All about Marketplace Add On creation and submission??
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I have Googled and searched on this forum and can't find anything that would lay out what one has to do to submit an Add On to the marketplace and answers such basic questions as:
- what can be charged for an Add On?
- how is payment divided between Concrete5 and the Add On author?
- can someone take an Add On submitted under the MIT license, copy it, and contribute it as their own Add On for free to cut the original author out of gaining any benefit from the sale of their Add On?
- how long before some money from the sale of Add On is received?
- how is that money paid to the Add On author? (i.e. PayPal, mailed check, wire transfer, etc.)
I am contemplating the creation of an Add On but I need to know the answers to these questions before proceeding with the effort it will take to at least have a reasonable hope of gaining some direct financial benefit from my work.
Rather than getting answers to these questions here alone (which would be appreciated) is there not some page among those at Concrete5 that lays these things out and spells them out clearly?
Anybody?
Carlos
PS. There was no forum that fit this subject so I hope it was okay for me to stick into the Building with concrete5 forum.
- what can be charged for an Add On?
- how is payment divided between Concrete5 and the Add On author?
- can someone take an Add On submitted under the MIT license, copy it, and contribute it as their own Add On for free to cut the original author out of gaining any benefit from the sale of their Add On?
- how long before some money from the sale of Add On is received?
- how is that money paid to the Add On author? (i.e. PayPal, mailed check, wire transfer, etc.)
I am contemplating the creation of an Add On but I need to know the answers to these questions before proceeding with the effort it will take to at least have a reasonable hope of gaining some direct financial benefit from my work.
Rather than getting answers to these questions here alone (which would be appreciated) is there not some page among those at Concrete5 that lays these things out and spells them out clearly?
Anybody?
Carlos
PS. There was no forum that fit this subject so I hope it was okay for me to stick into the Building with concrete5 forum.
Thanks for the input jshannon.
I read through everything and there are a number of things that are still unclear.
For example there is nothing said about using PayPal or whether one can get their money using an alternate means (I personally can't stand PayPal, don't have a PayPal account, and would prefer to stay as far away from them as I can). I don't mind at all getting a check by mail but again there is nothing about any options other than PayPal.
Nothing is said about what other kinds of licenses might be allowed. If the MIT license does indeed allow someone to simply copy my work and make it their own and undercut me completely out of the picture...well...for sure I don't think I would want to create any Add On at all. What for? I mean I very much appreciate the fact that Concrete5 is MIT. That's one of the reasons though not the main one I went with Concrete5 as my CMS of choice but Concrete5 creators are making a living from it. I am not and need to justify spending the oodles of time it will take to create an Add On which means I must have a reasonable hope of making something, however small it is, or it's simply not worth it to tie up my time to make a high quality and needed Add On.
With respect to how quickly I might be able to receive money earned (assuming all of the above can somehow be dealt with satisfactorily) it appears that the money must sit for at least 30 days before any payment can be had.
It says...
"1.You have to provide support to your customers for at least 30 days."
And...
"4.If they can't install it, it doesn't work, and they're not getting help out of you, we will grant them a refund and you're not getting paid.
5.You have to leave enough credit in your concrete5 account at any time to cover that period of approval."
Not sure what "that period of approval" refers to but I assume that it is referring to the 30 days of support that must be provided.
So payments are at least 30 days out and very likely 45 days out when all is said and done. That's a long time to wait to be paid but certainly not completely unreasonable in that so many other things on the Internet take that much time or even longer (Hostgator commissions for example take almost 4 months to arrive). Still it's something to consider.
Nothing in the official documentation about all this talks of not paying out anything until a certain amount of money accumulates.
If anyone has any additional insights, suggestions, or comments I would appreciate hearing them. I have what I believe might be some outstanding Add Ons in mind but am not sure I want to delve into making them just yet.
Carlos
I read through everything and there are a number of things that are still unclear.
For example there is nothing said about using PayPal or whether one can get their money using an alternate means (I personally can't stand PayPal, don't have a PayPal account, and would prefer to stay as far away from them as I can). I don't mind at all getting a check by mail but again there is nothing about any options other than PayPal.
Nothing is said about what other kinds of licenses might be allowed. If the MIT license does indeed allow someone to simply copy my work and make it their own and undercut me completely out of the picture...well...for sure I don't think I would want to create any Add On at all. What for? I mean I very much appreciate the fact that Concrete5 is MIT. That's one of the reasons though not the main one I went with Concrete5 as my CMS of choice but Concrete5 creators are making a living from it. I am not and need to justify spending the oodles of time it will take to create an Add On which means I must have a reasonable hope of making something, however small it is, or it's simply not worth it to tie up my time to make a high quality and needed Add On.
