I am fairly new to Wordpress and Buddypress and clearly not a developer, but a user, the person that relies on guys like you to pull all this magic off!

There are soooo many plugins out there, that it is very difficult for me to decide right now, which one I will use and which one is important to my project. That is why I will not be part of your experiment at this stage! The great thing about freely available plug-ins is that with a good idea and some technical understanding you are able to create a project/website regardless of financial constrictions. It enables people on a very limited budget to create something that might create an income stream in the future.

I definitely intend to donate to every plug-in developer whose plug-in I will use in a commercial context, to hopefully ensure continued support for that developer and the plug-in. I rather do this, than subscribe to NING for instance.

I hope that everyone who makes money out of using Wordpress, Buddypress and any related plug-in will give a fair amount back to the community and enable charities, sportclubs and other users that use your work non-commercially to benefit from all that great work that is happening in the open source community.

I would suggest you code the Privacy-Plugin so that it will be working fine with BP1.2
Once you have finished this plugin, THEN go ahead and charge a fixed amount of money for the plugin (one-time purchase, no monthly fee).

Windows gets updated every few years, not every few months. If I could pay one time right now and KNOW that at least what i bought will continue to work for a certain period of time, I would do it. My suggestion would be to use a tiered model for subscription. For instance, you can either pay $49/month for unlimited access to ALL plugins/themes OR you can pay $49 for access to 3 plugins and 1 theme with updates for 6 months. This way, you’ve essentially “donated” to the development of the plugins (which would also be a good way to see what’s popular/self sustaining) so the developer ges some compensation but it doesn’t break the budget of small communities that want to try some software and launch their site. Once you get a plugin working and integrated on your site, you’re not going to want to change it.

Sure, you don’t pay every time when Windows releases a service pack, but you do pay when a new major version comes out (like Windows 7). Same for most other software.

So I think paying for an upgrade to a new major version of a plugin / theme is legitimate.

I really agree with everything that’s said. Jeff deserves to be compensated for all the time involved in creating and supporting something this useful, but who pays for it?

The one thing that I hate about the subscription models is that with as fast as BP/WP moves, you have to depend on those updates. In the case of Brajesh’s site for the gallery and the cosmic buddy theme, I gladly paid for it because I don’t think $10/month is too outrageous and i personally like cosmic buddy better than other buddypress themes. I Liked the bp magazine theme from premium.wpmudev.com but I think that asking for $80/month to download the plugins and themes is pretty outrageous. I understand the concept but it just doesn’t seem to work. I understand paying $80 for a theme and getting updates free but if you sign up for 1 month to download the plugins and then have to keep signing up every time there’s an update to bp/wp, you’re basically renting the themes and plugins because I can almost guarantee you that you’re going to break them when you update.

I don’t mind the subscription but the way I would do it is:

“X per month for access to premium plugins and themes and access to updates for x months” This way, if you wanted a theme now, you pay x for it and get it but if it gets updates in 2 months because of the new BP, you didn’t waste your money and you’re not having to pay for it again. I can understand not giving access to anything NEW that’s been created, but to force people to pay for updates to something they’ve already bought seems outrageous. Most of the time it’s not like you’re updating just for new features. You’re updating because the new version broke the product. Imagine having to repurchase a new game for your xbox every time Microsoft comes out with a security patch or an update to xbox live.

Keeping themes and plugins GPLed is of prime importance!

First time here. These two posts about making a living as a plugin developer were really interesting reads for me.

@Bowe Frankema: About the WooThemes model, here’s a question from their FAQ:

Can I use the themes on multiple sites?

Yes, you can use our themes on unlimited number of domains.

If they did try to restrict usage to a single domain, they’d be violating the GPL.

If you look at premium theme sellers like WooThemes they have a pretty good construction. They allow single purchases, multiple purchases (with discount), and developer licenses (multiple sites). It’s flexible and attractive and it’s not too confusing for the end user. I could imagine the same for a Premium BuddyPress plugins site.

Purchases
- Basic Plugins (free)
- Premium Plugins (based on basic + extra features and support)
- Developer licenses (Multiple domains)
- Subscription (All plugins and support for a specified amount of time)

Maybe it’s an idea to talk with some other developers in BP and combine forces.. Everyone is used to collaborating and you all share the same goals and ideas. A central place for premium BP plugins could become huge. DJ Paul, Brajesh, Jeff and MrMaz all under the same plugin roof would make me a very very happy BP user! I’m just speculating here but I think it would be awesome and a good and “honest” way to reward the people that are creating the plugins.

