GPL in the marketplace??!
Permalink
So this has come up and we're thinking hard about it...
Originally when we launched the marketplace we really wanted to avoid the problems that Drupal's marketplace has. I've heard many tales of wasted energy around comparing dozens or more add-ons that all rethink fundamental stuff in Drupal's marketplace (10% of the add-ons rethink permissions last time I checked) and as you would expect a lot of them will break your site if other stuff is installed.
We wanted our marketplace to be a safe and simple way to extend your site, so we went for quality over quantity and I'm happy with that choice.
I'm wondering if we might be well served to take a step back towards the middle now that things are working well.
There's a lot of code out there that currently we don't accept because it's GPL. When folks have written things that include GPL libraries we have always made them go out and get expressed permission to use the code under LGPL which fits better with out MIT based structure. Recent discussions lead me to believe this doesn't have to be the case.
We could allow developers to choose GPL as a license when submitting their add-on for review. If they picked GPL, they could still sell the add-on/theme, they would just have to provide a way to get it for free as well. Casually this sounds insane, but when you think of how easy it is to 1-click install an add-on by connecting to the community vs. understanding and using FTP - it starts to make some sense. Technically I can easily imagine building things so if your add-on is GPL licensed the little (download) link shows up in the small blue box on the add-on page, but you also can still pay to add it to a cart and get a license for your project page, etc..
This basically creates a world where only people who have paid will be able to open support requests - which is how a lot of open source folk like to think about making money. I wonder if we head this way if we shouldn't also let you start to define your own support turn around time promise. We do a pretty good job honoring the "2 business day" support promise for our own add-ons, but that doesn't mean it has to be the same turn around for everyone, always...
My hope would be this would open concrete5 up to a much larger group of accomplished PHP devs who are more into the GPL than the MIT license structure.
Thoughts?
Originally when we launched the marketplace we really wanted to avoid the problems that Drupal's marketplace has. I've heard many tales of wasted energy around comparing dozens or more add-ons that all rethink fundamental stuff in Drupal's marketplace (10% of the add-ons rethink permissions last time I checked) and as you would expect a lot of them will break your site if other stuff is installed.
We wanted our marketplace to be a safe and simple way to extend your site, so we went for quality over quantity and I'm happy with that choice.
I'm wondering if we might be well served to take a step back towards the middle now that things are working well.
There's a lot of code out there that currently we don't accept because it's GPL. When folks have written things that include GPL libraries we have always made them go out and get expressed permission to use the code under LGPL which fits better with out MIT based structure. Recent discussions lead me to believe this doesn't have to be the case.
We could allow developers to choose GPL as a license when submitting their add-on for review. If they picked GPL, they could still sell the add-on/theme, they would just have to provide a way to get it for free as well. Casually this sounds insane, but when you think of how easy it is to 1-click install an add-on by connecting to the community vs. understanding and using FTP - it starts to make some sense. Technically I can easily imagine building things so if your add-on is GPL licensed the little (download) link shows up in the small blue box on the add-on page, but you also can still pay to add it to a cart and get a license for your project page, etc..
This basically creates a world where only people who have paid will be able to open support requests - which is how a lot of open source folk like to think about making money. I wonder if we head this way if we shouldn't also let you start to define your own support turn around time promise. We do a pretty good job honoring the "2 business day" support promise for our own add-ons, but that doesn't mean it has to be the same turn around for everyone, always...
My hope would be this would open concrete5 up to a much larger group of accomplished PHP devs who are more into the GPL than the MIT license structure.
Thoughts?
don't really see a strong reason against it, provided the messaging was done right. Would this free download / paid support payment model be available for the standard marketplace license too?
I didn't realize GPL code was completely banned in the marketplace -- I don't see why it can't be allowed as long as the addon is free, or the person selling it is offering the addon for free as well (which is admittedly kind of weird but most non-developers will probably still pay it if there is messaging to the effect of "pay this developer for their efforts and also for improved support).
I don't see how there's any other issue besides the addon license fee with using GPL code in your site -- is anyone re-selling a C5 site they built as software to other people? My understanding is that if you're building a site for yourself or for a client (100% of the use cases, no?), it does not obligate you to share that code with the rest of the world. When I build a site for a client, they're not paying me for software -- they're paying me for my time to customize an existing system for them. Maybe other people structure their accounting differently, but how would this be a practical concern (is a client going to demand you give them the complete site for free because it has a GPL library in it?).