With respect to how quickly I might be able to receive money earned (assuming all of the above can somehow be dealt with satisfactorily) it appears that the money must sit for at least 30 days before any payment can be had.
It says...
"1.You have to provide support to your customers for at least 30 days."
And...
"4.If they can't install it, it doesn't work, and they're not getting help out of you, we will grant them a refund and you're not getting paid.
5.You have to leave enough credit in your concrete5 account at any time to cover that period of approval."
Not sure what "that period of approval" refers to but I assume that it is referring to the 30 days of support that must be provided.
So payments are at least 30 days out and very likely 45 days out when all is said and done. That's a long time to wait to be paid but certainly not completely unreasonable in that so many other things on the Internet take that much time or even longer (Hostgator commissions for example take almost 4 months to arrive). Still it's something to consider.
Nothing in the official documentation about all this talks of not paying out anything until a certain amount of money accumulates.
If anyone has any additional insights, suggestions, or comments I would appreciate hearing them. I have what I believe might be some outstanding Add Ons in mind but am not sure I want to delve into making them just yet.
Carlos
What...no further comments from anyone?
Utterly ridiculous.
If I can't even get my most basic questions and concerns addressed there is absolutely no reason for me to bother writing any Add On's at all.
Oh well...such is life.
Take care.
Carlos
Utterly ridiculous.
If I can't even get my most basic questions and concerns addressed there is absolutely no reason for me to bother writing any Add On's at all.
Oh well...such is life.
Take care.
Carlos
Have you tried emailing the source?
Hi Jshannon,
What source would you be referring to Jshannon?
By the way my comment was not directed at you specifically.
I just find it incredibly ridiculous that I can't seem to get answers to some basic questions, indeed necessary questions to answer, about writing Add On's.
You would think such answers would be readily available but after much searching and even posting here...they are not.
It's not worth my time to try and keep getting answers that are not readily given anywhere (that I know of) and it is certainly not worth my time writing Add On's which represent a substantial amount of time and work without such answers.
Which is fine in that I have lots of other things I am involved in though it is a shame because some Add On's that I had in mind would have substantially improved upon the groundwork that Concrete5 has already built.
Carlos
What source would you be referring to Jshannon?
By the way my comment was not directed at you specifically.
I just find it incredibly ridiculous that I can't seem to get answers to some basic questions, indeed necessary questions to answer, about writing Add On's.
You would think such answers would be readily available but after much searching and even posting here...they are not.
It's not worth my time to try and keep getting answers that are not readily given anywhere (that I know of) and it is certainly not worth my time writing Add On's which represent a substantial amount of time and work without such answers.
Which is fine in that I have lots of other things I am involved in though it is a shame because some Add On's that I had in mind would have substantially improved upon the groundwork that Concrete5 has already built.
Carlos
I agree with your basic point.
But a lot of people don't know the answer to this. I've developed a few add-ons and don't know the answer to your additional questions. You should email/message frz or someone else. Or just tell me your ideas. :)
James
But a lot of people don't know the answer to this. I've developed a few add-ons and don't know the answer to your additional questions. You should email/message frz or someone else. Or just tell me your ideas. :)
James
carlos- I think he was refering to frz. btw, it was july 4th when you asked, which is a holiday in the us, and a lot of people travel after it- not the best time to ask a question and get fast responses.
Am I missing something, or is it literally still less than 24 hours since your original post? Since that time you've had several community members respond to your thread and now the CEO is commenting. As someone else pointed out, yesterday was a national holiday here, but regardless - it's "utterly ridiculous" you don't have every answer you need within 24 hours of asking? ... uhhh.. okay. Yeah we may not be operating at the speed you want in general I guess then...I'm not sure who on earth is, but... uhh yeah.
That aside. ;)
1) If you choose to sell your add-on, it must be for $15 or more. You can sell it for thousands if you want, I'd love that frankly. If you are selling it, the license is per-active-install. I think we explain this a fair amount in pages around the site. The idea here is you can use it on a site and any staging servers, but it's one active site per license. If you want yearly license fees, unlimited licenses, or per user stuff - you're out of luck for today. We're trying to hold on to some consistency for the consumer's sake.
2) We take a 25% cut from the total cost. You can refund transactions if support gets out of hand on something. When you do issue a refund, we keep 15% and you pay an additional 10% out of your site balance. This is because:
A) we didn't mess up, the marketplace works fine.
B) you should be using this as a last resort, not a "whatever I hate support" solution
C) we still pay merchant fees on these transactions so it's not actually 15% in our accounts, it's split all over.
D) sometimes we break this and eat the whole 25% because we did mess up or we're forcing a refund to make a problem customer go away.
BTW:
http://www.concrete5.org/developers/marketplace-submission-rules/...
(Its linked to from the main drop down and point 4 covers most of what I just said.. so if we're going to be all dicky to one another... RTFM.
