May
12
2008
| GroupJive and How to Support GPL Projects |
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| Monday, 12 May 2008 | |
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Rocketwerx recently did something very similar and raised over $2500 towards finishing their Joomla 1.5 and phpBB3 Bridge. That caused a mixed reaction from members of their forum but its possible that this fundraiser may breathe new life into the Group Jive effort.
What Work Will the Group Jive Fundraiser Support?
Alternative Fundraising Methods for Non-Commercial GPL Projects
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Comments (12)
  written by Joseph LeBlanc, May 12, 2008
I think this is a good model when you set people's expectations appropriately. I've toyed around with the idea of doing this, but so far I've tried to keep my consulting work separate from my OS side projects. Also, regardless of the model used, people's expectations of your software inevitably goes up when money is involved.
 written by Steve Burge, May 13, 2008
"Also, regardless of the model used, people's expectations of your software inevitably goes up when money is involved."
Very true ... managing people's expectations is important. You can see that in the rocketwerx forums ... "we donated, so why aren't all the bugs fixed yet?"  written by Bob Simpson, May 14, 2008
GroupJive has a lot of potential and we certainly have clients who could use its features. But people do have to make a living and also balance their lives out. Stressed out anxiety-ridden programmers are doing no favors to themselves or to others.
I'm curious to see how the business model being used by Andrew Eddie over JExtended works out. I'm also interested to see if the changes planned by the Community Builder team help their situation. I often tell our clients that technology is hard but that people are harder. We sometimes lose sight of the fact that not every problem in tech has a technical fix. Bob "Bobbo" Simpson  written by Daniel Chapman, May 14, 2008
I think blurring between licenses and commercial/non commercial is always going to happen because of people's poor understanding of the differences between the two.
The line between commercial and non-commercial is far more blurry though. I would personally consider anything that brought in money to be a commercial endeavor of some sort. Just those that are 'voluntary' are considered by some people to be non-commercial because it's optional. Most people's introduction to Open Source is when they got something for free, so they assume that's how OS is, always free. Which causes a problem when they come up to a commercial or semi commercial project. I think it's a good turn myself. Because you can't go forever on nothing.  written by Copes Flavio, May 14, 2008
If you reach a certain level of complexity in Open Source software, you've got to be payed to do the job.
In a way or in another. written by Steve Burge, May 14, 2008 If you reach a certain level of complexity in Open Source software, you've got to be payed to do the job. I think blurring between licenses and commercial/non commercial is always going to happen because of people's poor understanding of the differences between the two. Both very true - the old problem of people thinking that Open Source has to be "free" as in "give me your hard work" rather than "free" as in "allow me to add my own hard work". written by Daniel Chapman, May 14, 2008 If you reach a certain level of complexity in Open Source software, you've got to be payed to do the job. Yes, this is very true. If not, then the software is capped at a certain level of complexity. I have seen this on a lot of projects. They start out as a fun thing, but as they complexity grows they demands grow, the bugs grow, the conflicts grow and the fun becomes work. At this point development either grinds to a halt, they pass on the project to others, or they turn commercial in some way to justify the time investment they are making. written by guido, May 21, 2008
I agree with you about the commercial way: definitely the way to go when a project becomes complex.
And that's why it would be right to spread the word about the Jfusion bridge (another one??). It's a very good project, supporting integration with phpBB3, vBulletin 3.7.0, SMF, IPB, myBB and magento. The founder put this chipin online in order to publish a first beta before 19th June http://jfusion.chipin.com/jfusion It's even an improvement on rocketwerx, they asked and got the chipin completed, but still don't provide any date...and their work seems far from completed... apart from this I don't want to compare the two OS endavours, the developers have to be thanked for their work! So, please, spread the word about Jfusion as well!! written by mgltacoma, May 27, 2008
Is nt joomla.org now using phpBB3 and joomla 1.5?
They must have that bridge already wrote. Why do not they give it back to the community? written by Steve Burge, May 27, 2008
Hi mgltacoma
No bridge - they're just using phpBB3 by itself. written by Sean Knight, June 01, 2008
I just heard about a way that the music industry was raising Money by bands selling stock. What if for example groupjive was to do the same thing and as product matures over a certain time period that money could go back to community that invested time or money. but also have it open source so that if
As it raises 5000 dollars to reach stable all those who invested in either time or money once stable it still asked for donations and those donations came back to the developing investors. I am sure you could pick this idea apart but perhaps the idea needs to be developed. Also this idea wont work in the us because of sec filings. but it could work in across the pond. written by testician, July 20, 2008
Why doesn't one of the commercial Joomla extension developers just take Groupjive, redevelop, re-name and release it as a commercial extension. The lack of groups extension in Joomla 1.5 is really holding Joomla sites back. There must be some good money to be made for who ever does this. If the $2000 dollars raised so far by the micropledge is not enough to motivate developers, then creating a commercial version might be. Somebody needs to do this. Most users won't mind paying for group functionality in Joomla. I have already email one major developer who has expressed an interest and I am going to start email them all. I don't mind if it is BestofJoomla, IJoomla, JoomsSuite, JForce or lesser know team that does it. This is the most need component in Joomla right now. Any developer that releasea groups component for Joomla 1.5 is going to make alot of money. Many site owners would opay up to $100 dollars to get groups into their site. Come on Joomla devs, please get this done and bring real social networking to Joomla.
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