Post by i2Paq » Wed Feb 17, 2010 9:20 pm

Daniel wrote:my plan is to create a new extension page where people can not only give their work away for free but also sell the work.
I strongly suggest that the way that modules behave now is changed!

There is a proposal by Q I think should be implemented before a marketplace gets launched.

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Post by Daniel » Wed Feb 17, 2010 9:21 pm

what is Q's proposal?

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Post by Qphoria » Wed Feb 17, 2010 10:26 pm

I'm not sure which of my many proposals we are referring to here. Something with module behavior?

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Post by i2Paq » Wed Feb 17, 2010 10:46 pm

Qphoria wrote:I'm not sure which of my many proposals we are referring to here. Something with module behavior?
Yes, I think thats the one.

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Post by cartit » Wed Feb 17, 2010 11:29 pm

If you allow me to give my suggestions may propose the following system:

1 - publish and sell on the site opencart.com modules users are able to develop new functions;
2 - on the sale of additional modules, Daniel takes a percentage of law (eg 20%);
3 - However, developers can sell on its site modules.

All this means that you can choose to buy directly from the manufacturer or from opencart.com and donating a share of law to Daniel that in recent years has worked hard and earned fairly.

Of course, Daniel will verify the proper functioning of the modules for sale.

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... hey Dan, for me you can create now the section addon store! you know i am agree! cartit(blogexecute) have proposal it because i know your work is hard and money is few!!

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Post by Qphoria » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:13 am

i2Paq wrote:
Qphoria wrote:I'm not sure which of my many proposals we are referring to here. Something with module behavior?
Yes, I think thats the one.
which one? I was referencing your comments but I have no idea which you mean. Regarding a Business Model and how to make money, my only idea was to charge $1 per DL of opencart. Which I assume can't be done since its GPL. The other ideas were:

Donate-a-Feature - Put a Poll of new features up. The community can vote on which new feature gets added by donating. The more you donate, the higher the feature gets ranked.

Paypal Adaptive Payments - For each commerical contribution offered in the OpenCart MarketPlace, Daniel gets a cut. Which I think is what he is working on.

Banners with Adblock-blocker detection. - As seen here: http://www.adblock.org/2004/07/adblock_detection_demo/ (if you have adblock enabled, you should get a warning)

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Post by i2Paq » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:18 am

Qphoria wrote:
i2Paq wrote:
Qphoria wrote:I'm not sure which of my many proposals we are referring to here. Something with module behavior?
Yes, I think thats the one.
which one? I was referencing your comments but I have no idea which you mean
OK.

You wrote a proposal on how the way modules are handled now by OC should change so when OC has a new version released there should be no need to rewrite/update modules as they have their own "engine" or "controller".

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Post by Qphoria » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:19 am

i2Paq wrote: You wrote a proposal on how the way modules are handled now by OC should change so when OC has a new version released there should be no need to rewrite/update modules as they have their own "engine" or "controller".
That's not related to business model tho. That's just future development

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Post by i2Paq » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:21 am

Qphoria wrote:Regarding a Business Model and how to make money, my only idea was to charge $1 per DL of opencart. Which I assume can't be done since its GPL. The other ideas were:

Donate-a-Feature - Put a Poll of new features up. The community can vote on which new feature gets added by donating. The more you donate, the higher the feature gets ranked.

Paypal Adaptive Payments - For each commerical contribution offered in the OpenCart MarketPlace, Daniel gets a cut. Which I think is what he is working on.

Banners with Adblock-blocker detection. - As seen here: http://www.adblock.org/2004/07/adblock_detection_demo/ (if you have adblock enabled, you should get a warning)
Donate-a-Feature, yes! this would be a good idea. But there should be a check on wether it needs to be in the core or as a module. If it would be a module it could be build by others like yourself.

Paypal Adaptive Payments, correct. If sold via the contribution site.