3) MIT license is a weird beast. I don't think its in anyones interest to debate it here. If you're selling add-ons however we use our own open source commercial license. It limits the redistribution you're concerned about:
http://www.concrete5.org/help/legal/commercial_add-on_license/...
We also recently added the GPL as an option here. This would let you give away the add-on to fellow developers who are comfortable installing it by hand with no support, but still sell licenses to site owners (yer mom) who want the 1-click install from marketplace and some support through the forums.
Also the PRB (peer review board) does a review of all new add-ons. One of many things they're looking for is code that may not be wholly original. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened a couple of times and generally people figure out a way to work it out together.
4) You request for your payout. In terms of legal policy we ask that you leave it in for 30 days so we can make sure support is happening. Generally if you're providing good support and sales are continuing I don't mind paying out in realtime. To be direct, I've even floated loans in there before when I know sales will cover it.
5) We prefer paying via paypal for tax reasons. We do pay some vendors via check. They are only US vendors today. If we're doing enough volume and I'm comfortable about the tax relationship we can probably work something out.
I think that is the extent of your questions that I can parse from this thread. I would point out that there is a contact form linked to in our footer. If you feel like there's a business question you're not getting an answer to, I urge you to use it. I would also point out that one can catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar. We were labeled the fastest growing CMS in the open source space, not the biggest, and not the most over funded. Push comes to shove, there's a handful of guys in an office in Portland trying to make you and 100,000 other people happy every day, so you're basically going to get the same attitude out of us as you give us. -wink-
To make sure I don't leave you on a bad note, I am taking this thread as a message that we need to revise the copy on the marketplace submission page. A lot of this stuff has grown organically over time, so I'm sure we can do a better job expressing it, and I'm sure you're not the only person confused about details. Thank you for the heads up.
That aside. ;)
1) If you choose to sell your add-on, it must be for $15 or more. You can sell it for thousands if you want, I'd love that frankly. If you are selling it, the license is per-active-install. I think we explain this a fair amount in pages around the site. The idea here is you can use it on a site and any staging servers, but it's one active site per license. If you want yearly license fees, unlimited licenses, or per user stuff - you're out of luck for today. We're trying to hold on to some consistency for the consumer's sake.
2) We take a 25% cut from the total cost. You can refund transactions if support gets out of hand on something. When you do issue a refund, we keep 15% and you pay an additional 10% out of your site balance. This is because:
A) we didn't mess up, the marketplace works fine.
B) you should be using this as a last resort, not a "whatever I hate support" solution
C) we still pay merchant fees on these transactions so it's not actually 15% in our accounts, it's split all over.
D) sometimes we break this and eat the whole 25% because we did mess up or we're forcing a refund to make a problem customer go away.
BTW:
http://www.concrete5.org/developers/marketplace-submission-rules/...
(Its linked to from the main drop down and point 4 covers most of what I just said.. so if we're going to be all dicky to one another... RTFM.
3) MIT license is a weird beast. I don't think its in anyones interest to debate it here. If you're selling add-ons however we use our own open source commercial license. It limits the redistribution you're concerned about:
http://www.concrete5.org/help/legal/commercial_add-on_license/...
We also recently added the GPL as an option here. This would let you give away the add-on to fellow developers who are comfortable installing it by hand with no support, but still sell licenses to site owners (yer mom) who want the 1-click install from marketplace and some support through the forums.
Also the PRB (peer review board) does a review of all new add-ons. One of many things they're looking for is code that may not be wholly original. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened a couple of times and generally people figure out a way to work it out together.
4) You request for your payout. In terms of legal policy we ask that you leave it in for 30 days so we can make sure support is happening. Generally if you're providing good support and sales are continuing I don't mind paying out in realtime. To be direct, I've even floated loans in there before when I know sales will cover it.
5) We prefer paying via paypal for tax reasons. We do pay some vendors via check. They are only US vendors today. If we're doing enough volume and I'm comfortable about the tax relationship we can probably work something out.
I think that is the extent of your questions that I can parse from this thread. I would point out that there is a contact form linked to in our footer. If you feel like there's a business question you're not getting an answer to, I urge you to use it. I would also point out that one can catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar. We were labeled the fastest growing CMS in the open source space, not the biggest, and not the most over funded. Push comes to shove, there's a handful of guys in an office in Portland trying to make you and 100,000 other people happy every day, so you're basically going to get the same attitude out of us as you give us. -wink-
To make sure I don't leave you on a bad note, I am taking this thread as a message that we need to revise the copy on the marketplace submission page. A lot of this stuff has grown organically over time, so I'm sure we can do a better job expressing it, and I'm sure you're not the only person confused about details. Thank you for the heads up.
Thanks for your thorough reply frz.