As for your concern with having a big confusing mess in the marketplace, I am a big fan of the "less quantity, more quality" approach. But if we look at the situation honestly, it's really more of a marketing spin on the new-ness and small-ness of the C5 ecosystem than anything else -- after all, it's not like a criteria for approval is "does this duplicate existing functionality" or "is this really high quality" (I can point to many examples of "no" for both cases).
Finally, I don't think this issue alone is going to have an impact on bringing in more "GPL Developers" -- I think that has more to do with the culture of the community. This is a tough nut to crack. I obviously don't have a problem with people selling addons in the marketplace (assuming they're not taking someone else's free code and using it against their wishes, which is a huge no-no both legally and ethically), but I do feel like the current culture of the community is too far skewed on the "let's sell everything" side. Just my opinion of course, but that opinion is informed by the other developer communities I have been involved in (Ruby on Rails, JQuery, Git, large portions of the Wordpress ecosystem, etc.) -- there is so much vibrancy in those worlds because so many people are helping everyone else out and offering tools for free. I want to bring more of that vibrancy to Concrete5 because it's such a kickass system. And in the long run I truly believe that that kind of vibrancy and sharing of ideas is what will grow the community to a size large enough that fiddling with the switches on the marketplace becomes irrelevant because the customer base is so huge (i.e. look at how many people sell premium themes for wordpress -- smaller percentage of a massively larger pie).
-Jordan
I don't see how there's any other issue besides the addon license fee with using GPL code in your site -- is anyone re-selling a C5 site they built as software to other people? My understanding is that if you're building a site for yourself or for a client (100% of the use cases, no?), it does not obligate you to share that code with the rest of the world. When I build a site for a client, they're not paying me for software -- they're paying me for my time to customize an existing system for them. Maybe other people structure their accounting differently, but how would this be a practical concern (is a client going to demand you give them the complete site for free because it has a GPL library in it?).
As for your concern with having a big confusing mess in the marketplace, I am a big fan of the "less quantity, more quality" approach. But if we look at the situation honestly, it's really more of a marketing spin on the new-ness and small-ness of the C5 ecosystem than anything else -- after all, it's not like a criteria for approval is "does this duplicate existing functionality" or "is this really high quality" (I can point to many examples of "no" for both cases).
Finally, I don't think this issue alone is going to have an impact on bringing in more "GPL Developers" -- I think that has more to do with the culture of the community. This is a tough nut to crack. I obviously don't have a problem with people selling addons in the marketplace (assuming they're not taking someone else's free code and using it against their wishes, which is a huge no-no both legally and ethically), but I do feel like the current culture of the community is too far skewed on the "let's sell everything" side. Just my opinion of course, but that opinion is informed by the other developer communities I have been involved in (Ruby on Rails, JQuery, Git, large portions of the Wordpress ecosystem, etc.) -- there is so much vibrancy in those worlds because so many people are helping everyone else out and offering tools for free. I want to bring more of that vibrancy to Concrete5 because it's such a kickass system. And in the long run I truly believe that that kind of vibrancy and sharing of ideas is what will grow the community to a size large enough that fiddling with the switches on the marketplace becomes irrelevant because the customer base is so huge (i.e. look at how many people sell premium themes for wordpress -- smaller percentage of a massively larger pie).
-Jordan
I didn't realize there was a embargo on GPL add-ons. It's funny because I have a GPL add-on in the Marketplace, too (Flowplayer Free).
I see GPL vs. quality as completely orthogonal issues. In fact, free software (GPL or otherwise) is often better quality than proprietary solutions - c5 being the obvious case in point. On the other hand, I can see how a "developer" might trying to use someone else's GPL software to make a quick buck could lead to poor quality. I don't think there's much of a concern with that, because we're not talking about these add-ons entering the Marketplace without going through the PRB, are we?
I really like the idea of an option to offer a free add-on in the market place with an option for paid support. I haven't had a lot of support requests for my free add-ons, so it hasn't been an issue. It could be, though, because I am resistant (but not above ;-)) saying: no my X add-on doesn't offer support but I will do Y for you for a fee. If the Marketplace was standardized such that a free add-on were available directly alongside a paid support option that would eliminate my resistance. I could just say: well, sure, go pay for the paid version and I'd be glad to add that little feature for you!
So, in summary, I'm all for more GPL software - as long as it meets the quality standards of the rest of the add-ons in the Marketplace.
I see GPL vs. quality as completely orthogonal issues. In fact, free software (GPL or otherwise) is often better quality than proprietary solutions - c5 being the obvious case in point. On the other hand, I can see how a "developer" might trying to use someone else's GPL software to make a quick buck could lead to poor quality. I don't think there's much of a concern with that, because we're not talking about these add-ons entering the Marketplace without going through the PRB, are we?
