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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.

Digg this story

The core team of Joomla has finally (after 2 months of high tension discussion) issued a statement about a change in the license of Joomla.

I have been keeping my blog posts here relatively neutral, encouraging people to express an opinion, but I have had several people ask me for my take on all this, and what I think the consequences will be. So here goesÂ…

So what we talking about?

At issue are third party Joomla extensions and some modern templates. There are many of them that are sold on a per domain license. You probably have bought and used one on your Joomla website.

Since its creation in 2005, Joomla has always encouraged these 3rd party developers. There was a spot on the extensions site for them, there were initially FAQ’s that they say non-GPL extensions were ok, www.joomla.org even used proprietary extensions on its own sites.

License, GPL, proprietary, wha?

OK, the license most commonly linked to open source software like Joomla is the GPL. I am not going to describe what it means because of my next point; you stand a 50% chance of disagreeing with me 🙂

It’s really interesting because people’s world views and philosophies drive their interpretation of it. The fact of the matter it’s been hardly ever tested in court, so while everyone tends to say “that’s legal, that’s not”, they are just relying on the opinion of their lawyers, and a lawyer will always have the opinion you want him to, that’s why you are paying himÂ…

Catching a cold, the viral nature of the GPL.

Broadly speaking, if you create a derivative bit of code from something that is GPL, then it too becomes GPL when you distribute it. You can’t have proprietary code.

Simple enough?

No, not really, this is where people’s interpretations come in. You could image a bell curve of people’s opinion about this. At one end you have the Freedom Software Foundation who (imho) believes that if you breathe on another bit of code, it becomes GPL. At the other end you have, I don’t know, Microsoft, who probably thinks that a derivative would have to be very very tightly tied into the GPL code to have caught the license.

Interesting Linus Torvalds has always disagreed with the FSF’s interpretation of the license. We’ll come back to that in a moment. In 2005 and 2006 Joomla, as mentioned above had a more “Linus-like” view of the viral nature of the GPL.

 

The implications of catching a GPL cold

In the context of Joomla, this comes down to business models.

To a man (and a few women) Joomla 3rd party commercial developers have the simple business of you pay a domain license for the extension. You can’t do that with GPL extensions because the GPL gives the right to redistribute. They all have this model for a couple of reasons:

1. because the Joomla project said it was OK in 2005 and 2006.
2. because it’s the easiest to set up, and most profitable for the one-man shops that characterize Joomla.

A GPL business model would seek to get its revenue from training, support, updates etc. Since revenue can’t come from the code, it has to come from elsewhere.
-So, if you have a “left-leaning” view of the GPL, you make money off services.
-If you have a “right-leaning” view, you make money off products.

Take that horse for a ride(r)

In 2005 the core team at the time asked James Vasile, FSF lawyer and OSM board member (currently advising the core team on this matter) to help them write a rider for Joomla. The point of the rider was to grant an exception to extension developers so they could release their own software however they wanted, clearing up any legal ambiguity that might cause problems. It was added to the copyright in May, 2006.

In April 2007, the rider was removed from the copyright, and sparked a raging debate about whether extensions can be GPL. Its removal was the first step in a shift in Joomla’s attitude towards non-GPL extensions, the final result was a statement that all extensions must be GPL to be legal.

To go back to our bell curve, I would say their shift looked something like this:

 

 

The Implications of Joomla’s New Interpretation

OK, so in 2005 and 2006, Joomla had a viewpoint that favored non-GPL extensions. Up till now I hope I have been relatively unbiased. Here would be my first “opinion”:

Joomla created an ecosystem where commercial and private interests lived alongside open source purists. That broad community reach allowed Joomla to go places other FOSS software couldn’t, and the corporate sector is a place where Joomla still thrives to this day. It led to the flourishing of hundreds of commercial/proprietary extensions where end users could build an amazingly sophisticated site for a couple of hundred bucks.