I do apologize for how I came across. That was indeed uncalled for in view of July 4rth not to mention that no one, including yourself, is obligated in any way to respond at all.
I had a rough day today in that nothing went right including my wireless going down for a substantial portion of my day and I got frustrated. No excuse...just saying that such is what was going on today and why I reacted the way I did.
Things continue to intrude on my plans such that I can't get done half of what I want to get done and it really gets to me sometimes.
Anyway I appreciate the overall professional approach you used in responding to me Frz where you did not on the whole respond in kind.
I'll carefully read through what you said a few times before and if I post any additional questions about what may still need some clarification.
Carlos
I do apologize for how I came across. That was indeed uncalled for in view of July 4rth not to mention that no one, including yourself, is obligated in any way to respond at all.
I had a rough day today in that nothing went right including my wireless going down for a substantial portion of my day and I got frustrated. No excuse...just saying that such is what was going on today and why I reacted the way I did.
Things continue to intrude on my plans such that I can't get done half of what I want to get done and it really gets to me sometimes.
Anyway I appreciate the overall professional approach you used in responding to me Frz where you did not on the whole respond in kind.
I'll carefully read through what you said a few times before and if I post any additional questions about what may still need some clarification.
Carlos
Okay...let me see if I can summarize things (if I am off on some point of summary I would really appreciate some correction).
Q. What can be charged for an Add On?
A. The minimum that must be charged for an Add On (if you are going to sell it) is $15. There is no upper limit to what you can charge. You can also chose to give it away in which case there is no charge for it. Concrete5 keeps 25% of any selling price. If a refund is given Concrete5 keeps an additional 15% and you pay another 10% of the selling price. So for examle if an Add On costs $20, Concrete5 keeps $5 and gives you $15 on the initial sale. However if you end up having to give a refund then in addition to returning $20 to the customer Concrete5 charges another $5 (15% + 10%) on the sale price to recoop various costs associated with the refund. To break even you must not give refunds on more than about 40% of sales (of course any Add On giving that many refunds is likely an extremely poor Add On). For example if you have 6 sales (or $120 at $20 per sale) and 5 refunds (or $25 in fees + $100 for refunds to customer) you will pay out $5 more than you bring in ($120 - $125).
Q. Can someone take an Add On submitted under the MIT license, copy it, and contribute it as their own Add On for free to cut the original author out of gaining any benefit from the sale of their Add On?
A. All Add Ons and marketplace submissions must be released either under the Concrete5 Open Source Commercial License which is not an MIT license like Concrete5 has itself or the GPL license. The Concrete5 Open Source License prevents someone coming in and copying an Add On to sell under their own license or to cut the ground out from under the original author by giving it away for free. Specifically "Customer may not offer the System for resale without expressed permission from DEVELOPMENT PARTNER." (where DEVELOPMENT PARTNER is the Add On author) and "Customer shall have no right to copy the System without DEVELOPMENT PARTNER’s prior written consent, which may be withheld for any reason." and "Title to the System and all related intellectual property will remain with DEVELOPMENT PARTNER and its licensors at all times...". Being an open source license end users purchasing the Add On can modify and change it at will with such changes belonging to them but the original Add On source code remains the intellectual property of the Add On author.
Q. How long before some money from the sale of Add On is received?
A. The main consideration here is having enough money in the account for the Add On to cover any fees resulting from refunds and the refunds themselves. Since a refund can be requested and obtained for up to 30 days after Add On purchase the money derived from a sale (which may ultimately end up being refunded) must remain for 30 days. After 30 days you request a payout for previous sales that have passed the 30 day mark. If sales are continuing payouts may be made in real time though such is done on a case by case basis. Also payments may be made by check to a US based Add On author instead of being paid out by PayPal but again that is done on a case by case basis and is not guaranteed. Normally payouts are given out through PayPal.
Is the above more or less correctly summarized?
A comment and a follow up question Frz if you don't mind giving me a wee bit more input.
1. You do not actually cover yourself entirely by the requirement to keep sales amounts in the account for 30 days since any refunds must not only return the actual sales amount but also incurs additional fees equal to 25% of the sale. I am sure you are aware of that but I thought I would point that out.
2. Is there a way for me to be reassured of being able to be paid by check to a US address *before* I make an Add On available for the marketplace (assuming of course that any such Add On is approved)? I really don't want to use PayPal and have had some bad experiences with them. Having to use PayPal is a show stopper for me. If you would rather I discuss this possibility or any of the above in private please let me know.
Thanks.
