Symphony.

Every time I try to reiterate a point, I digress a little. My last post had digressed so much it had little relevance to what I was trying to say.

MrBlank puts it perfectly.

Digression? I’ve digressed so much today it’s untrue. Shiraz is certainly helping though.

@Allen, @NickToye: Well, I’ve certainly thought about things I haven’t considered before. I have a day job and do very little freelance work, so this topic rarely crosses my mind.

Well I run my own business so every penny counts.

I feel the pressure more so than someone who just works for someone else. Although I do have the luxury of being able to work with a bottle of Shiraz at the weekends.

Donations is a good solution. Maybe several people would like to have the same extension. Then they can putup the money and pay for that extension just once and then use it.

I am confident I can write any extension you can dream of. But I don’t have time to do this for free right now. Does not mean I am an evil person.

If there was some type of fund from which users could authorize hiring a developer to write extensions, that would be helpful for the community of users

I am confident I can write any extension you can dream of. But I don’t have time to do this for free right now. Does not mean I am an evil person.

Nobody saying you are.

Firefox Add-on site implementing a contributions program

How about some kind of Mac Heist type of system?

Where Symphony itself sells the extensions from here, but sells them as part of a package. So you can have 4 or 5 extensions in a package, with maybe one or two Ensembles thrown in too.

They also have other Extension packages on there but these only become available once a certain amount of funding has been donated. The locked extensions can just be in progress too - they don’t have to be completed - but it would encourage people to donate to get them unlocked.

You could also add in a 3% donation to a Green charity.

I don’t like the idea of Symphony “selling” its components. Just my two cents. Independent developers can do with their work whatever they like, but I think whatever lives here should be free.

Well it’s not like an E-Commerce store. When say a certain figure has been reached, and a certain amount of dollars has gone to charity, then other extensions are released.

If everyone is hell bent on some kind of funding scheme, its selling a product, whichever way you slice it. Someone gets paid for work.

If everyone is hell bent on some kind of funding scheme, its selling a product, whichever way you slice it.

I don’t see donations as selling a product, simply because donations are optional, and you set your own price.

Ok then so can I have an extension for free? or do you want me to donate?

If your not selling an extension/product than can we have it for free? Or do you want/need monetary compensation?

Ok then so can I have an extension for free?

Yes. There are 84 of them here ;)

Ok cool.

Close the thread.

I think there’s a broader discussion going on here, one with lots of questions still unresolved. I’d prefer to leave the thread open so that can continue. If you’d prefer not to participate in it any longer, that’s fine, though I think you bring a valuable perspective to the table as an independent business owner. Just remember that your perspective is one among many, and we all have an interest in the outcome of the discussion.

Yeah I know that, I just thought I brought a decent idea to the table, one that is not about fleecing people, but a way of encouraging people to donate. I’ve yet to hear an idea that works.

The idea I mentioned does work and has done for a few years.

Sure it’s about selling people’s work, but then is that not what this is all about? Donations, Selling, Funding blah blah… It’s all about compensating people for their work that they do. By putting a figure on something like an extension package, you are saying this is a level that we want to see. But by not putting a figure on something, how can you ever expect to see true reward for your work?

If someone can give me an example of how donations would work than I would listen, but if we are going to faff about over semantics then I’m not interested.

I for myself don’t mind creating or modifying extensions without any financial reward.

Gaining experience of the inner guts of Symphony and seeing other people actually using them it is more important to me.

Additionally, if I’d charge money for them I would have to give long-term support, something that I can’t promise just yet. :-)

I think things like extensions have to be free in order for everyone to be able to try out if they can actually use it.

Ok, so the only real alternative is to just give them away open source. And if anyone wants any kind of customised work then they can charge them for it, but then the person who pays for it should own it and release it at their discretion?

Would that be fair?

If the extension were released under MIT or GPL, it would be legal and fair to charge money for customizing it. You may, however, not sell the intellectual property rights if you’re not the holder.

Additionally, some licenses state that you must release any modifications or additions under the same license as well (GPL does that, MIT doesn’t).

So some kind of contractual agreement needs to be had then, and its probably best on a one to one basis.