not be worthwhile to spend hours upon hours on it. Which is why I’ve decided to keep the addon free, but with enough incentive to spend a little money on it which will then help moving forward.
Dimmy, I would love to know how you guys keep VisionCart worthwhile to work on. I somewhat assume 1-Vision lets you work on this when they have no work to do, but still need to pay you both full time.. From looking at your site, it doesn’t look like you’re making any profit of the donations though, which is why I don’t want HandyMan to rely on donations alone either.
In order to create this whole license thing accompanying HandyMan, I’ll also be working on a system built on VisionCart and that Paypal module released last week to automate assigning of license keys. (
Edit: just want to make clear that this has *not* been taken into consideration for the funding goal, and is not included in the price. This is a personal thing I don’t want to charge you for. If it turns out good, it might be a licensed addon or something.) If this commercial model works, that will allow me to donate back to you guys, possibly make enough money to make the investment of becoming a MODX partner worthwhile and make way for commercial addons on MODX. Which in the end will all benefit the MODX community, and people outside it looking for a safe investment. (That’s not saying this whole funding is for "the greater good" - of course I want to go out for dinner after the release to celebrate it. But I’m trying to say that it is not my intention here to become rich from this.)
Thanks for taking the time to comment (and possibly even read this very lengthy reply o.O). This whole commercial license is new for me, and even for the bigger part of this community and I really want it to be done right. And without talking about it, there’s no way to know what is the right course of action. Really appreciate it.
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