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Post by i2Paq » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:24 am

Qphoria wrote:
i2Paq wrote: You wrote a proposal on how the way modules are handled now by OC should change so when OC has a new version released there should be no need to rewrite/update modules as they have their own "engine" or "controller".
That's not related to business model tho. That's just future development
I know, but this just came up during this discussion because if Daniel would open up a contribution market it would make more sence to first change the way modules work otherwise a module sold would need to be updated and updated whenever a new release of OC comes out.
Second there would be a flood of outdated modules instead of one that would work on any version if the modules where handled by their own engine/controller.

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Post by OSWorX » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:40 am

Qphoria wrote:
i2Paq wrote: You wrote a proposal on how the way modules are handled now by OC should change so when OC has a new version released there should be no need to rewrite/update modules as they have their own "engine" or "controller".
That's not related to business model tho. That's just future development
Cannot agree with this.
A business model needs also a future, a perspective which OC does not have at the moment.
Changing with every release the way modules are handled, changing major parts in the core making 3PD modules obsolete has no future.

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Post by gob33 » Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:31 am

Here i describe the business model of PrestaShop which is viable and you should consider it:

1) The GPL is an obstacle for commercial business, I think you should look at the OSLv3 like others e-commerce software already are. I will see a license change first (and major version) by the author.

2) A marketplace site could then be build to sell modules written by developpers. PrestaShop site takes 30% on the price of each module sold. Developpers maintains their differents products and versions by adding/removing obsolete addons. Each addon is qualified by the PrestaShop version on which it runs. Some modules can be certified (controled) by the PrestShop team if the developper pay a fee for that. That addon then shows an official banner "Certified" on the site if it has passed tests.
The minimum selling price for an addon is 30EUR (mandatory).
When a developper (called "a partner") has more than 100EUR on his account, he sends a paper invoice to PrestShop to get his money. The invoice is needed for fiscal reasons.

3) The key of succes is to attract developpers. Earning little money is an excellent reason. The revenues of contributions sold on the official site goes to the author (Daniel) for X pourcent and to the developpers for 100-X pourcent. Customers who buy addons gets benefits with more functionnalties in their shop. Free and expensive certified contributions (ex payment systems) can be mixed with no pbs. The only thing to do is changing the core to the OSL license to let modules take proprietary licenses if they want.
Last edited by gob33 on Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:20 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Qphoria » Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:31 am

i2Paq wrote: Donate-a-Feature, yes! this would be a good idea. But there should be a check on wether it needs to be in the core or as a module. If it would be a module it could be build by others like yourself.
Well it would be popularly requested features that are universal. Obviously not payment or shipping modules, but things like
- Minimum Order Qty
- Global Options
- Option Types (checkbox, text, file, radio, etc)
- Dynamic Fields
- etc

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Post by SuperJuice » Thu Feb 18, 2010 10:14 am

I think the poor assumption here is that Daniel should be able to make a living off the product, this is a bad start.

Yes I think it's good code, yes I think Daniel has done well.. but if you're in it to make a living off it I think selecting GPL as your license and labeling your product 'OpenCart' was the wrong way to approach it.

Masses of software products out there that are very good wouldn't be earning their authors a living, this is a fact of the Software game.

It seems Daniel just wants to control the profit made off his 'open' product. Not sure I completely agree with this as contributors will just start selling off their own sites to avoid the cut being taken.. and they are well within their rights to do this.

I really don't like where this is headed, OpenCart was already starting to have problems whereby you download the base product.. and then have to pay if you want any functionality (shipping etc.). This was a concern I raised early and a primary reason I wrote the Australia Post module and released it for free.

If you start forcing users down a road of purchasing functionality they will just go elsewhere, simple as that. Developers will also go elsewhere I would say.

If you want to make a living off it, try selling a professional version of the product with support (or hosted solution), or have a professional (paid for) version and a separate community version.

The more you try to restrict how people use the code and release modifications, the higher the chance the project will fork and the community will follow.

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Post by peteVA » Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:30 pm

I more or less got this started. Frankly, I was thinking of CubeCart, where they have an active community of modders and template designers. They also have a paid version, which is an entirely different product than the free version.

I was not thinking of the paid version, simply the free version and comparing it to some other freebies, such as OSC and Zen, as well as PrestaShop. OSC and Zen have tons of free "contributions", but some have been modded and modded with several different contributors and there seems to be little concern of one mod interfering with another.

