What would you pay for? Should CFEclipse still be free?
Posted At : April 13, 2007 7:01 AM
| Posted By : Mark Drew
Related Categories:
coldfusion,
eclipse,
donations,
cfeclipse
Before I start, don't worry, I am not going to charge for CFEclipse, but I have been thinking about the costs involved in making CFEclipse and trying to see how I can at least raise a small percentage of those.
To give you an idea of how many developer hours that go into CFEclipse, add up 2-3 man hours a day, every day, for about 6 years (I am using an average of number of developers that have been involved as well as frequency of coding), and lets say, they get paid a fair rate for a Java programmer (about ?40 an hour I think), thats about ?262,800 (thats about $516,402).
Sit back and take that in, Half a million dollars...
That is a hell of a lot of money on the development of a product isn't it? Maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but we have been going for 3 years, there have been roughly 5 developers doing a lot more than 2-3 hours a day so I think its a fair approximation.
I wanted to thank the community for the donations I got so far, which has managed to pay for the hotel and flights to cfObjective, but it has got me thinking about how we can make this a viable project.
I still personally don't understand how the Eclipse Foundation itself makes money, so I am wondering how we can do the same:
Paid support might be an option, but this isn't my full time project (yet!) so I can't dedicate that much time on it yet.
Banner adverts, ick! I don't think we get enough traffic to the site to really make any dent.
Donations, always good but I feel kinda bad asking for those.
A paid "Pro" version. I dont like this, since it involves offering support too.
The other way could be that if you want to download the plugin, you have to pay for it, if you want to build it yourself, you can have it for free (fits the license too). But that doesn't really cut the mustard.
So, apart from a benefactor coming in and dumping money on the project (which if you really think about it, it would mean that that benefactor also needs to make money from the project so its just delaying the inevitable of it becoming a paid for product) does anybody have any other ideas out there?
They might just do it for the good press which may lead to greater sales of their own products. Maybe someone wants to be a "sponsor" (or several people/organizations)?
"I still personally don't understand how the Eclipse Foundation itself makes money"
It might be worth asking someone there how they do it. I mean, I wouldn't expect an answer, but they might give one =). Maybe IBM just shells out lots of dough.
Isn't this how redhat, etc makes their money?
Not many people have Eclipse + Java skills... And then it becomes something like "I have paid you, so gimme support, fix it, dammit"
So Adobe, Blue dragon et al. have to compete with M$ products that have very good free development tools available as well as pay for ones.
Hows that?
I think you also shouldn't hesitate to ask for donations...though I know how you feel...I don't put nearly that much work into my generator, but even given the work I *have* put, I feel awkward asking (which may be why I haven't gotten any ;). The problem I see with the donations route is that it is generally the same small group of people who tend to donate. The larger user base doesn't typically do so. In fact, it tends to hit the personal user up and not the corporations that are using and benefiting from your product (and making plenty of money in the process).
Which brings me to the last idea. Free for personal use of some sort. As in, perhaps you can make the companies benefiting pay but the personal users can get it free (and still donate should they choose to do so). Like I said earlier, I think even a nominal fee would add up quickly.
Just some thoughts...and thanks for your hard work! See you at cfobjective!
I've always said Adobe (and Blue Dragon :)) need to step up to the plate and support CFEclipse - either monetarily or by providing developers, or by suppling Mark with a lifetime supply of his favorite beverage!!
I've also seen a few projects getting support from Google's "Summer of Code" - I think it's a mentoring kind of deal: http://code.google.com/soc/
Eclipse is on the list. I'm not sure what's involved in joining...
Jim
Perhaps you could get bluedragon to partially fund you since they don't have the problem of a competing editor such as dreamweaver. Then you might build in some features that would highlight tag attributes a different color to warn if they were incompatibile with BD. New Atlanta might like that.
As for a "paid version", a lot of us have jobs that are perfectly willing to pay for software, but if I say that I need to "donate" money to some guys paypal account they just look at me and refuse to reimburse.
Basically, you need to provide us with some sort of legitimate looking bill, maybe send me a CD with an XML editor, a UML diagrammer, and the ACME guide all on it along with cfeclipse stuff and a bunch of code examples. Give me something to store in the IT software library, then I would be able to get approval to pay $100 bucks or so for a great editor.
Also, if yo u are able to replace the loading screen with something else, you could put an ad there.
@Mark, you do need to consider the differences that would come when you take money from someone, anyone. There will definitely be a change in perspective from the community/world!
