Symphony.

About a week ago, Josh from Envato reached out to the Symphony team and asked if we'd be able to help spread the word for their most recent campaign in search for Symphony themes for their ThemeForest site.

Envato’s Most Wanted – $4,500 Reward for Symphony Themes

They're doing so because they like our system and there is a demand for Symphony themes. Envato is putting up $4,500 in total cash prize for the top 10 submissions.

They're not just throwing up bounties for any CMS they could get their mitts on. They've done their research and due diligence. They know how our system works and have used it in some capacity themselves.

Why am I putting this on the forum? Because most of the regular folks here churn out designs and templates on a daily basis. You guys eat design and development for breakfast, lunch and tea.

Why is this important for the project? Because the Symphony team has always focused on the engineering and design of our system and we put almost no effort into putting ourselves out there. Yet despite our lack of efforts, there is a demand for a way to use Symphony in a way that gets people started faster. Heck, that's what the Symphony Ensemble is meant to solve. We've mostly squandered that opportunity, but I digress.

If you want to contribute to the project but haven't been able to do so either because you're not a developer or you just don't have the time, consider this as an option! Plus, the prize money is nice bonus.

Lastly, not that it should matter but Envato is a fellow Aussie establishment and that's something I can really get behind; and by behind, I mean to take them down under, to the great outback.

For a barbecue.

How is this supposed to work? Symphony doesn't have themes but ensembles, which change depending on the structure of the site you build.

I'd assume you would have to package an ensamble or a complete Symphony install. (as that way it would include the extensions)

Interesting. While the attention for Symphony is great, the offer is not. Unfortunately, the offer runs counter to the professional and ethical stance of the organization I work with.

Full ack. http://www.bdg-designer.de/design-wettbewerb-das-geht-auch-fair http://www.bdg-designer.de/category/blog/pranger

@bauhouse, if we're talking about design as a service, then I would totally agree.

I see this differently to the typical scenario of clients shopping for free samples, or "doing spec work". Let's set aside the cash prize offer entirely and look at ThemeForest's business model.

ThemeForest is a marketplace for themes. Designers generate income from each purchase of their design. Designers in this instance is not offering a service but rather a product. The design you have on the marketplace is a commodity (be it a digital one at that). This model is closer to the mobile apps market place even down to revenue sharing policies.

The bounty prize is just an offer in addition to their existing model, except it's a way to speed up that process.

A couple more points on the differences between spec work and marketplace submissions:

With a marketplace submission, you're providing whatever it is that you want, based on your own spec and requirements. With spec work, you're competing for a job based on the client's functional and design requirements.

Avid Symphonists would already have made a half a dozen ensembles all ready to use for their next project. The time and effort is already sunk in. Putting it on the marketplace has the potential for it to generate residual income to compensate for your initial investment.

My idea for Ensembles was to offer a marketplace where free and paid packages would be made available. I have already mentioned this many times before (though I don't know where, or who to...) but the biggest reason why Ensembles in the current format doesn't work is because it's costly to make and maintain. Without authors getting compensated for their time and effort, Ensembles cannot thrive.

TF have done a better job at commoditising CMS packages than us. Their business is also pretty rock solid, and they're saying, "Symphony is pretty cool, so let's open our marketplace up for them too."

Doing a prize-based competition may be a turn-off for some of you. Certainly don't do this for the sake of scoring a prize. This is just a way for them to put the word out, that ThemeForest is finally supporting Symphony. Don't think too hard on the prize, but rather consider the opportunity this presents.

The kinds of packages Symphony is capable of powering is vast and diverse. This is a great way to expand the system beyond the elite agencies, designers and developers.

@Allen you're right in the fact that it will be re-sold after. However there's no clue on how these items will be priced.

I'd also agree to the fact that most of us have worked on ensambles for in-house projects. However I don't think anyone is really keen to have something which you spend around 2 months to build.. sold for something like $50.

Mind you I'll still try submit something to help promote symphony.

If anyone has a TF account, can they do a response to the last comment on the comp page?

Ah, it's not the last comment now. ignore me.

Apparently we're too new. If there's anything we should be accused of is that we're too old! 10 years in Internet land is like 100 right?

122 I thought.

I've replied. C'mon guys, I know there's a reluctance to participate due to the stigma around these sorts of competitions, but I think we wear our high and mighty hats a little too proud!

Let's help push things along a little and get the mainstream involved. Who knows, we might find that getting people to use a prebuilt Symphony ensemble is a great avenue to expand our venn diagram circle a little. It might not be such a bad thing!

Heck, if you think the prize money is gross, how about submitting a free ensemble on the Symphony site, and/or help me make that Ensemble marketplace subsite that I keep talking about!

Just finished a custom ensemble and have nothing but praise for Symphony and xslt. The documentation is a bit unfinished, but with the devkit extension, things become much clearer. I hope more people will try it out and join the community to give Symphony some needed "hype".

What are the wider communities thoughts on an Ensemble that includes extensions not provided by the core install being bundled is these TF ensembles?

If there is cash on the table, how does the notion of benefiting from others good will in creating and maintaining these great extensions sit with the community?

Or is it best to build ensembles purely using the core extensions to save the potential onslaught?

Would love to contribute, but need advice on the above before delving into it too far.

My company is already benefiting from the hard work of the extension creators, and I'm not even crediting ... let alone paying the extension makers. That's not the only potential tangible benefit.

I think promotion of Symphony to what I've called the Administration Interface website builders (AIwb) will help the advanced website developers and extension builders immensely. Once a AIwb realizes they can't finish, who will they hire? Once they see the extensions and realize they don't have enough time to implement it, who will they hire? Build examples of websites that leave the AIwb wanting more. Then make it clear where they can find it. How can we make it clear who built the extensions other than what you've already done?

I think it's a fantastic opportunity for us and the wider community. I look forward to seeing the results! I'm expecting all kinds of different themes, some just of the default ensemble, others more interesting. We may even see someone go nuts with Admin CSS Override to create a new Admin UI.

@moonoo2 The MIT licence of Symphony allows for this to happen AFAIK. Unless you've specifically opted for a stricter licence for your extension I don't think there's an issue (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Licence aside, if a user didn't feel comfortable with this possibility then I'd hope they wouldn't release their extension as open source in the first place.

Overall, great exposure and an awesome opportunity.

Most extensions are under the MIT licence, which I believe all the ones made public so far are. These can be used for commercial purposes. Freelancers and agencies are already using the platform and these extensions to turn a profit; and that's what they are there for.

The usual "don't-be-an-asshat" rules apply. If you're using these extensions, you are not entitled to pressuring developers to new features or bug fixes. The worst kind of sentiments are, "I have a deadline and a bug/feature needs to be implemented ASAP."

Also, if you're turning a good profit from a particular extension, consider helping the developer financially or physically.

I think the issue is that ensembles take more effort than traditional Wordpress blog themes. You can't just drop a CSS file and change two templates. For Symphony, you would have to create the data structure and re-create every feature. Everyone of us builds specifically for each project, so it is difficult to share anything. Where as Wordpress users can download 20 themes and switch through them whenever they feel like, Symphony ensembles are basically entire websites that you can't just switch to and switch back.

That said, it's $400 to upload something, so I'm sure someone will do it.

The alternative is to put together a few Ensemble types that is shared among theme authors. The extensions used in the Ensembles would be standardised and sanctioned by the Symphony team and developers.