This shift in policy seems to have had the effect of getting lots of 3rd party developers (3PD’s) mad as bees. An organization has already been formed with close to 100 members, the Commercial Joomla Developers Alliance. As far as can be discerned, the most common frustration is that Joomla has changed the rules of the game at half time. These 3PD’s spent the last 18 months building a business, and a certain extent, life, on the policy that Joomla was communicating. Now they will have to change how they do business to survive.

OK, here goes for my second opinion of what will happen.

• People will argue that the rider was or wasn’t legal
• People will argue that extensions are or are not derivatives
• People will argue that this or that business model will work

There isn’t much point; again, probably 50% of us will disagree! However, I think I can be more certain of this:

• Joomla has alienated its commercial/proprietary 3PD community
• Many 3PD will be unable or unwilling to make the changes to their business model to comply with Joomla’s wishes.
• Some fraction of that will take some sort of action, ranging from forks, competing sites, litigation, stopping development for 1.5 or just walking away.

The core team has expressed that they think that this fraction will be small. Small enough that GPL compliant business models will rush to fill the void.

I am not sure that is the case. A non-GPL business model is easy to set up, that’s why there were so many. We are already seeing just hours after Joomla’s new policy statement 3PD’s taking various types of action.

It’s been claimed numerous times on the thread that it’s possible to sell a GPL component and/or charge a membership for access to it. While technically true, it doesn’t get you anywhere. Unfortunately human nature is not like that. In a very short period of time we’ll be seeing all these GPL extensions available for free on various sites. You can’t add enough value (updates, support and documentation) to compete with free. That’s not a viable business model.

But what about the most important thing here, the community of end users?

Perhaps the biggest problem in all this is what will be the reaction of the end user? Its difficult to judge reading the GPL discussion thread. In forums people seem to think that if they shout their view loud enough it will become true. The loud voices drown out the silent majority.

WarningÂ… more opinions approaching.

Ironically, for an organization that chose an African translation of “All together” as its name (Joomla), I don’t think the community of end users was really asked, or considered in all this. The core team has taken action that they strongly believe was in the best interest of the project. I am not sure it was in the best interest of end users. I have been contacted by many that have expressed this kind of sentiment.

At the end of the day, they just want a website that works, looks good and didn’t cost them a fortune.

(click to read some end user opinions) 

The end users are in the middle of that bell curve, I would think most of them pretty ambivalent to the GPL’s intricacies.

Moving forward, have the trenches been dug too deep?

There are always two sides to an issue. It’s a little high minded to think that you are always “right”. The world is not like that.

If Joomla wants to continue to grow and enjoy the success it has had in the last 18 months, it needs to find a compromise with the 3PD community. Whether it is currently comfortable with it philosophically or not, that community did contribute to the uptake and success of the CMS.

To reach a compromise you need to accept you can’t have an inflexible absolute position. Both groups need to have an honest dialog about their needs and be willing to move towards a middle ground.

Unfortunately, I can’t see this happening. I think we are going to see months of bitter wrangling that regardless of the outcome, which will do nothing but discourage end users and impair the projects growth.

 

Some footnotes

This shouldn’t be about encryption

Developers encrypt for many reasons, primarily piracy. There are more ways to skin the open source cat like code escrow. Besides, the marketplace will decide that one, most end users don’t like encryption.

This shouldn’t be about contributing to the project

A small fraction of 3PD don’t contribute much back to the project; most do. If Joomla wants to have more involvement, they should be using more carrot and less stick.

"Can Joomla! extensions be released under non-GPL compatible licenses?"

GPL what, eh?

Most component/extension developers whose are full time Joomla developers use a non-GPL license. You have probably purchased one of their extensions at some point. Usually $20-50 and the non-GPL license asks that you use the component on a single website.

If extensions/components must be GPL, then a different business model is required. This is usually along the lines of giving the component away for free and charging for support, or consultancy-based. Obvously if a component is GPL, it can be re-distributed for free.