1) I like the media and bundled other plug-ins idea, especially in someone wants to revert to an older version. We had a heck of a time trying to find an older version.
2) Paid e-mail support including a newsletter, and media (or version archive site).
3) Allow people to request features and others can donate towards that feature and when the feature reach a set amount it will get worked on.
Codeweavers does this for the list of Windows apps people would like to see running on Linux.
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/toplists/...
1) Providing a boxed version, you are paying for the box and related help stuff, rather than the product itself (no involvement)
2) Software design shouldn't be a democratic thing IMHO. This wont LEAD to better software, just all those features that HomeSite had. I know this goes against the grain, but I know what will be coming in the product and you will like it, even if no one suggested it the way I am implementing it.
3) Setup the CFEclipse Foundation. From here, companies can "purchase" the software.
4) Companies can sponsor or become members of the foundation (as Adobe did with the Eclipse Foundation), then they would have some say in the direction (rather than the great unwashed public having say in the direction)
By the way, Summer of Code is not accepting any more OSS organisations :(
I agree with #2 - the 'pledge' model works well for the Codeweaver project but I think it would spriral into a Homesite vs. Dreamweaver feature war if applied to CFEclipse :) What we really need are more hints in regards to these enhancements :)
With the codeweavers (pledge per bug) thing, well that is a different kind of model, since it would take them money to buy the app to get it working. Again, I am not saying whats coming, but good things are coming, c'mon, dont you love the warm fuzzy expectation in your stomach, to know what is coming next?
I take my marketing cues from Apple :)
There is allot of marketing dollars that are allocated each year to many different pet projects, and there is no reason that yours could not be one of them... It's as simple as picking up the phone or writing and email to the marketing departments of the companies you seek real cash from. Adobe's marketing department has set projects/advertising and they are also "looking" for items that they can use to cross promote there own products, and I would definitely say that CFE is one of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomeSite
In particular - low cost: "The idea was to get as many web developers using it as possible and then introducing them to ColdFusion."
And support: "Nick Bradbury, and then Allaire, had a policy of having an open support forum for those interested in its products, both current customers and prospects. The fans of HomeSite would contribute to the development of the product by making suggestions on-line and refining those suggestions amongst themselves"
Don't sell yourself short, go with advertising like Opera did. Last time I checked they had a free version that was ad supported. As long as they are text ads and not some graphical ad, I did think people would mind. If you have something against ads, then push other things, like jobs offering or projects. I'm sure what you could do is contact Dice, Monster or other job boards have them feed ColdFusion job postings. Also get in with sites like Elance and what not and push the ColdFusion projects.
I would bet these companies would defiantly pay since your hitting a target audience.
http://www.riehle.org/computer-science/research/20...
http://perens.com/Articles/Economic.html
When it was time to order new licenses of (what was) Macromedia Studio, he asked how many of us were using DreamWeaver. We told him to save the money and send more of us to MAX this year.
If a commercial license for CFEclipse cost less than Dreamweaver, I'm sure many companies would have no hesitation in paying for it.
Having said that, Mark has single-handedly carried the CFEclipse project ever since then and deserves huge kudos and all the donations anyone can contribute. Without Mark's dedication and hard work, CFEclipse would have become completely stagnant a year or more ago.
Mark has repeatedly asked for people to contribute at all levels and still he is essentially the one-man CFEclipse show. If he decided to give the project up, the CF community would be a lot poorer for it. So, don't beat Adobe up over this, just step up to the plate and help Mark.
Yes.
What should happen?
1. Adobe should join the Eclipse Foundation
2. CFEclipse should become a Eclipse Foundation project (see: http://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/develo...)
Eclipse Funding
Comes from its membership.
More info: http://www.itwriting.com/eclipse1.php
OK, so Adobe has the legal right to blame Simeon and everyone other than Mark Drew. Drew has been the "go to guy" for the IDE for CF. The former crew has done the right thing and said guilty as charged.
So, what now. Now that Adobe has a clear name is that the end of it? Should Adobe say, we tried that once? NAY!
Adobe still ships CF. CF still requires an IDE? Flex moved off the DW base and it's high time for Adobe to step out of the locker room for the second half! Let's 'play ball'.
How many times has it (and likely by me as many times as anyone) been said that Adobe either needs to come out with their own editor or to sponsor someone else.