Carlos
Q. What can be charged for an Add On?
A. The minimum that must be charged for an Add On (if you are going to sell it) is $15. There is no upper limit to what you can charge. You can also chose to give it away in which case there is no charge for it. Concrete5 keeps 25% of any selling price. If a refund is given Concrete5 keeps an additional 15% and you pay another 10% of the selling price. So for examle if an Add On costs $20, Concrete5 keeps $5 and gives you $15 on the initial sale. However if you end up having to give a refund then in addition to returning $20 to the customer Concrete5 charges another $5 (15% + 10%) on the sale price to recoop various costs associated with the refund. To break even you must not give refunds on more than about 40% of sales (of course any Add On giving that many refunds is likely an extremely poor Add On). For example if you have 6 sales (or $120 at $20 per sale) and 5 refunds (or $25 in fees + $100 for refunds to customer) you will pay out $5 more than you bring in ($120 - $125).
Q. Can someone take an Add On submitted under the MIT license, copy it, and contribute it as their own Add On for free to cut the original author out of gaining any benefit from the sale of their Add On?
A. All Add Ons and marketplace submissions must be released either under the Concrete5 Open Source Commercial License which is not an MIT license like Concrete5 has itself or the GPL license. The Concrete5 Open Source License prevents someone coming in and copying an Add On to sell under their own license or to cut the ground out from under the original author by giving it away for free. Specifically "Customer may not offer the System for resale without expressed permission from DEVELOPMENT PARTNER." (where DEVELOPMENT PARTNER is the Add On author) and "Customer shall have no right to copy the System without DEVELOPMENT PARTNER’s prior written consent, which may be withheld for any reason." and "Title to the System and all related intellectual property will remain with DEVELOPMENT PARTNER and its licensors at all times...". Being an open source license end users purchasing the Add On can modify and change it at will with such changes belonging to them but the original Add On source code remains the intellectual property of the Add On author.
Q. How long before some money from the sale of Add On is received?
A. The main consideration here is having enough money in the account for the Add On to cover any fees resulting from refunds and the refunds themselves. Since a refund can be requested and obtained for up to 30 days after Add On purchase the money derived from a sale (which may ultimately end up being refunded) must remain for 30 days. After 30 days you request a payout for previous sales that have passed the 30 day mark. If sales are continuing payouts may be made in real time though such is done on a case by case basis. Also payments may be made by check to a US based Add On author instead of being paid out by PayPal but again that is done on a case by case basis and is not guaranteed. Normally payouts are given out through PayPal.
Is the above more or less correctly summarized?
A comment and a follow up question Frz if you don't mind giving me a wee bit more input.
1. You do not actually cover yourself entirely by the requirement to keep sales amounts in the account for 30 days since any refunds must not only return the actual sales amount but also incurs additional fees equal to 25% of the sale. I am sure you are aware of that but I thought I would point that out.
2. Is there a way for me to be reassured of being able to be paid by check to a US address *before* I make an Add On available for the marketplace (assuming of course that any such Add On is approved)? I really don't want to use PayPal and have had some bad experiences with them. Having to use PayPal is a show stopper for me. If you would rather I discuss this possibility or any of the above in private please let me know.
Thanks.
Carlos
Carlos,
No problem - We all have bad days and the complete inability to judge tone in a forums can make humor challenging. I totally want to make sure we're being clear on this stuff so I really do think you're right in the big picture that our copy on that marketplace info page should be updated.
Your second reply is pretty close but does bear corrections:
1) Refunds aren't an ADDITIONAL %15, its just that we split our cut.... So:
Your add-on costs $20. Customer buys it for $20, we take $5, you get $15.
For one reason or another you decide to issue a refund.
The customer gets their $20 back as a site credit.
You lose the $15 that was in your account.
You lose an additional $2.
We keep our $3.
It's all transparent to the customer who sees their money as a credit here.
Much of the $3 we keep goes off to paypal (we hate em too) or the merchant provider. We're not technically refunding these transactions, so the fees still apply.
You lose an additional $2 because of the points I mentioned before.
This does not generally happen a lot, and we feel like that 10% helps keep your goals and ours aligned.
All that being said, sometimes we kill that fee too when we feel like things are our fault as much as yours.
2) License - Yes. They are free to mess with your code for THEIR COPY as much as they want. If they use your code, make a bunch of extensions, and then want to use it on a new site, they need to buy another license from you. There's a "special offers" tool you can use in your my account area to do custom deals when/if this type of bulk thing becomes interesting.
3) Money. Yeah this hasn't been an issue yet. People who get paid out quickly tend to be doing a lot of volume. There aren't a lot of refunds happening, by design.
4) We can talk off line about the check/paypal issue. I totally understand not being a fan of paypal. I need to know what country you're in and do some mumbo-jumbo for the accountants. PM me.
Hope that clears it all up. Again thanks for bringing your concerns up.
No problem - We all have bad days and the complete inability to judge tone in a forums can make humor challenging. I totally want to make sure we're being clear on this stuff so I really do think you're right in the big picture that our copy on that marketplace info page should be updated.
