StartingPoints in Marketplace
Permalink 1 user found helpful
I was recently watching this video from February 2012 introducing StartingPoints and CIF import etc. All very exciting stuff which I'm now exploring further. My question is what is the current state of getting StartingPoints into the Marketplace? Is that still planned or was it cancelled because back in 2012 it was suggested as coming soon, and now I see no sign of it.
I see this as a really great area of potential for C5 adoption. In Drupal they have Installation Profiles. These are quite challenging and time consuming to setup, and there a wide variety of limitations. Still they have some Install Profiles that are regularly used, like ones that include an ecommerce shop or modules for a social site, or an elearning site. Even if StartingPoints are not sold in the Marketplace (for some reason) they should be listed there, because they may be very helpful to someone starting out. It may help someone choose C5. Say your a realtor, you might not really care about WP, Drupal or C5... but if you find a prebuilt site that looks good, you just go for it. That's the potential power I see in StartingPoints.
Now as someone who might like to make some StartingPoints, my question is how will licensing of paid addons work in this context? Are you limited to only using free addons in a StartingPoint, or can you use paid addons? If you bundle in paid addons, could you sell the StartingPoint first... and then reimburse the addon developers?
I see this as a really great area of potential for C5 adoption. In Drupal they have Installation Profiles. These are quite challenging and time consuming to setup, and there a wide variety of limitations. Still they have some Install Profiles that are regularly used, like ones that include an ecommerce shop or modules for a social site, or an elearning site. Even if StartingPoints are not sold in the Marketplace (for some reason) they should be listed there, because they may be very helpful to someone starting out. It may help someone choose C5. Say your a realtor, you might not really care about WP, Drupal or C5... but if you find a prebuilt site that looks good, you just go for it. That's the potential power I see in StartingPoints.
Now as someone who might like to make some StartingPoints, my question is how will licensing of paid addons work in this context? Are you limited to only using free addons in a StartingPoint, or can you use paid addons? If you bundle in paid addons, could you sell the StartingPoint first... and then reimburse the addon developers?
Somebody must want to talk about StartingPoints?
Yeah, that's the same issues we ran into with starting points....Practical licensing stuff.. oh also connection issues. Our marketplace does a great job installing add-ons and themes for existing sites because you can connect your site, do the auto install via curl, etc...The starting points would be something that would really only make sense for other developers.
Given that we decided (through inactivity) that it was a nice architecture thing to have for folks who knew what they were doing, but it probably didnt need to be monitized in our marketplace for now.
That being said, if you're doing a "pick my own dentist site" type site builder service - starting points are a good way to consider building it.
Given that we decided (through inactivity) that it was a nice architecture thing to have for folks who knew what they were doing, but it probably didnt need to be monitized in our marketplace for now.
That being said, if you're doing a "pick my own dentist site" type site builder service - starting points are a good way to consider building it.
Thanks for the reply Franz. Well given the issues around licensing, connection etc., I can see why they are not in the marketplace.
One way I could see solving those issues though would be first to make a policy that any Addon in the marketplace can choose to be "available to bundle" and if it is, a rate is set per StartingPoint instance which would normally be similar or better than the retail bulk rate. And as a StartingPoint developer, if you find an add-on that isn't already available to bundle, you have to contact the developer and ask them to activate that option. Free add-ons would be automatically listed as available to bundle.
I can imagine the connection issues being tricky. But I did notice we can already transfer ownership of a project, probably used mostly to transfer a site from it's developer to a client/owner? I could see that being leveraged for StartingPoints. The StartingPoint developer makes a bunch of projects, say 10. Each one has all the licenses assigned to it that it needs, both free and paid. There might a generator tool for making these accounts. Each one has it's own MARKETPLACE_SITE_TOKEN. When the StartingPoint is purchased, that MARKETPLACE_SITE_TOKEN is empty, and the StartingPoint developer emails that to the buyer. The buyers are mainly developers or people savvy enough to do their own installs, so they can handle copy/pasting the marketplace site token. Now presuming they already have their own account... the project is transferred to it after setup.
I'm sure there are many hurdles to making that work but that's my theory on how it might be done. In the meantime I supposehttp://www.concrete5.org/developers/open-source/... is the place to put any StartingPoints that we make? I wonder if that page could be more prominent, right now it is inside the Community section of the site but it is outside the Community navigation meaning it can only be found through search.
One way I could see solving those issues though would be first to make a policy that any Addon in the marketplace can choose to be "available to bundle" and if it is, a rate is set per StartingPoint instance which would normally be similar or better than the retail bulk rate. And as a StartingPoint developer, if you find an add-on that isn't already available to bundle, you have to contact the developer and ask them to activate that option. Free add-ons would be automatically listed as available to bundle.
I can imagine the connection issues being tricky. But I did notice we can already transfer ownership of a project, probably used mostly to transfer a site from it's developer to a client/owner? I could see that being leveraged for StartingPoints. The StartingPoint developer makes a bunch of projects, say 10. Each one has all the licenses assigned to it that it needs, both free and paid. There might a generator tool for making these accounts. Each one has it's own MARKETPLACE_SITE_TOKEN. When the StartingPoint is purchased, that MARKETPLACE_SITE_TOKEN is empty, and the StartingPoint developer emails that to the buyer. The buyers are mainly developers or people savvy enough to do their own installs, so they can handle copy/pasting the marketplace site token. Now presuming they already have their own account... the project is transferred to it after setup.
I'm sure there are many hurdles to making that work but that's my theory on how it might be done. In the meantime I supposehttp://www.concrete5.org/developers/open-source/... is the place to put any StartingPoints that we make? I wonder if that page could be more prominent, right now it is inside the Community section of the site but it is outside the Community navigation meaning it can only be found through search.
I'm not sure I see the ROI on the work involved in that. As a small shop
developer, I'd probably be plenty comfortable simply installing add-ons and
themes from the marketplace for the right project. From my understanding
with Drupal a lot of modules don't really play nice with each other at all,
while our architecture and PRB has kept those issues more or less at bay.
It's less likely a concrete5 developer would always have to start with the
same 6 extensions, as a Drupal developer would.
If they did have their own, they could certainly use starting points to
package them up for their own convenience.
If you were building your own one-click provisioner, you'd likely have
different needs from your setup and would want to manage the starting
points with centralization issues, etc.
Not saying I can't imagine a how, just saying i don't get the why. Could
easily be I'm completely missing the demand however.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
developer, I'd probably be plenty comfortable simply installing add-ons and
themes from the marketplace for the right project. From my understanding
with Drupal a lot of modules don't really play nice with each other at all,
while our architecture and PRB has kept those issues more or less at bay.
It's less likely a concrete5 developer would always have to start with the
same 6 extensions, as a Drupal developer would.
If they did have their own, they could certainly use starting points to
package them up for their own convenience.
If you were building your own one-click provisioner, you'd likely have
different needs from your setup and would want to manage the starting
points with centralization issues, etc.
Not saying I can't imagine a how, just saying i don't get the why. Could
easily be I'm completely missing the demand however.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