Let's look at the difference here. Foundation (which Adobe could serve on the board!) and the board could hold someone accountable. (Note: We have learned one thing... there isn't reliable tallent available we can count on for volunteers. Mark cannot do this full time as a volunteer. WE NEED TO HIRE SOMEONE TO WORK ON THIS PROJECT!!!) I am not saying Mark has to take the job. Yet, we need routine manpower.
I will also pay in to this foundation. We should have different membership types for this foundation. (And rather than banners for raising sponsorship, let's have different membership types, and let the members post a banner stating they have supported the foundation based on the membership type.)
Personally this whole thing blew up with CFStudio! I am so tired of all the excuses... we need an IDE. Mark has laid the foundation, and he is offering us as a community (which includes Adobe) the chance to complete this IDE.
Let's quit rehasing the past. Let's show leadership and figure out how we can reach the future! I would like to overcome the past... and build a future that will benefit Adobe and the Adobe CF developers and site owners everywhere! Let's DO IT!
firstly because im writing a paper for my IT masters on open source software and secondly cos it relates to one of my fav open source tools CFE!
I can see how sponsored features mite work, but thats only going to help you offset future costs of development. its not really geting back what you have already invested into the product. Mark's point about implementing features he wants to implement are one of the main points about open source - OSS aggregates supply, closed source software is about supplying products for aggregate demand.
commercial liscencing fees at a 'marginal cost' is a good idea to me. Perhaps even just for the binary versions.
Without CFEclipse, I would be pushing strongly to abandon ColdFusion since it doesn't appear that Adobe is putting too much weight behind it. And don't tell me about the wonderful features of CF 8. Without a development environment, what good are they? Impression is everything and if Adobe isn't providing a good development tool or supporting a good development tool, what kind of impression is that leaving in regards to Adobe's long-term commitment to ColdFusion?
It sounds like the first step is creating the "CFEclipse Foundation" and then moving forward from there.
1) Adobe *DO* contribute to the project, how do you think we can pay for all the downloads of CFE and the website itself? I would hate to get that bill! They are very supportive and give me good access to information and programming mindset. I have been given access to a number of tools and early access to other things. I also know I have their ear and their time if I ever need to ask anything. That is a pretty good contribution in any language.
2) @Sean: you are right, the team didn't live up to the expectations set, of course, it didn't help that the main developers left the project shortly afterwards (no relation to the summit, they went on to code in other technologies I believe) but since then (2 years ago this June) there has been considerable progress and hopefully this summer I can catch up with some of the Adobe crew to formalise a plan (if any)
3) @Jeff: There are more engines out there. I know we use Adobe ColdFusion but the ethos of CFEclipse is for you to become a better CFML (the language) programmer. That is what we are striving for, so BlueDragon (who indeed DID sponsor the project to develop multiple language libraries, and used my share of this to pay for some of the cost of going to CFUnited last year) and Railo are also included in the ecosystem that CFEclipse is inhabiting.
Adobe DO provide a development environment, called Dreamweaver, now whatever people's opinions of that tool is, its still a pretty good editor (you note I dont say IDE).
4) CFEclipse is currently included in FusionDebug, which is another part of the eco-system (external tools) and working well.
5) @Jim: I think this is the conclusion I am coming to, having a Foundation that other companies can be part of and request features for the IDE. Of course, I am not sure on the cultures of each of the companies who could possibly be part of this foundation are, but we also need to think outside the box: how about people like Straker who do Shado CMS? The Model-Glue project, any company that develops a CFML based product, such as the company I work for, Design UK?
There is a lot of potential in having members in the foundation , and of course I (or whoever would like to help me on this) need to do a lot of looking into this avenue before we can go forward.
The answer for funding or support for the project isn't "Please Adobe, gimme money", we have to think a bit smarter than that.
Anyway, if anybody has any ideas, let me know, and if you are heading to cfObjective/Scotch/CFUnited, make sure to hit me up. (err... not literally, please)
Ohh... finally, I am in the final stages of Project:Unity, just in time for cfObjective, and I really hope that the community likes what we have done! I really cant wait to show it off!
Using economics theory, you have a non-scarce good (cfeclipse), and a scarce good (features/bug fixes for cfeclipse). By giving away the non-scarce good for free, you can drive the value of the scarce good people are willing to pay for.
What am I talking about? Features. Features are a great way of raising funds for cfeclipse, by allow the community to sponsor priority on features. People will pay for features they want (just look at commercial software), and people will pay a lot for features they really want. For instance, there are at least 2 features that would dramatically improve my dev teams productivity, and I am more than willing to pay to see them fixed.