Your second reply is pretty close but does bear corrections:
1) Refunds aren't an ADDITIONAL %15, its just that we split our cut.... So:
Your add-on costs $20. Customer buys it for $20, we take $5, you get $15.
For one reason or another you decide to issue a refund.
The customer gets their $20 back as a site credit.
You lose the $15 that was in your account.
You lose an additional $2.
We keep our $3.
It's all transparent to the customer who sees their money as a credit here.
Much of the $3 we keep goes off to paypal (we hate em too) or the merchant provider. We're not technically refunding these transactions, so the fees still apply.
You lose an additional $2 because of the points I mentioned before.
This does not generally happen a lot, and we feel like that 10% helps keep your goals and ours aligned.
All that being said, sometimes we kill that fee too when we feel like things are our fault as much as yours.
2) License - Yes. They are free to mess with your code for THEIR COPY as much as they want. If they use your code, make a bunch of extensions, and then want to use it on a new site, they need to buy another license from you. There's a "special offers" tool you can use in your my account area to do custom deals when/if this type of bulk thing becomes interesting.
3) Money. Yeah this hasn't been an issue yet. People who get paid out quickly tend to be doing a lot of volume. There aren't a lot of refunds happening, by design.
4) We can talk off line about the check/paypal issue. I totally understand not being a fan of paypal. I need to know what country you're in and do some mumbo-jumbo for the accountants. PM me.
Hope that clears it all up. Again thanks for bringing your concerns up.
Thanks so much for responding and adding your additional thoughts Frz.
It sounds good. Your policies are actually very reasonable I think if not altogether clear on a reading of existing web pages on the issue.
The only sticking point being the how to get paid out one since it's really impractical, at least in the short term, for me to work through PayPal hoops to get signed up with them again.
I'll PM you closer to when I can actually make the time to lump together changes I have been making to Concrete5 into some sort of Add On Frz. It may be a while though as I am real busy this month and won't probably be able to do much in that regard till at least next month. Just so you know.
Thanks again.
Carlos
It sounds good. Your policies are actually very reasonable I think if not altogether clear on a reading of existing web pages on the issue.
The only sticking point being the how to get paid out one since it's really impractical, at least in the short term, for me to work through PayPal hoops to get signed up with them again.
I'll PM you closer to when I can actually make the time to lump together changes I have been making to Concrete5 into some sort of Add On Frz. It may be a while though as I am real busy this month and won't probably be able to do much in that regard till at least next month. Just so you know.
Thanks again.
Carlos
No problem. I dont see paypal as an absolute. We will get that page updated
Best wishes
Pecked out on an iPhone
Best wishes
Pecked out on an iPhone
hey carlos-
first, try going to the submit addon page and just looking at the form. It gives you a lot of details about what to expect. Export is currently paypal only, but you might be able to get it some other way. As far as the license, the license that the addons are usually released under(the default mp license) aren't mit open source- they prohibit sharing among sites, say you can't give it for free. for payment heres what I've done:
The money is distributed into your c5 account as soon as a plugin is paid for. You can use this money to buy other c5 addons, or export it via paypal (see above). The refund policy is that you have to be able to refund customers immediately within thirty days, but after that you have a window (I believe). On the other hand, It really depends on how well the addon sells. If there is a lot of purchases and very few support requests you likely don't have to worry about refunds that much, but for addons with lots of support requests you may have to refund more. Generally as long as you keep the price of two or three purchases in your account I think that should be good, and should be safe immediately transfering but I don't know as I've never had to deal with refunds. I generally let the money accumulate somewhat and then take it out in larger amounts, as it reduces the paypal fees.
first, try going to the submit addon page and just looking at the form. It gives you a lot of details about what to expect. Export is currently paypal only, but you might be able to get it some other way. As far as the license, the license that the addons are usually released under(the default mp license) aren't mit open source- they prohibit sharing among sites, say you can't give it for free. for payment heres what I've done:
The money is distributed into your c5 account as soon as a plugin is paid for. You can use this money to buy other c5 addons, or export it via paypal (see above). The refund policy is that you have to be able to refund customers immediately within thirty days, but after that you have a window (I believe). On the other hand, It really depends on how well the addon sells. If there is a lot of purchases and very few support requests you likely don't have to worry about refunds that much, but for addons with lots of support requests you may have to refund more. Generally as long as you keep the price of two or three purchases in your account I think that should be good, and should be safe immediately transfering but I don't know as I've never had to deal with refunds. I generally let the money accumulate somewhat and then take it out in larger amounts, as it reduces the paypal fees.
btw Carlos to solve your problems with PayPal you could always just create add-ons for free.
I probably wouldn't let PayPal become a show stopper. Plus for the record they have improved their service dramatically. It's probably one of the best merchant services on the market. (especially the minimal fees).
