Hi,
Lets do a calculation:
Say, you have 20 people that you would like
go each have a $250 share of documentation
sales per year. For this you need $5000 to
share each year. Now let us assume that
half of the income from docs sales goes to
costs driving the business. That means you
will have to sell docs for $10,000 each
year.
Is this possible? Let us assume it is, and
see what could happen:
If you can sell documentation for $10,000
each year, someone else will start selling
docs too, probably at a lower price to gain
market share. Since the docs in the CVS
version are still free (as in freedom), you
have ABSOLUTELY NO PROTECTION against this.
Given that the production price of a file
copy is near zero, you will end up having a
sales price near zero in a competitive market.
>From core JBoss developers, you may not see
this threat, as most would like you and
others to make some $$ off this. But it takes
only a single independently generated copy of
a docs PDF being freely and publicly
available on a web server somewhere to end
your docs sales. And there is NOTHING you can
do about it, unless the docs source becomes
non-free.
I guess that you have already considered this,
but maybe I am missing one of your points.
Please explain.
Best Regards,
Ole Husgaard.
marc fleury wrote:
>
> Hello folks,
>
> after much speculation, false alarms and rumors, I would like to officially
> announce what we are planning to do with the new documentation.
>
> The board has been at it for the past 2 month almost, since it became clear
> that JBoss needs to grow even more that documentation is lacking and that
> management of our growth requires some capital.
>
> For example it becomes clear that while our growth is still pretty much
> exponential, we need documentation, a good measure of QA, packaging and
> release management. These are better done with a small full time group.
>
> We want to achieve "professional" quality in all our aspects. That includes
> things that normally open source groups don't do well, among others
> "documentation" and it is a small company in the making.
>
> One thing we would like to achieve very much is self sustainance, one where
> the group of Open Source Programmers can generate enough of a revenue to
> keep the various aspects of the project running at a "professional" quality
> grade.
>
> We (the board) have 2 requirement
> 1- Keep JBoss org "free". In fact JBoss is becoming an Open Source
> Jaugernaut all by itself, the reason? the distribution! it is quality it is
> free! We are totally dedicated to our Open Source roots.
> 2- Generate revenue from within the group for and by developers, the group
> of Open Source Programmers that we have could be a self sustaining
> structure. Structure the Open Source Programmers for profit.
>
> 2 is in constrast with RedHat that employs developers and Apache where most
> jakarta guys are at SUN/IBM or do something else (brian behlendorf). Java
> is a rich enough field that we can at least think about the possibility of
> sustaining part of the developers through self generated revenues.
>
> So THE GOAL OF ALL THIS is to generate enough money that all the developers
> have an incentive to work and some of us can grow the free base.
>
> How does it work while we keep it free?
>
> here goes:
>
> We are talking about the specific case of the documentation. Right now the
> doco is really out of whack, there are parts that are out of date, plain
> wrong and generally speaking they aren't maintained.
>
> We are going to write the documentation in the famed user manual, pretty
> much from scratch reusing what we can and when we have permission. The
> result WILL BE FREE ONLINE. WILL BE FREE IN CVS.
>
> So all the documentation we produce will be available in cvs and on the
> website for you to use. What we will do is also offer "downloadable"
> versions for a moderate fee (we are thinking $10-$30).
>
> These version can be installed locally and even printed since one of the
> downloadable versions will be PDF. You can get it from CVS if you are fancy
> enough, but we offer the for pay download for everyones convenience. It is
> targeted at the "casual user" that doesn't want to go to CVS.
>
> The revenues go to the "GROUP OF OPEN SOURCE PROGRAMMERS" that wrote the
> documentation in the first place. The "GROUP OF JBOSS PROGRAMMERS" shares
> the revenues depending on their contributions.
>
> This is "JBOSS GROUP" all of you that write doco are automatically part of
> this "virtual company". There is a 30% cut that goes towards the maintaince
> of JBoss org. The rest 70% is shared among authors.
>
> Is this clear? This is for documentation only. Do NOT EXTRAPOLATE to
> JBossServer itself. In fact the goal of all this is to keep JBoss.org
> development and management absolutely FREE. THIS IS DOCO ONLY.
>
> Write doco get paid.
>
> ANNOUNCEMENT:
>
> We are going to restart a professional grade documentation effort under the
> "write doco get paid" program. It is co-written, available for free for
> browsing and in cvs and available for download from JBoss for a fee. Profits
> are shared among writers, a 30% goes to running JBoss.
>
> Simple.
>
> So I will try to spend a couple of days really going in details of the
> status of the spec and getting you guys on board. Everything counts ,
> writing, infrastructure, XML Docbook maintainance, review, patches etc.
>
> FAQ:
>
> Q: Does the same apply to JBossServer? Do we offer it for $$
> A: No, in fact the goal is to keep JBossServer absolutely free while at the
> same time achieving "professional quality" grade in our products.
> Professional Grade LGPL by financing a professional core.
>
> Q: What is JBoss Group?
> A: JBoss Group is a virtual company representing the Open Source Programmers
> of JBoss. As revenues are shared among developers and contributors, JBoss
> Group distributes these. JBoss Group is also an umbrella for marketing more
> traditional services such as Training. JBoss Group is a for profit company.
>
> Q: Who takes care of billing?
> A: We are investigating various venues, we will probably outsource the
> credit card handling to a 3rd party shortly. JBoss Group is the virtual
> company that aggregates the revenues and distributes to the members.
>
> Q: I am a developer/writer, how does this move affect me?
> A: If you are a developer you are free to not pay attention to this AT ALL.
> It won't affect you in any way. You can however decide to write some
> documentation and bring it under the "write doco, get paid" program. The
> documentation you write, if integrated in the main manual, is then marketed
> and distributed through JBoss' websites. It is also available for free
> online for browsing and in CVS just like it is today. Finally you profit
> share with us. In short, your life isn't changed at all, only now you might
> get paid.
>
> Q: I am a user of JBoss technology, how does this move affect me?
> A: If you are a user, you will notice that this moves makes your life
> better. First and foremost the documentation will be up-to-date since now
> developers have a monetary incentive to produce quality uptodate
> documentation, it is also edited and maintained in a professional grade
> manual. Better yet, it is available for free online and in cvs. By popular
> demand we offer a pre-packaged version for you to download. This will be
> HTML and PDF.
>
> Q: I am a writer how do I participate?
> A: if you are a writer you have already been contacted for permission to
> include the documentation in the new manual. If you are a new contributor
> please refer to jboss-docs for submittal of documentation bits.
>
> Q: How is the "profit sharing" decided?
> A: It is proportional to your contribution. This is a bit "subjective" and
> not linked to "words" or "pages", but takes into account things as disparate
> as "pure contributions" to "XML Docbook maintainance". The board of JBoss
> will approve the percentage distribution every other month.
>
> Q: What is the price point you envision?
> A: $10-$30 for the end user documentation, $20-$40 for the developer
> documentation.
>
> PLgC
>
> Marc
> _________________
> Marc Fleury, Ph.D
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> _________________
