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Rhomal wrote:
wait a min.. you release something under the GPL, charging a fee for such under it (which lets just say you are entitled to do for the sake of this discussion). But when the GPL does not fit your needs its ok to now throw it out the window and punish per se people who use the GPL themselves? Which we all established they are allowed under the license you released it under free to do I might add.
I seems to me your trying to have your cake and eat it too.
You are debating fairly hard that under the GPL its fine
for you to require this fee pre-public release. But when someone chooses to use said license in a manor fitting with it your going to ban them from your site and throw a tirade?
In effect your saying "I want to use and enforce the rights of the GPL.. until someone uses it in a way I don't like.." Am I the only one who sees a double standard with this?
The GPL specifies freedom of use of the code. It does not specify that I must support or give access to this code at my own expense, so it is my prerogative to remove these privileges from users that move to undermine the AMS project. Do you really think given the nature of AMS that this reaction is really that unreasonable or unexpected? Do you think that it should go unchecked?
I share the idealism of GPL software, I have a distaste of the actions of the profit orientated organizations such as MS and others that only exist to serve their needs and end up quashing innovation and progress for the greater good. However I also have a firm grasp of what it takes to get things done in the real world, which it seems you do not. You seem to be at the exact opposite of the likes of MS but the end result is much the same. Innovation and progress for the greater good is quashed as you expect everything to be free of charge. You simply can't have this all the time in a real world, as somewhere, someone is paying for this, be it in time or in money. In the event it is in time, the perosn must be willing to give that time. In the event it is money, the person must be willing to give that. It is much easier for someone to give time over money would you not agree?
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Rhomal wrote:
Undermine? How so? I think you mean deprive you of income.
Yep, that's it. I wonder which color Porsche I'll drive to work tomorrow, so many choices with all the money I'm racking in from all those $10 donations. Bugger it, I think I'll buy a helicopter as I'm sick of sitting in traffic. Man it's GOOD to be sitting in a pile of money like this....
Sorry for the sarcasm, but if you had actually bothered to research the history of AMS at all you'd know that AMS has personally cost me (and others) several hundred dollars each. If AMS was created to make me a dollar, I would have dumped it months ago as I have not made a single cent from it myself. Apart from the PayPal fee, 100% of ALL donations to AMS go back into AMS.
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Rhomal wrote:
I am willing to accept from what I have read in this thread you are more or less entitled to charge this fee. I think its against the spirit of open source but thats another topic.
However, posting it on my or anyone elses site will not stop or cripple development of it. Perhaps stop YOU from doing such but certainly someone else will pick it up and carry it forward with or without you.
Something I discovered in my travels is when your 'baby' (be it a web site, business, software, etc) becomes bigger then you, you become a expendable asset in the equation for good or ill.
Someone else will pick it up will they? Again your knowledge of the history (and XOOPS module development in general) is blindingly absent. The very reason AMS was commissioned in the first place was because apart from the News module all development of any advanced article management modules had been at a stand still for months on end. WF-Section 2 had been abandoned when Catz left, News 1.2 was only in beta, ArMS hadn't been worked on in some time, SmartSection was barely a twinkle in Marcan's eye, and Articles 0.17 had not seen any development work in nearly 6 months.
If someone with very capable coding (and I don't mean someone who has read a teach yourself PHP in 14 days book) steps forward and makes a commitment to continue to develop AMS, then I'd be happy to take a more background role. Unless you are involved in such a project you have NO idea how demanding on time it can be. I try to remain objective in moving AMS forward, if there was a way to have AMS actively developed (one release a year is not active) without the cost I would be happy to look at it.
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Rhomal wrote:
Fund it? No. Reimburse you for this perceived cost? Yes. I get the impression, you seem to think because you paid out some money for this you should be reimbursed by the community to some degree. IMO if you didn't you would have released it public and simply do what many other module devs do, put a link in it to your paypal or website for (real) donations.
The release of AMS 2.2 was to help reimburse costs, but the amount myself and my partner asked for was met (which incidentally was less than one third of what it actually cost us). I put the question to the XOOPS community, and if they didn't want it AMS wouldn't be here would it. All donations from AMS 2.4 onward will be 100% used for future development.
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Rhomal wrote:
Because you released it for free to start? Which I compliment you. That was a very good business decision. Wet the appetite then when you have a decent install base they will be more apt to give you your 'donation'. Same reason when M&M/Mars or Coke develop a new drink or candy they hire thousands of ppl to go to all major cities and stand on the corner and give away free samples. Of course they are going to create a buzz/hook some people but by then they have to go to the store and buy it. Again, on a business level I compliment you.
As for myself using it, I admit I fell for the buzz and I thought it was better then the standard news module at first. While its good, to be honest I don't consider it great. In fact if you have a script to go from AMS back to news I'd be happy to do so. For me its no better or worse then the news module. Though the news module has a few quirks I prefer. Nothing against AMS, its just for my needs it does not do much for me the news module did not. Sadly I discovered this after the fact.
I suggest that before you post again you do some research on AMS. I have ALWAYS used this development module with AMS, and the first version of AMS was released to donators only in October, and was not released publicly until December. I am not trying to "hook" anyone, if AMS serves your needs then use it, if not, use something else. It's all about choice.
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Rhomal wrote:
I run the most popular Neverwinter Nights 2 news/community site. Who foots MY monthy broadband bill? Who pays me for the hours per day I put into the site? Who reimbursts me when I upgrade the hardware for the server or replace a failed device?
Yet do you see me requiring people to pay for my service? Do you even see a link for donations on my page? Why? Becasue I -do- do it for the community. I suck it up and take the hit for the team and frankly I dont cry about it. If you cant afford to do it then I would kindly suggest you hand it to someone who does have the time, resources and such.
As do I (as do a huge amount of people here). But if you can tell me that hosting your site has cost $1100USD in the last 6 months then I really think that argument is null. If you can absorb that kind of cost out of your own pocket to turn around and give it away, then PLEASE e-mail me, as for me I am a regular working joe and don't have enough money to spend that much on myself, let alone for a software project to be used by people I don't know. As for handing it to someone else, who would you suggest who is prepared to do it that has the resources to be able to do this without compromising the quality or letting the development cycle slip?
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Rhomal wrote:
I suggested a shareware model. That IMO is quite viable. A free ver that has a few features removed and a pay for all feature version.
Or do what many others do, in the module put a link to your paypal or other donation method. Seems to work for them or they prob would have stopped doing so awhile ago. *shrugs*
My 2 coppers
And I'm telling you a shareware model would not work, I simply do not have the time or funds to maintain two seperate code bases. This getting back to the whole GPL short falls Catz was pointing out. As soon as one copy of AMS leaves my computer, I have lost control of it. This does not concern me except in the event it were to leave me heavily out of pocket. It is for this reason AMS is offered the way it is in a pay upfront style.