I probably wouldn't let PayPal become a show stopper. Plus for the record they have improved their service dramatically. It's probably one of the best merchant services on the market. (especially the minimal fees).
Hi ThemeGuru,
While creating Add On's for free would definitely help out the community it's just not workable for me to do that in most cases.
I mean open source, MIT, and such is great but the companies putting out software under that basis have at least a hope, however slight at times, of making some kind of income in return for their labor.
Creating an Add On for free gives me no such hope. At least not realistically. No one is going to pay me for support since it's well...provided for free, not to mention that most Add On's I would create would need very little support (as I would aim to make their use very easy to understand and very capable of doing it all at the push of a button within the bounds of it's functionality). An Add On is not going to turn into some sort of open source project that might pan out to give me an income in the future.
Overall...creating free Add On's is something I might want to do from time to time but at this point in time I can't really afford to do that.
The one benefit I see to creating free Add On's is that it might help Concrete5 become more successful (a worthwhile goal) which in turn should result in more work for me as I become more adept at all things C5. But that is a longer term benefit.
I need money now not next year type of thing and that is what I must concentrate on making.
As for PayPal...I don't know if you have read the horror stories about it's use. For me...my name is like John Smith. It apparently got on some kind of terror watch list such that PayPal froze my existing account (though they did not tell me it was a terror list just a government list), would not answer my questions, and required copies of my passport, SS number, mother's maiden name, birth date, where I had worked for the last five years (I believe I remember them asking me that), copy of my driver's license, and that type of stuff.
It was like the FBI was feeding them questions to ask me or something. Some of which had little of anything to do with identifying who I was.
In view of their lack of response to my repeated inquiries as to what kind of list this was, my lack of willingness to make such information available to any internet based company (hacking anyone?), and really my being able to get paid for my services in other ways...I all but said forget you to them.
I wasn't the only one this happened to by the way.
They (really EBay behind them) are without a doubt the most unresponsive and arbitrary company I have ever dealt with bar none and generally speaking I drop such companies like a hot potatoe instead of catering to their every whim and fancy just because they say so.
Since I am only allowed one account on PayPal ever, to try and use them again would likely involve my trying to re-open the account that was frozen which would be near impossible in that my passport has expired among other things. So we're not talking of just opening up a little ol' PayPal account (assuming I could even iron things out with them which if past experience is any indication would take months). There's a lot more to it than that for me.
Carlos
PS. I found out that my name was on a terrorist watch list when I last tried to fly. Fortunately the gate agent was far more reasonable and let me go on the plane when my full name (including my middle and last name...I was born in South America where we use two such last names) made it evident that I was not a terrorist trying to board under a generic, non-descript, name like John Smith. The ticket agent didn't feel a need to grill me or ask me for everything but the kitchen sink either.
PSS. PayPal is the only company I have ever had this problem with. Banks and many others have no problem letting me use their services.
While creating Add On's for free would definitely help out the community it's just not workable for me to do that in most cases.
I mean open source, MIT, and such is great but the companies putting out software under that basis have at least a hope, however slight at times, of making some kind of income in return for their labor.
Creating an Add On for free gives me no such hope. At least not realistically. No one is going to pay me for support since it's well...provided for free, not to mention that most Add On's I would create would need very little support (as I would aim to make their use very easy to understand and very capable of doing it all at the push of a button within the bounds of it's functionality). An Add On is not going to turn into some sort of open source project that might pan out to give me an income in the future.
Overall...creating free Add On's is something I might want to do from time to time but at this point in time I can't really afford to do that.
The one benefit I see to creating free Add On's is that it might help Concrete5 become more successful (a worthwhile goal) which in turn should result in more work for me as I become more adept at all things C5. But that is a longer term benefit.
I need money now not next year type of thing and that is what I must concentrate on making.
As for PayPal...I don't know if you have read the horror stories about it's use. For me...my name is like John Smith. It apparently got on some kind of terror watch list such that PayPal froze my existing account (though they did not tell me it was a terror list just a government list), would not answer my questions, and required copies of my passport, SS number, mother's maiden name, birth date, where I had worked for the last five years (I believe I remember them asking me that), copy of my driver's license, and that type of stuff.
It was like the FBI was feeding them questions to ask me or something. Some of which had little of anything to do with identifying who I was.
In view of their lack of response to my repeated inquiries as to what kind of list this was, my lack of willingness to make such information available to any internet based company (hacking anyone?), and really my being able to get paid for my services in other ways...I all but said forget you to them.
I wasn't the only one this happened to by the way.
They (really EBay behind them) are without a doubt the most unresponsive and arbitrary company I have ever dealt with bar none and generally speaking I drop such companies like a hot potatoe instead of catering to their every whim and fancy just because they say so.
