MC's BLOG

I have been thinking about this subject for some time now, but todays tweets got me thinking and I thought I’d write up a post to hopefully stir up some discussion.

Maybe I should start off by saying that i’m not a money hungry developer, but I think that we can all agree that even though we are working with an open source CMS, we have to make money some how some way. Of course we get paid when developing a customer solution, but it seems to me that things are a bit different when developing addons, plugins, packages, datatypes and everything else that has been developed by and for the Umbraco community.

Currently there are two packages available for purchase in the Umbraco store, and I counted 68 packages on our.umbraco.org today.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that so many people are contributing with a lot of great stuff that is free to install and use. I personally used Warren‘s CWS package to get up to speed on Umbraco v.4 after not having used Umbraco since v.3.0.3. I think it is a great resource, but I probably wouldn’t have bought it if it was only available for purchase in the Umbraco store. No offense Warren

I myself started a pretty big project (at least for a spare time project) by developing Google Analytics for Umbraco, which is open sourced and thus free for all I thought about different models for getting a bit of return on creating a fairly large project, but ultimately decided that it should be open sourced. Partly because Google Analytics is already free to use, so it seem to be the best incentive to make the Umbraco package free as well – even though it might have greater value for some. Another part of the decision has to do with installbase and getting the package out there – won’t go into details, but sometimes its just nice to share your shit.
Axendo, who have also created an Analytics plugin for Umbraco, have chosen to make a limited free version and a paid version, which I think is a cleaver thing to do. I hope the good guys at Axendo are not pissed of by me making my package open source and free, but hopefully they’ll still be able to sell their package, and they could actually use my source in their product should they want to do so in the future.
I would personally find it cool if someone would want to adopt my Google Analytics for Umbraco package, and I would encourage all Solution Providers and Developers to make some money on implementing the Google Analytics section in customer solutions. In my latest offer to a new client I included a couple of packages from our.umbraco.org, which I think will be a win win situation for all: the client will get some very useful tools (free) and we (the solution provider) got some extra hours in on implementation.

Making a package free, open source or paid is ultimately up to the developer. One might think that because the CMS is free so should the addons. Well, not necessarily! Take a great addon like uCommerce which will definatly not be free, this product has a clear incentive for customers to buy it. I won’t go into details about uCommerce but I would love to hear Søren‘s thoughts on selling an addon for an open source CMS

Over the next six month I will be developing a couple of addons for Umbraco (got the ideas, just need the time), which will all be open source and made in my spare time. The main reason for these addons being open source is that the counter part or the part that will be integrated with Umbraco is also open source. I’m also hoping that the fact that the addons are free to install will help them spread and thus create a greater installbase. This could of course also be done with a limited free version and a paid full version, but I’m somehow not entirely sure that would work for the addons in question.
So how do I get paid for spending a lot of spare time creating great addons? Should I get paid? Isn’t the gift of giving enough?
Well, a sponsor-an-umbraco-dev program would be great but I don’t know who would actually sponsor my work, so maybe selling support/upgrades/feature request implementations would be a better solution?

I personally think that when the good guys at Umbraco start selling the Forms module, it will make it easier for other developers to sell their packages, addons, plugins or whatever. Would also love to hear Niels‘ thoughts on this – do you think that Umbraco Corp. in a sense will lead the pack and in some way encourage customers/users to pay for addons?
When a customer sees what great stuff he can get for a reasonable amount of money he probably won’t have a problem paying for it even though he “bought” an open source CMS in the first place, right?

So what do you think? Do you feel obligated to open source your Umbraco package or simply make it available for free? Are all the packages on our.umbraco.org not worth paying for? Are you hoping that all packages for Umbraco will always be free to install and use?

Please share your thoughts, as I would love to hear what others think about this subject.

Darren Ferguson, you are one of the few people with packages in the store. What are your thoughts?

Tommy Poulsen, you are making a great addon with the PDF creator. Do you intend to sell this addon or contribute it as a free to use package on our.umbraco.org and why?

Other package developers: Do you ultimately feel it depends on the content/usability of the package whether it should be free or paid?

I hope I didn’t make this post too much about money, but rather what makes developers or solution providers choose to make an Umbraco package free, paid or open source and how they get compensated for their work (via implementation for example?).