Alternate Theme Business Models

[Elpie]

On a related subject, I just read a post about the problem of funding open source software development, and it made me think of what kind of changes need to happen for open source software to remain viable - my thoughts focused on the kind of fund-rasing that non-profits do, or that NPR radio does.

http://www.teamlalala.com/blog/2009/...urce-software/

This, to me, is a sign that open source has come of age. People are used to gettting apps free of charge and no longer consider themselves to be part of something new, exciting, and worth getting involved in. Users take the apps and run, expecting support at no cost, yet giving nothing back.

My long-term prediction is that the only FLOSS projects that will survive are those that have corporate backers. WordPress is lucky in that respect as Automattic has a vested interest in keeping the project viable. However, this also presents a risk because should Automattic change direction there may not be enough interested people around who are prepared to work without pay, volunteering their time to WordPress.

[jakebarnes]

I actually have a similar concept in mind already, although definitely not for the reasons you are suggesting above and I certainly wouldn't do it with PHP and I'd cache the data in the users own WordPress installation for performance reasons.

Many problems can be avoided if you are willing to use something other than PHP. The problems discussed in this thread revolve, in part, around the fact that customers can easily copy or hack PHP code, because PHP code is stored as plain text. Most of the other high level scripting languages have the same problem: Perl, Python, Ruby, etc. If you were willing to rely on a compiled language, then the conversation is very different - while your software remains easy to copy, it is no longer easy to hack. You could certainly write an importer in Java that could enforce dependencies and force your customers to pay you. Or, if you wanted to stay in a high-level dynamic language, like PHP, there is, thankfully, now a wealth of such languages available for the JVM: JRuby, Jython, Groovy, etc.

However, there are a lot of good reasons not to go down that road:

1.) Server setup - it is ridiculously easy to use the LAMP stack - since at least 2000, every hosting company has offered a cheap hosting option that has included Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP. Using a JVM language means setting up Tomcat and ensuring that it talks to Apache correctly. This requires you to jump through a few hoops. If you are setting this up on your own server, and you know what you are doing, then the work is trivial, but if you are trying to sell themes to customers who may not be terribly technical, then having to rely on Tomcat would be a very bad idea.

2.) Complexity - its a bit of kludge to get PHP code to depend on non-PHP code. If you are willing to depend on non-PHP code, then why not simply use software written in some other language? If you are willing to go through the hassle of setting up Tomcat, then you might as well build software aiming at an established framework such as Grails. A few plugins and, viola, you've got a CMS. More so, there is probably more money to be made this way. Corporate customers will usually have servers running Tomcat, and these would be the kind of customers who think $100,000 is a small amount to spend on a website. I'm currently working with a client who had their custom CMS built in the .NET framework, and the company that built it for them charges $50,000 a month to maintain the site. They are being over-charged. I would have charged $50,000 to build the site in PHP/Symfony, and there would have been no ongoing, monthly maintence fee.

[jakebarnes]

My long-term prediction is that the only FLOSS projects that will survive are those that have corporate backers. WordPress is lucky in that respect as Automattic has a vested interest in keeping the project viable. However, this also presents a risk because should Automattic change direction there may not be enough interested people around who are prepared to work without pay, volunteering their time to WordPress.

You might be right, but do consider the example of non-profits. For a long time I worked with an environmental non-profit that raised about $250,000 a year from donations and grants. That would be enough to pay for 3 developers to work on an open-source project.

One thing the bigger non-profits have is professional, full-time fund-raisers. These are people who spend 40 hours a week tracking down sources of funding, and begging for donations. I do think this offers a possible model for some open source projects.

This is the most important fact about fund raising: a lot of people will give you money if you ask for money, but they won't give you money if you do not ask for it. Every professional fund-raiser can attest to the truth of this statement. They have their jobs only because this is true.

To look at a relevant example, consider this conversation between Rich Hickey and one of his supporters:

http://groups.google.com/group/cloju...e98ce46b?pli=1

As should be obvious, Clojure is a labor of love on my part. Started as a self-funded sabbatical project, Clojure has come to occupy me far more than full-time. However, Clojure does not have institutional or corporate sponsorship, and was not, and is not, the by-product of another profitable endeavor. I have borne the costs of developing Clojure myself, but 2009 is the last year I, or my family, can bear that.

...Right now, it is economically irrational for me to work on Clojure, yet, I want to continue working on Clojure, and people are clearly deriving benefit from my work. How can we rectify this? Barring the arrival of some white knight, I’m asking the users of Clojure to fund its core development (i.e. my effort) directly, and without being forced to do so.

If you are an individual user of Clojure, I encourage you to contribute $100/year to Clojure development, via the donation system. I hope that, in time, the Clojure community will become large enough that $100/developer/year will be enough to gainfully employ myself, and eventually others, in its development.

Brenton then wrote:

Just having a Donate button on your site was not enough to get me to contribute. But spelling it out like you have here pushed me over the edge. I think if people could see what the need was then they would be willing to give more. Otherwise they may continue to think that someone else will do it and so they don't need to.

This is classic. Rich wanted money but he had not yet explicitly pushed people to donate, so they did not donate. He then asks them to donate, and suddenly they do. They needed to be asked. It is this aspect of human behavior that gives rise to the need for professional fund raisers.

I am absolutely 100% certain that a good open source project will have an easier time raising funds than an environmental non-profit. Trying to raise money for an environmental cause is worse than pulling teeth. Only a small percentage of the population is interested enough in the issue to want to donate, and they very much (and rightly so) regard donating to a non-profit as something of a luxury good - something they do when all their other needs are met. Most good software would be in a different category - many businesses and individuals would regard it as something they need. They would regard it as a producer good, not a consumer good. A capital expense, not a one-off indulgence.

It is possible that most of the money would come from corporations. In that your vision and mine might coincide. But I'm envisioning models where that money might come in an indirect form. The direct model, where Automattic funds WordPress or Cannonical funds Ubuntu, is not the only model that I can see working.

[developdaly]

I just revamped by pricing model and actually made it publicly available here: http://developdaly.com/services/

The interesting thing to note is the GPL discount. I'd love any feedback!