Only thing you need to keep in mind is what Andy pointed out in your other blogpost; Keep certain things free to keep the BP Community healthy.

At least you’ve established something some good thinking about the subject Jeff!

PS: I just came up with another cool idea.. I’ll think about it first before posting it, but it could be something cool!

Thanks for your thoughts. You are absolutely correct in stating that my approach, my experiment, is not for the faint of heart. It is controversial and I fully expect it will fail.

What I’m trying to get going is not only the discussion of acceptable funding vehicles for plugin developers, but also the education of those who benefit from developers’ freely-provided work.

I like your suggested modifications to my brute-force approach. It is a tiered-funding model. I will consider this modified approach.

The only issue that I see is with the distribution of my plugin to only “big donors.” That is not allowed in the GPL. In essence, that would be making my plugin a proprietary product. This practice, by the way, does seem to be unofficially “allowed” during closed alpha or beta testing. But that is only a temporary situation.

The only exception is if I am hired by a single entity (an individual, company, or government) who plans to use my plugin for their purposes only. However, if they ever provide it for free or for a fee to anyone else, the GPL then instantly requires that the source code be made available to all. In essence, it becomes a community product. Under the letter of the GPL, they can, of course, distribute it for a price. But, it cannot be distributed to an exclusive group of entities.

I agree that BP.org can help plugin developers by allowing them to create groups on the site and by allowing the display of a donation link. That would be a nice feature. But, as I link to in my main post above, donations are rarely given to developers.

Why? Well I believe it is the growing expectation in our community that everything should be freely shared and provided. In the WordPress ecosystem, this expectation transcends the spirit of the GPL, of free software. I appreciate this utopian ideal, but it is not too practical, or possible, for those of us who need to earn a living.

I’ve read your post with interest and I certainly appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into your privacy component so far. Like I told you before this plugin is crucial to my site, and I think to almost any site, and I certainly understand what you’re trying to do here. I recently created this topic on the BP forums about donations: http://buddypress.org/forums/topic/donations-on-bporg-what-do-you-think which kinda touches the same topic; the somewhat strange approach when it comes to rewarding plugin developers for their work. I personally think that premium themes and plugins (with premium I mean full featured, well supported and professionally coded) should have a price tag on it because in the end it would mean progress for the BuddyPress platform as a whole.

That being said I think your approach is too controversial and “unreliable” for a regular BuddyPress user to support. I’ll try to explain myself.

Like I said before I NEED this component to work on my site but I see that you need 9000 Dollars make sure everything remains supported and developed. I could decide to spend some of my very limited budget and donate it to you; let’s say 1000 dollars. This would be a big chunk of my money which I just invested into something that’s still “up in the air”. Basically I’m putting the faith of my project in the hands of you; the developer. As you know this means a big risk for the entire project, and it would be a much safer bet to use your already released beta Privacy Component and ask my programmer to work on it. It might not get the same results, and I would rather let you do it (morally and quality wise it would feel better) but I simply can not take the risk! So even if I wanted to support this project fully I would need to think twice about how exactly it would fit in with my project, and calculate the risks of cancellation of your plugin.

So what if you would try something different and said:

“If I receive 3000 Dollars before March 2010 I’ll make sure the plugin is fully 1.3 compatible and well supported in March 2010. If I receive less then that amount I will provide “big donators” with the plugin and they can use it for their project, but it will not be released/supported for the public until I reach $3000 in donations”

That would give potential big supporters a reason to invest in your plugin without having to take a big risk. If I knew I would get the plugin and support for $250 I would transfer you the donation asap! Right now I feel like it’s to big of a risk within the time frame of my project!

As a final note I think that BP.org needs to get some updates which allows for group creation of plugins. Andy mentioned this on the forums about the subject:

“Perhaps when this site is updated to 1.2 (after release) and plugin developers can create groups for their plugins, we can attach a paypal donate link. That way each plugin developer(s) will get their own group, activity stream, forum, donate link and perhaps some of the other great extensions being released as plugins. ”

This would help get thing rolling for you I hope.

Looking forward to your reply Jeff!
Bowe