Hello,
I think there is a point we can count on, and not a minor one! (but maybe
this discussion should be better on the JBoss-Business ML)
We are all watching with attention (I hope!) the JBoss board trying "to
move" (i.e. not to die), but this is not a TV show! All JBoss users benefit
from this: from JBoss App server, from this move, ... If JBoss dies,
everybody looses, not only the board.
If I follow this idea, I have 3 choices:
- I download the doc
- I buy OFFICIAL documentation (for a reasonable price)
- I buy the INOFFICIAL cheap doc
I will first download the doc... because it is the only solution now... ;)
If I (I use the non-personnal "I" here... just a "use case") can afford it
(I do... 30$ is not that terrible...), and think that many people working on
this list can (just look at the company names in the e-mail addresses ;) ),
I will buy the official doc.
If I am willing to pay for doc that I can have for free, why buying the
inofficial one? If my goal is for JBoss to live (and not only to survive),
why paying other unofficial doc? And I think that the selling-doc activity
is, IMHO, more a way to say to people : "If you want to give us some money
to support JBoss, our currency is the DOC (currently, 1DOC = 30$ = 35EUR).
If you want to give 300$ to Jboss, send us a 10DOC amount)". i.e. you are
not forced to download the file 10 times... ;) (have you ever bought oranges
for Amnesty International? you are not forced to take all oranges you pay
for...)
What will I do with my 10 volumes of cheap unofficial documentation if JBoss
is dead?
(The only real risk, IMHO, is for a book editor to publish a high quality
JBoss book (different from the downloadable doc). But I do not think it is a
real problem because I am sure no editor would take the threat to do this
without the direct help (and support) of the JBoss board (boycott risk for
example). )
When I buy 50$ a small picture of a whale to help a
"save-the-whales-association", I do not wonder if I could find the same
picture at a local store for only 2$.
We are all involved in the future of JBoss. I repeat it: if JBoos dies, WE
ALL loose.
And it is not about "mendicity"! As JBoss is free, the quality/price ratio
is infinite! Voluntarily giving money because you are happy with a product
with an infinite quality/price ratio is not that bizzare.
But I also agree that selling doc may not be the only way to make money
(because this scheme direclty depends on the user-base). What about the
advertisement area on JBoss web site you spoke about before? As JBoss web
site has a very technical and focuses audience, I am sure that web
advertisement companies will like this! (BEA advertisement on JBoss web site
would be so nice! ;) )
And what about a "non-exclusive-strategic-alliance" a la Enyhdra with a big
company (mobile phone company, ...) that would benefit from JBoss software
and open-source image. If that could work, that could be a strong financial
and marketing push while staying open-source and independant.
As for every structure, there is a danger gap between being a big-small and
becoming a small-big. The challenge is to jump the gap and find some
"business inertia".
Let's move. Cheers,
Sacha
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]De la part de Ole Husgaard
> Envoye : vendredi, 16 mars 2001 16:30
> A : JBoss-Dev
> Objet : Re: [jBoss-Dev] Future of group, Documentation
>
>
> 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]
> > _________________
>
