As it appers to me, there are lots of community made components, available for free.
When it comes to question, whereas to buy, or make component, that fits situation, I usually choose to adapt one of the free scripts – write from scratch. Then I am sure, that it will be exactly what I need in my particular situation.
On the other hand, if I would find myself in need for particular module, that is available not using GPL licence, I think, that it would not be a problem to pay it’s author.
After watching the discussion for a while a humble user & business & international law Ph.D.Â’s view:
– It is practically not feasible to expect only free extensions.
I do a lot of non-profit work myself, but someone finally has to pay the bills (includes my Joomla supporters)– Require non-GPL programmers to contribute 5-10% of their licence fees to the Joomla foundation.
5% will not hurt any developer and strengthen the core team. About discipline Â… list annual gold/silver etc contributors on the extension web site (see Typo3), flag non-contributors in the extension list.– Point developers on the limits of commercialisation
Five half-heartedly maintained Joomla extensions may be more expensive than a complete and well supported commercial CMS for a few hundred dollars.
I use commercial themes and components and don’t mind paying for them! We can’t expect everything to be free, pubs sell beer, developers sell software, both people need to pay their mortgage/rent etc….
I’ve used Community Builder, and some other non-GPL thingies, some of which I have been satisfied with, some less so. I say as long as Joomla itself stays GPL, let a hundred flowers bloom! Let the GPL add-ons slug it out with the non-GPL add-ons and give folks lots of choices. That’s the proven model, and it works. Why fix what ain’t broke?
From my experience 99% of the open source ones are of such low calibre that they are of no use to professional industry. Therefore let economics sort it out.
I think it is a perfectly legit business model when you offer an open source component with X features and then offer the full blown one with twice the features for a fee. Besides hasnÂ’t socialism already failed enough :>
On a separate note I think having quality control beyond just user ratings would benefit greatly the plight of Joomla to be taken more serious as an industry standard. Do you know whether anyone has attempted to address this?
Some of the components/extensions/apps we use are on the expensive side… upwards of 300$ USD. I think there should be an “education” license available for these for some of the non-profits we work with. But, I believe the developers have the right to decide whom to charge, how much to charge, and for what type of license…. GO CAPITALISM, I guess.
I strongly believe that one of the strongest points of Joomla is the large amount of extensions available to the core functionality. The even greater thing about the extensions is that there are so many to choose from, that you can usually choose whether you want to go for a free extension, or for a non-free component. Some people are willing to spend money, other’s arent. The Joomla project can support both, and both have existed together fairly well.
The current debate / change in the licence agreement looks like it will be de-moralising a lot of developers and long-time serving members of the Joomla community.Disgruntling these peope, will cause them to abandon the joomla product, probably moving to rival software products. This will start a snowball effect where the quality of available products will go down, because only newbies will develop and Joomla will lose the name it has acquired. The greatest advert for any product is word of mouth, and the worst thing that can happen to any product is to get bad mouthed.
Please ensure that nothing is done to harm this healthy thriving community. Allow these developers to keep on thriving, and Joomla will thrive, and everyone will benefit. Ensure that any decisions taken will not demoralise the community.
I have written an open letter to the Joomla Core Dev team, you can find it on my website: http://www.dart-creations.com/news/latest/an-open-letter-to-the-joomla-core-team.html
The Joomla core had their heads in the sand about this on purpose for the obvious reason that they knew all free & paid development are critical for Joomla to become popular.
They should continue to leave things as they are.
If they kill commercial development then they will kill Joomla.
If they wanted everything to be free and open, then they should have made that unequivocally clear from the start.
I also wonder if the small developer would be able to capture all of the tech support revenue from their project under a non-GPL setup. It seems like others with Joomla expertise could cut into that, thus further diminishing the little-guy contribution.
My fear is that if there is a fallout due to this issue (GPL vs. non-GPL), that developers would just move to another platform and that’s the end of Joomla and I gotta go learn another CMS. This may or may not be reality.
I believe that developers should be able to sell their Joomla components under a different license to GPL. This enables a free market to be established and allows Joomla community to benefit from a wider range of Joomla capabilities.
I acknowledge that this is a difficult issue though and that the arguments to the contrary are compelling. However, in the final analysis, Joomla is a framework and will benefit from the establishment of a free market.
I think everybody should be free to choose wether he would like to sell his developement or not. For I am sure, the GPL developers are more successful, cause of hundrets of people can test and rebug their code and make it thus more sustainable and secure. One Problem is that the donations are too rare somehow, cause if they’d work right, and everybody who earns some money in relation to the xtension would donate at least some Euro, the gpl-nongpl question wouldn’t be ask.