With CC, there seems to be a more close knit community, with different modders even mentioning that their mod may not work if someone elses' xzy mod is installed. And while there are many free, there are more that are not. With OSC / Zen it seems they are all totally free. And Presta seems to have a mixture. (I know little about Presta, I've installed every release and find it is going in the wrong direction for me.)

Full time living? I guess that depends on how well he wants to live. I am not a coder. If I had to write just one line in anything except HTML to live another day, my wife would be a widow tomorrow. So, how much time is involved, I have no idea. Exactly how you make money off a free product, again, I have no idea. Well, I have a few.

I started this because Daniel was saying it was hardly worth his while doing small jobs for people, so my true concern was to get it to where he was seeing something for his efforts. Personally, I have looked at easily half a hundred shopping cart demos in the last six of eight months and I can say I know of zero working mall / multi-store free scripts. I'd suggest making that a $100 or so per install license. Most are $300 or more.

There may be other versions that could be sold. There are few scripts that will handle sales of games codes. Some will do it automatically after a PayPal payment, but lack a buyer confirmation step between purchase with a possibly stolen account login and online delivery. Having a built in phone call verification would make for a nice $100 script for someone wanting to sell codes.

There are other variations that could also be sold, while still maintaining the free base cart. For sale could be a help desk module, an "included" forum, an automated sequential autoresponder, etc.

Not for everyone, but there are people looking for each. I know, they pay me to search them out and install them. I could sell several games key codes packages right now.

Is this going to happen tomorrow, certainly not. Maybe never. About the least involved in this thread is Daniel himself. He may want nothing to do with any of it.

As for me, I'd be happy with a stable 1.4.x :)

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Post by elmo » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:51 pm

Personally I thnk that most of the ideas mentioned warrent futher input
myself in the past Ive takin on the way a company in Poland sell there ecom / cms packages
the basic version is free they then have 2 paid versions both with more options
www.opensolution.org & no Im not plugging them either this is & was the ecomm / cms packages I use
I have also used Oscommerce & Zend cart plus others
I personally woudl be happy to pay $400 or $500 to get a site wide license for my servers
or a per domain name lisence. as most of you know well, me personaly I rely in the kindness of others & forums
& I will try and awsner if I can as I for 1 are not a programmer,

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Post by i2Paq » Thu Feb 18, 2010 3:22 pm

SuperJuice wrote:I think the poor assumption here is that Daniel should be able to make a living off the product, this is a bad start.

Yes I think it's good code, yes I think Daniel has done well.. but if you're in it to make a living off it I think selecting GPL as your license and labeling your product 'OpenCart' was the wrong way to approach it.

Masses of software products out there that are very good wouldn't be earning their authors a living, this is a fact of the Software game.

It seems Daniel just wants to control the profit made off his 'open' product. Not sure I completely agree with this as contributors will just start selling off their own sites to avoid the cut being taken.. and they are well within their rights to do this.

I really don't like where this is headed, OpenCart was already starting to have problems whereby you download the base product.. and then have to pay if you want any functionality (shipping etc.). This was a concern I raised early and a primary reason I wrote the Australia Post module and released it for free.

If you start forcing users down a road of purchasing functionality they will just go elsewhere, simple as that. Developers will also go elsewhere I would say.

If you want to make a living off it, try selling a professional version of the product with support (or hosted solution), or have a professional (paid for) version and a separate community version.

The more you try to restrict how people use the code and release modifications, the higher the chance the project will fork and the community will follow.
I think you miss the point of this discussion.

It is not about that "we" have to pay for OpenCart or Modules, it is about paying for modules, templates or whatever that adds extra functionality. If the contributor asks money for it and if he wants to sell it via the contribution site he pays a small fee to Daniel. That is how PrestaShop does it. Any contributor is free to sell his modules or templates via his own site as long as he does not promote his stuff via the OC forums.
Daniel said that it is hard to make a living out of building OC and I think there should come something out of his hard work. I do not think that there comes (enough) money out of donation as I know that most users of OC never ever donate even if they make money out of using OC. I would feel ashamed if I did.