You could allow people to donate "to" a feature or bug, allowing it to be focussed on first. You could also put an outright purchase price on bugs or features. For instance, you may know it will cost approx. 20 hours to build a feature, so you may put a price tag on that of 20*$rate. If someone is willing to pay that much for the feature, it becomes a profitable exercise for you. You can also only charge people for features when they are complete, so no one pays for a feature or bug that turns out to be too hard to fix.
This gets even more interesting in a theoretical situation whereby you can build custom extensions for cfeclipse, for particular organisations, as consulting work. There are many large organisations using cfeclipse, whom specific additional features/tools would be invaulable.
It's win:win:win. Cfeclipse gets better for the entire community, you solve your income quandry, and the users who really need a bug or feature can pay to get it done.
That said, it could make sense for anyone, not just Mark, to sell consulting work building custom extensions that work with CFEclipse. Perhaps a section of the cfeclipse.org website could be set up as a marketplace for cfeclipse-related extensions and consulting services. The marketplace could even be a source of revenue if developers need to pay to be included in the marketplace (though I would think that free extensions would be listed for free). Just another idea to throw on the pile!
it is not something I would look to for an income. That might
be a good additional income, but as a CF developer that
certainly sounds like a bad strategy for generating consistant
income for getting CFIDE developed. It would make it so
extensions were typically not developed unless we pay for them.
It would also mean someone would buy "rights" to extentions
and the total cost of a robust CFIDE would start to climb more
and more based on the extentions we wanted to add.
With regards to companies with the deepest pockets, of course they can pay for features! Its either a custom feature just for them, or a feature that benefits the community (take for example the the fact that New Atlanta paid so that CFEclipse would have the ability to have multiple dictionaries, this has also benefitted users of other CFML engines)
With regards to donating to a bug fix, or at least pledging this goes some way towards monetising things, of course, there are bugs that I *NEED* to get fixed for myself rather than you crazy lot, so even then that means that my effort is in some way repaid.
(just so you know, I spend between 2 and 4 hours EVERY day on CFE, how much to do pay a contractor for working 2-4 hours?)
Thanks,
Nathan
http://groups.google.com/group/cfeclipse-users
Post a message there and we can help you out.
Thanks for doing what you and Ray Camden do. Running my user groups is made so much easier because of free and open source resources that come from the ColdFusion community.
Since I'm a one-man-band, it's essential that I turn over the daily stuff to my clients after I leave. I do a little knowledge transfer, train-the-trainer sort of thing, then ask have they supported you and/or Ray. This usually involves chastising a business leader and admonishing them on using all these nifty and completely enabling technologies and tools without paying for them. At which point, I get informed that businesses never pay for stuff they can get for free. So I trundle on back to the trenches and use guilt to get underpaid staff to pony up a few bucks to support you.
That approach never seems to yield much (if anything), so I've now decided to start building in financial support for you into my projects. So when I deliver a thumb drive with CFEclipse on it, or install a set of resources including CFEclipse for a client, the next invoice they get will include a minimum of one billable hour (anywhere from $65 -$125 per hour) for supporting CFEclipse. Seems fair since I probably saved at least an hour (of frustrated fumbling around) by using the tool, anyway.
Now, the ONLY problem is getting my boss (me) to pay for something he (I) got for free. I'm gonna use guilt, push out some invoices, and do my part (paltry though it may be). Only been using it for about a year, I think, and since I'm not a CF rock star, I really need it, so I better offer as much support as I can afford.
Whew. Now I can sleep.
- m
On my small campaign to get you more donation, I know there's been at least 200 hits to my blog entries:
http://cfzen.instantspot.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/5...
and
http://cfzen.instantspot.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/5...
...yet it doesn't seem the majority of folks are donating or making an effort to get their company to donate (I reiterate my thanks to the few who *have* donated!). I feel bad that I waited 8 months to finally donate to something that's made my coding life so much easier and more efficient.
Mark - Is it true what your site says, that you've only gotten ?700 worth of donations so far? Also, it doesn't seem like you're saying you're tired or anything, but I got a comment that said, "Maybe if Mark is tired of carrying the load of CFE development, it's time he passed the torch to someone who is eager to do it for free..." Are you tired of carrying this torch?
cheers.
every sponsor gets their logo/banner on the cfeclipse web site and any other related sites.
Perhaps you could also squeeze some ads into CFE somewhere as well.