I am a Joomla end user who uses a mixture of commercial and Open Source extensions to my Joomla site. I **strongly feel** that commercial developers should be free to use non-GPL licenses for their components, and that they should be free to choose their own business model. My personal opinion is that it would be a very bad idea to force developers to distribute under the GPL: it would be bad for developers, therefore bad for the end users who have been purchasing and using those low cost commercial add-ins, and ultimately bad for the whole Joomla! movement.
Look, folks, while Joomla! is nice in itself, that is not the whole reason why people are attracted to it. We end users are attracted to it because it is *widely supported by 3rd party developers* who write good stuff, offer it for attractive prices, and *document and support* their stuff. Please don’t lecture me about how well supported Open Source components are documented and supported, because you and I both know that a lot of Open Source stuff tends to be poorly documented and supported badly. Support tends to come from online forums, where you are expected to post a question and hope for a reply. Often, if you get an answer to your question at all, it comes from another end user who may not know much more about the subject than you do! When you try to contact the author, all too often you find that the person is no longer reachable. I have found through the years that, if I have a choice between Open Source software and an low cost equivalent commercial package, I am better off getting the commercial package, because I have someone knowledgable to turn to if something goes wrong or if I need advice. The **only** reason why so many commercial developers have taken the time to do this is because they can make enough money from doing so to pay for their time. These folks have to eat, and they have to feed their families, too!
If you folks force commercial developers to distribute via the GPL, either out of some feeling of “ideological purity” or because of what you *think* the GPL’s wording says your position is *supposed* to be, you will choke off the commercial development that has made Joomla! so valuable to us end users. Rather than making things better, **you will make things worse.** Those talented developers will have to move on to something else, and Joomla will eventually become just another one of those moribund Open Source projects that you see littered throughout SourceForge. I know I probably sound hostile to Open Source.
I don’t really mean to sound like I am fundamentally against it, but my experience has generally been that Open Source software has mainly been useful to me if a) I am sure that I won’t need any tech support, and b) if I don’t really care whether the Open Source software package gets developed any further or not. Neither one of these criteria describe my needs from Joomla: I know I need support occasionally, and I care very much that Joomla’s technology advance: not just the core of Joomla, but the many 3rd party extensions as well. Joomla has enjoyed a boom because of a unique combination of Open Source development and the availability of a wide variety of excellent commercial extensions that are available at low cost. Please don’t screw this up!
Personally I don’t use commercial extensions because I have no budget. However, I believe that some commercial components are acceptable. BTW, Joomla should receive loyalties from these developers!
I have used Joomla to create an intranet site for the school but where I have needed components/extensions I have always gone for a GPL version. As usual with schools money is always limited so I would always try to find a GPL component/extension first. If none was suitable or an extremely useful “must-have” component/extension was required then we would look to purchase but this would require some justifying to those with the budgets.
I think the model works ok at the moment where some developers charge and others are free so if itÂ’s not bust why try to fix it!
The commercial components are expected to come with the requisite polish and support. The Free stuff is often good in concept but has some rough edges (Definitely not always – see Joomla 😉 ). I think there will always be persons willing to code, the problem arises when they don’t have the resources to devote to support & maintenance.
To my mind the usually modest fee charged for commercial components is a small price to keep the better coders working on the area where I’d like them to work. Those whose products are not up to par will fall to the “market forces”.
Cut to the Chase – Yes the components should be allowed to use a NON GPL model.
In my opinion leads to developers being more willing to spend their time developing things as they are more likely to benefit financially from doing so. I do think some developers get a little crazy though, there should be a maximum amount that can be charged for componenets – like $100
This way if the devloper has an offering that is a multi hundred dollar project the user would be able to purchase only portions of this system at $100 max per portion. This would lead to users staying happy that things were still in the affordable realm while developers can continue to prosper in a reasonable way given they didn’t create the core system especially !!
I have never used a commercial component, but I fervently believe developers should be allowed to use whatever licensing scheme they choose for their components. This is only fair. IMO this does not violate the GPL. The components represent developers’ own work and initiative and should be rewarded by what the market will bare. Original work that utilizes a library defined as an API (interface!!), is not derivative, it’s, well, interfacing. I’m all for opensource but it’s too bad that specific zealots wish to stifle innovation to suit their political beliefs.