There is nothing wrong with buying functionality if this is created by building a module as long as importand functionality that belongs in the core (not as a module) is there. A lot of modules are not needed by 80% of the users so why waist time on that when other functionality needs to be in it. Functionality as Order Edit, Manual Order Entry, e-Vouchers etc. etc.
Even now I have no problems with it to donate to get certain functionality sooner in the core because when it is added I can replace my own shop with OC. I know how much time I've spend getting everything build in my osCommerce shop and saving that time (and thus money) is worth something.

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Post by cartit » Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:18 pm

As usual, things get complicated!
is very simple, as explained in my previous post (... is not necessary to replicate what has been said).

1 - OpenCart stable version is free.
2 - Users can post free modules and modules for a fee.
3 - The modules can be sold to pay the manufacturer's site or on the official website OpenCart.
4 - Modules sold on the official site agreements shall assign a percentage to be determined to Daniel.
5 - Daniel can develop additional functionality or customization fee for OpenCart.

I want to remind everyone that it is beautiful OpenCart free but must consider that it takes a lot of work to get the results. I think that Daniel has the right to receive money to compensate for his passing hours to stabilize the script.

I also want to specify that you must have a really stable version, which continued for a long time so that users can consider very seriously the opportunity to extend their store. In the present state of things people are afraid to spend money on additional modules because after a few days presents a new version and modules purchased are not yet operational.

My personal advice is to have stable releases for long periods and concentrate its efforts to improve and extend the security and functionality.

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Post by niuserre » Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:46 pm

You don't have to sell products (in this case, core or modules) to make a living from open source software. In fact, for GPL software you shouldn't really be selling modifications at all.

Most creators of open source software make a living by being the 'expert' and therefore the go-to-person for customised versions, some also take speaking engagements. For that to happen I think there would have to be more of a team building the core to allow Daniel the time to do the customisations etc. Whether that's what Daniel actually wants, I have no idea.

I think most people have heard of WordPress. Co-founder Matt made his fortune even before wordpress.com hosted services launched, mostly from custom work, sponsorship and other clever stuff. Look him up, he's done a lot of interviews on th subject of open source and he's passionate about the GPL.

One thing to think about is that open source software needs mainstream uptake to become profitable - you need major companies willing to use it as their codebase and therefore to have an interest in its development. For this to happen, the OpenCart website and forums needs to show a great community, with people who are passionate about open source and OpenCart. They want to see a team of people working together to produce the software. Without that, many companies and developers do not feel comfortable using an open source product because they worry that it will disappear, or become low quality, or start charging, etc.

Given how awesome OpenCart is, I'd love to see more of a take up, and I'm happy to help out however I can to achieve that.

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Post by SuperJuice » Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:43 pm

As usual i2Paq I have very little to agree with you about.

Guilting people to pay for an opensource project.. that won't work either.

I'm not missing any point. If joe user goes to use OpenCart, then finds out after he installs it that he is up for $50 in mods to make it worthwhile he will think twice.

If people want to offer mods for sale on here so be it. I think there are better ways to make revenue than taking a cut off other peoples work.

What you are suggesting is people can't openly talk about their mods on this forum if they haven't paid their penance and posted the mod here (allowing Daniel to make a cut). That is complete and utter BS.

So in your above example, QPhoria's current sales model would be void unless he hosted/posted his mods here. Whether he wants to do that or not is up to him, but if he didn't, the whole community would lose out if he couldn't mention his mods in the forum.

As for
I want to remind everyone that it is beautiful OpenCart free but must consider that it takes a lot of work to get the results. I think that Daniel has the right to receive money to compensate for his passing hours to stabilize the script.
There is a whole community of people here offering assistance with coding and development but Daniel insists on being the sole gate keeper to the source. I think the 'poor Daniel' posts really need to stop.

I agree with the above post about getting mainstream traction to drive profit.

As has been discussed time and time again, people want:
1. Standard API between versions for mod developers
2. An upgrade path between versions *gasp*

..at the very least.

You only need to piss commercial users off once (the ones that make money and are likely to donate) to have them never return.

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