I really like the idea of an option to offer a free add-on in the market place with an option for paid support. I haven't had a lot of support requests for my free add-ons, so it hasn't been an issue. It could be, though, because I am resistant (but not above ;-)) saying: no my X add-on doesn't offer support but I will do Y for you for a fee. If the Marketplace was standardized such that a free add-on were available directly alongside a paid support option that would eliminate my resistance. I could just say: well, sure, go pay for the paid version and I'd be glad to add that little feature for you!
So, in summary, I'm all for more GPL software - as long as it meets the quality standards of the rest of the add-ons in the Marketplace.
I wouldn't have a problem with gpl type things, the paid support might work out well, might not. (people might just post to the addons forums, or the main forums instead, and then you'd have to tell them to buy support). Another (possible) way to go around it would be a free 1 license, but a paid five. The messaging there could be if you're an average joe, go ahead with the one. But if you're a dev that uses it a lot, please buy the five license version. along wiht paid support, that might be more profitable- since the devs that wouldn't pay for support have to pay to download, but the average joes that want to build a site pay for support when they mess up.
Yeah I think we'd want to add some more options/clarity to what type of support the customer should expect out of every purchase. I think we have enough voices for it to pull the trigger on this decision.
I do know that some folk pack up a site and go resell it as a stand alone solution for some vertical, so they're going to have to keep track of what they're doing from a license prospective. No biggie.
I do see what you're saying about marketing spin Jordan, but I do also believe we truly have kept the bar higher than a lot of these marketplaces. I never said that every addon would be awesome, I just said they wouldn't break your site - and generally they don't. That's the extent of the quality I was hoping to enforce.. Just to avoid having too much of "well if you install this add-on, it will rethink core functionality and break all sorts of other add-ons".. I think we can keep that up regardless of licenses we allow.
I don't know if this will really change the culture, or if that is going to happen. Not to slide into this debate, again, but: Ruby has Basecamp, jQuery is a non-profit, Git has the umbrella of Linus, and Wordpress is a media company with millions in capital that happens to be used as a CMS. We look more like dotNetNuke than any of these examples from a business prospective. This change to allow GPL will help us grow the marketplace simply because we can include more great code that's already out there.. We still won't look great to the FOSS crowd though. Perhaps this will make us look half a step less evil to them however, and even that's worth doing.
I do know that some folk pack up a site and go resell it as a stand alone solution for some vertical, so they're going to have to keep track of what they're doing from a license prospective. No biggie.
I do see what you're saying about marketing spin Jordan, but I do also believe we truly have kept the bar higher than a lot of these marketplaces. I never said that every addon would be awesome, I just said they wouldn't break your site - and generally they don't. That's the extent of the quality I was hoping to enforce.. Just to avoid having too much of "well if you install this add-on, it will rethink core functionality and break all sorts of other add-ons".. I think we can keep that up regardless of licenses we allow.
I don't know if this will really change the culture, or if that is going to happen. Not to slide into this debate, again, but: Ruby has Basecamp, jQuery is a non-profit, Git has the umbrella of Linus, and Wordpress is a media company with millions in capital that happens to be used as a CMS. We look more like dotNetNuke than any of these examples from a business prospective. This change to allow GPL will help us grow the marketplace simply because we can include more great code that's already out there.. We still won't look great to the FOSS crowd though. Perhaps this will make us look half a step less evil to them however, and even that's worth doing.
Agreed on all points. Didn't realize people resell turnkey c5 systems -- but if they're going through that trouble it shouldn't be a biggie for them to add "addon licensing" to their checklist.
And you're right about the marketplace -- quality is generally high, which is awesome (sorry if that came off as insulting, wasn't my intention).
One thing I would point out in regards to the culture: I think you might be downplaying the community aspect of those compared to the revenue models for the primary movers. The Ruby on Rails world is vastly larger than Basecamp, and I don't even think 37 Signals has much say in the overall direction of the platform anymore (DHH is just one of many contributors). JQuery is a non-profit -- all the more point that the community is important. Wordpress is obviously an exception to every rule out there :). I would add Concrete5 to this list, though -- "Concrete5 has savvy and thoughtful leadership driving development, and it's an amazing system that looks at the CMS problem in a unique and better fitting for many kinds of sites".