The current debate seems to fall on two sides; full time commercial Joomla developers think that GPL-only extensions/components will lead to fewer 3rd party developers and fewer components.

Others, including key members of the Joomla core team think that this won’t happen and developers will be able to easily adjust to different business models.

Joomla is asking for the Joomla end user community to contact them with your thoughts on this issue:

“All feedback from the forum thread as well as emails sent to thoughts@opensourcematters.org, will be integral to review and consideration for the greater good of the project and the community."

I’d like to ask you to take a moment of your valuable time and email your thoughts, perhaps it really boils down to these two opinions, if you are too busy, you could just copy and paste one of them…

YES!
I think that commercial developers should be able to use non-GPL licenses for their components and choose their own business model.

NO!
All commercial components should be GPL licensed and free, and they must use a GPL-compatible business model.

Thanks for your time, I appreciate you reading this email. I know you are busy, but I thought this was an important issue for all that use Joomla.

ps
If you have a bunch of time on your hands, the background for this question has been discussed (exhaustively) at:
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,163492.0.html

An alternative viewpoint can be found here:
jcd-a.org/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,28/topic,100.0/

 

When I say grow, I really mean it! Since its birth JoomlaÂ’s adoption has been phenomenal. Tracking some simple metrics like search volume and Alexa Rank (Figures 1 and 2) you can see that it has enjoyed huge gain in popularity.

Figure 1
Google search volume of common open source CMS

Figure 2
Alexa Traffic rank for CMS project domains

Many have speculated what has contributed to this growth. Obviously being free and easy to use helps but perhaps there are two other key numbers worth looking at.

The Joomla Community

The Joomla community is big, and itÂ’s active. The official forum at forum.joomla.org has (as of writing) over 110,000 members making it perhaps one of the biggest forums on the web. Along with that, there are many forums on the international sites of Joomla. There are also other many 3rd party forums such as joomlashack.com (90,000 members). Although a crude measure, itÂ’s a useful way of seeing how large the community around Joomla might actually be.

A large and active community, measured here by the members of forums is an important factor in the success in an open source project.

3rd Party Extensions Development

Joomla is perhaps unique among open source CMSÂ’s in the size and nature of the non-official developers that create extensions for it. There are currently over 1,600 extensions listed on the official site (extensions.joomal.org). ItÂ’s hard to find a Joomla site that doesnÂ’t use one of these. The true power of Joomla is the astonishing range of extensions there are.

The nature of these developers is also interesting. There are an unusually high proportion of commercial developers and companies creating professional extensions for Joomla. Although the nature of open source and commercial development might seem unlikely bedfellows, many commentators have pointed to this characteristic of the Joomla project as a significant contributor to its growth.

But how many websites use Joomla?

Another measure of the popularity of Joomla is to try and measure how many sites are using it to power their website. This is very difficult to measure, but we can make some crude estimates.

The default installation of Joomla has a footer that contains a link to www.joomla.org. Using Google, we can search for sites linking to www.joomla.org with the “link” command. The results are shown in Figure 3

Figure 3
GoogleÂ’s measure of sites linking to Joomla.org

If we do the same thing in Yahoo, which supposedly is more accurate for this, we get a higher number, here in figure 4.

Figure 4
YahooÂ’s measure of sites linking to Joomla.org

The first caveat here is that many of these links will be just links from non-Joomla sites that are discussing Joomla. The second is that many Joomla users will have removed the aforementioned footer link.

We can then search for the occurrences of “powered by Joomla” and Joomla common phrases people use on their Joomla websites. Putting all these results in a table.

The search terms can provide low and high end estimates and the link analysis adds some benchmarking. This would imply that there are somewhere between 10 and 40ish million websites that are using Joomla today. A very rough analysis I know, if you have access to better metrics, please email me at compassdesigns[at]gmail.com.

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