Since I am only allowed one account on PayPal ever, to try and use them again would likely involve my trying to re-open the account that was frozen which would be near impossible in that my passport has expired among other things. So we're not talking of just opening up a little ol' PayPal account (assuming I could even iron things out with them which if past experience is any indication would take months). There's a lot more to it than that for me.
Carlos
PS. I found out that my name was on a terrorist watch list when I last tried to fly. Fortunately the gate agent was far more reasonable and let me go on the plane when my full name (including my middle and last name...I was born in South America where we use two such last names) made it evident that I was not a terrorist trying to board under a generic, non-descript, name like John Smith. The ticket agent didn't feel a need to grill me or ask me for everything but the kitchen sink either.
PSS. PayPal is the only company I have ever had this problem with. Banks and many others have no problem letting me use their services.
Hey Carlos,
To quickly address your comments.
First the MIT license in my mind is amazing. But I don't want to bother listing all the pros and cons because that would just become a heated debate and go no where. Instead think of it as this. Concrete5 is an amazing open source CMS platform which is licensed under the MIT license. With out c5 we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
If your worried about making money don't. Concrete5 MP allows you to submit paid addons and free addons. But what comes down to it when dealing with the MP in your mind is paypal. Which personal sucks.
I must admit I have had my problems with PayPal but doing research is key. Their pretty firm on their rules and regulations but what online merchant isn't.
I find that using their email support doesn't really get you anywhere. It takes long and can just be a pain. Instead I call them with all my questions. But I go to them after reading helpful forums that don't just talk about their horrific experiences.
I would find a decent rep and explain your situation. For example I'm based in Canada and love using paypal but hate paying their exchange rates. So I went to open a us based account. It wasn't linking properly so I called up their support explained my situation and they unlocked the account so the confirmation payment could be resent.
As well keep in mind concrete5. Since their marketplace is growing each day image if they had to write out hundreds of cheques to author's. It would be a very messy situation for both parties. Plus receiving a cheque can in some cases be even more problematic than paypal. (Canada Post Strike).
Hope that helps :-)
To quickly address your comments.
First the MIT license in my mind is amazing. But I don't want to bother listing all the pros and cons because that would just become a heated debate and go no where. Instead think of it as this. Concrete5 is an amazing open source CMS platform which is licensed under the MIT license. With out c5 we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
If your worried about making money don't. Concrete5 MP allows you to submit paid addons and free addons. But what comes down to it when dealing with the MP in your mind is paypal. Which personal sucks.
I must admit I have had my problems with PayPal but doing research is key. Their pretty firm on their rules and regulations but what online merchant isn't.
I find that using their email support doesn't really get you anywhere. It takes long and can just be a pain. Instead I call them with all my questions. But I go to them after reading helpful forums that don't just talk about their horrific experiences.
I would find a decent rep and explain your situation. For example I'm based in Canada and love using paypal but hate paying their exchange rates. So I went to open a us based account. It wasn't linking properly so I called up their support explained my situation and they unlocked the account so the confirmation payment could be resent.
As well keep in mind concrete5. Since their marketplace is growing each day image if they had to write out hundreds of cheques to author's. It would be a very messy situation for both parties. Plus receiving a cheque can in some cases be even more problematic than paypal. (Canada Post Strike).
Hope that helps :-)
Hi ThemeGuru,
Thanks for the additional input. I didn't see it till just now when I was looking up something that was said for reference.
I seriously doubt that PayPal would make an exception for me if I call them and ask them if they will allow me to restart my account by just providing a copy of...hmm..let's see...my Canadian driver's license that I have not yet converted to a California driver's license after nearly two years of being here LOL (I don't drive and just take public transportation here).
That's the only official government issued ID that I presently have.
Kinda weird how this forum software seems to drop me from threads I subscribe to such that on occasion I come back to a thread and see new replies that I received no notice of.
Oh well.
Thanks again.
Carlos
Thanks for the additional input. I didn't see it till just now when I was looking up something that was said for reference.
I seriously doubt that PayPal would make an exception for me if I call them and ask them if they will allow me to restart my account by just providing a copy of...hmm..let's see...my Canadian driver's license that I have not yet converted to a California driver's license after nearly two years of being here LOL (I don't drive and just take public transportation here).
That's the only official government issued ID that I presently have.
Kinda weird how this forum software seems to drop me from threads I subscribe to such that on occasion I come back to a thread and see new replies that I received no notice of.
Oh well.
Thanks again.
Carlos
Seehttp://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/system/submitting... andhttp://www.concrete5.org/developers/marketplace-submission-rules/... .
For the questions that aren't answered:
3. Yes, from what I know about the MIT license, somebody could do this. So make sure you don't release it under the MIT license.
4/5. You can request the money via paypal when your "account" is over $20. In my experience, you'll get the money quickish (though it appears to be a manual process).
James