I dunno, I guess we see it differently because you're looking it as your product, whereas I see it as one of many development platforms. I think in the end both of our successes will derive from the same thing (C5 becoming more popular over time), but the paths we take to get there will be different. Not sure what my point is though...
-Jordan
And you're right about the marketplace -- quality is generally high, which is awesome (sorry if that came off as insulting, wasn't my intention).
One thing I would point out in regards to the culture: I think you might be downplaying the community aspect of those compared to the revenue models for the primary movers. The Ruby on Rails world is vastly larger than Basecamp, and I don't even think 37 Signals has much say in the overall direction of the platform anymore (DHH is just one of many contributors). JQuery is a non-profit -- all the more point that the community is important. Wordpress is obviously an exception to every rule out there :). I would add Concrete5 to this list, though -- "Concrete5 has savvy and thoughtful leadership driving development, and it's an amazing system that looks at the CMS problem in a unique and better fitting for many kinds of sites".
I dunno, I guess we see it differently because you're looking it as your product, whereas I see it as one of many development platforms. I think in the end both of our successes will derive from the same thing (C5 becoming more popular over time), but the paths we take to get there will be different. Not sure what my point is though...
-Jordan
oh yeah everything in open source is very much apples and oranges...
I only meant that basecamp, as a hosted non-open source, money making
machine geared towards the huge market of small businesses that don't
want sharepoint is a brilliant revenue generator and PR machine for
the core team that made Rails. I have no real knowledge of the way
Rails is run today, or how it got from point A to Q, but I can tell
you for sure that the money flushing out DHH's bank account from
basecamp was a major player in the drama.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for that approach, and if I had
the right opportunity I'd probably play it that way too. What we have
instead, today, is the marketplace - and it's doing a good job of
lubing the gears for everyone moving forward.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
I only meant that basecamp, as a hosted non-open source, money making
machine geared towards the huge market of small businesses that don't
want sharepoint is a brilliant revenue generator and PR machine for
the core team that made Rails. I have no real knowledge of the way
Rails is run today, or how it got from point A to Q, but I can tell
you for sure that the money flushing out DHH's bank account from
basecamp was a major player in the drama.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for that approach, and if I had
the right opportunity I'd probably play it that way too. What we have
instead, today, is the marketplace - and it's doing a good job of
lubing the gears for everyone moving forward.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
I think I missed something here. is there an example someone could provide to give some sort of "context"? In the light of "why is this needed".
Someone cut the crap I see all over this, and get to the point? Tell me what you're really after? lol
Chad
Someone cut the crap I see all over this, and get to the point? Tell me what you're really after? lol
Chad
I guess that reads harsher than I meant it to. lol What I mean is...I totally wouldn't miss GPL if it (and Joomla) never even existed. Why all of the sudden is this being delivered like a big deal?
C
C
If GPL brings another positive to concrete5 and allows more developers to submit to the marketplace than great!
As for the premium side of GPL I personally find this quite confusing, I personally like reading and researching some good case studies.
The tricky part isn't too much the premium support it's more the file distribution. If c5 goes with the GPL and addons have premium support will they be able to assign it to all of their projects? Or can they only upload it to the server?
As for the premium side of GPL I personally find this quite confusing, I personally like reading and researching some good case studies.
The tricky part isn't too much the premium support it's more the file distribution. If c5 goes with the GPL and addons have premium support will they be able to assign it to all of their projects? Or can they only upload it to the server?
The context is that there was an addon for sale in the marketplace that was using a GPL library. The terms of the GPL are that you can do whatever you want with the software, including sell it, but whatever you do you must also provide a way for people to get the code for free (not just the original code, but the code that you've built on top of it too).
I think Franz is saying that in the past they wanted to avoid confusion with licensing like this so they outright banned any addons that had GPL code in them. This one slipped through the cracks, and has since been updated to reflect the GPL conditions. But Franz is reconsidering the policy of outright banning any GPL-derived addons from the marketplace because it might be preventing some good things from being put up there, and also might be sending a message to some open source developers that they aren't welcome in the community.
I personally don't think it's a huge deal, but it is a deal of some kind and worthy of discussion at least.
I think Franz is saying that in the past they wanted to avoid confusion with licensing like this so they outright banned any addons that had GPL code in them. This one slipped through the cracks, and has since been updated to reflect the GPL conditions. But Franz is reconsidering the policy of outright banning any GPL-derived addons from the marketplace because it might be preventing some good things from being put up there, and also might be sending a message to some open source developers that they aren't welcome in the community.
I personally don't think it's a huge deal, but it is a deal of some kind and worthy of discussion at least.
