Why not charge for RavenNuke?

Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 3:55 pm

When I was first looking for a cms. I would have not paid for one, just like I probably would have not paid for Raven, however knowing and having the satisfaction I have on the product and people today I would pay for it no questions asked! but it's the first time users one grows with. So I say it's probably not a good idea to charge for Raven. In joomla there are excellent and very successful membership site that make a grip of money on their themes, modules and components. They are www.yootheme.com and www.joomlart.com I'm a member of both. They have 3 month plans, 1 year plans, developer plans but usually range anywhere from 35 usd to 500 usd. I'm comfortable with their $75 usd that gives access to all their templates. There are already a grip of free templates, but these professional ones along with demo content....people pay for them when they are good! same thing with modules, components and add-ons.

Regards,
jc

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

As of 2.4, includes/meta.php is no longer used. Of which google verification tag are you referring? How about an example? You might want to store it the nuke_seo_dh table (if it's really a META tag). If it's the JS used for Google Analytics, there's a different place for that. Either way, if you confirm, I can provide more specific instructions.

Worker Joined: Mar 30, 2009 Posts: 132

wow...

one of the hardest things is having a site pay for itself. id say your lucky if 1 out of 1,000 members donate. (its more like 1 out of 5,000 to 10,000 it seems) you can sell ad space (but again people may not buy it) there is google ads (but you might get 1 cent for every click and maybe 1 out off 1,000 will click once)

you could charge for something. but people may just go elseware or someone will do the same or similar for free.

ether way its a hard spot to really be in.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:11 am

for payed support , the simplest to do is make a maintainance service availeble for an X rate per month/year or whatever.
If you dont want that , you going to be referred to the forum.

I explain you why a payed forum support dont work.
If you payed to get an answer to your problem , and someone gives it to you , you at first are happy.
When find out 1 day after the answer was already on the non-payed forum , you could get feel screwed.
If you as a non-paying member need an answer , but are aware the answer is on the payed-forum, you feel upset, you might not even are able to pay for the answer.

Then for the moderators of these forums.There's a chance both forums come into conflict with eachoter, couse of above scenario's.To who a mod go answer?
What's the interest of the mod to answer on a payed or non-payed forum.For him the situation isnt fair , this guy/girl simply wants to help,who he go help first?
There are more problems that can come from this kinda services , the conclusion is:
Everyone will keep asking theire questions in the free forums, and a few will pay for the answer, but dont forget the response time, couse that is where the service MUST aim to.And that should be a 24/7 available service couse you serv peep from the whole world, and all have a different time zone.
As long as you dont work as a company with employees , this methode wont work either.

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Just to be clear, I have repeatedly stated that I do not plan to change our support model - it will remain FREE, but donations are needed to ensure that freedom and even the sustaining of this site. What is under discussion is adding to the FREE support model some value added services that aren't free Smile

Involved Joined: Sep 15, 2008 Posts: 352

I like what Acquia(tm) is doing for Drupal(tm).

Raven Nuke(tm) could have the same.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:00 am

wHiTeHaT,
While I agree with some of the things you have stated, I must also state that if you were in the USA you would be a Democrat's dream poster child killing me

(I'm not calling you a child; it's just an expression). The Democratic party (and liberals overall) are looked upon as the party of rights and entitlements vs responsibility. As a party they believe that everyone ( or so they preach Wink

) is entitled to different things as if those things are/were inalienable rights (guaranteed by the Constitution, vis-à-vis the Government) whereas others have to work for those same things (responsibility). Now I'm not saying that this is the position of all democrats as individuals. But as a party this has long held/been true. Just look at Obama's spending spree's since he's been in office ROTFL

! Maybe it's just a language thing but much of what you have said comes across as saying that users are entitled to free support. If so, that I would have to disagree with strongly. Open Source never has meant free. It does mean that the code is available for others to add to with certain requirements as to authorship.

Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login!

, Founder of Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login!

and Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login!

, is the voice of free as in cost.

Anyway, sorry for getting a little off target but I had to comment Laughing

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:47 am

i never used the word opensource, and i never sayed opensource means dont ask $ for it.

i also never sayed you shouldnt ask $ for support.
I only gave advice and told what could happen if you do.
Also , my posts arent personal made to YOU , you as the rightfull owner of this site took your power to make fun of ME ... but hey... YES,YOU CAN

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:21 am

<sigh> It is a language thing. You did not understand my post and you have taken/blown it way out of context. Nowhere did I make fun of you in any way, shape, or form.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:19 pm

You did not understand my post and you have taken/blown it way out of context

topic say's:Why not charge for RavenNuke?

We where discussing what was discussed .
before you made your post,
no one was refering my idea's to USA's national politics.
Simply take your position and say sorry , i know your intentions before, but i would respect your regret after.
You not have to say anything if not want to... but then.. even if you are the owner... then dont continue this offtopic discussion.
It can be closed anyway as you made your policy abouth the financials already.

registered · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:25 pm

wHiTeHaT wrote:

You did not understand my post and you have taken/blown it way out of context

topic say's:Why not charge for RavenNuke?

We where discussing what was discussed .
before you made your post,
no one was refering my idea's to USA's national politics.
Simply take your position and say sorry , i know your intentions before, but i would respect your regret after.
You not have to say anything if not want to... but then.. even if you are the owner... then dont continue this offtopic discussion.
It can be closed anyway as you made your policy abouth the financials already.

Definitely a language barrier. You are really misinterpreting what Raven said. At no time did he make fun of you.

It is too bad its all GPL, because if it wasn't it would open the door to all sorts of new opportunities. Even stuff like free and pro, or full on 90 day demo. It could still have free possibilities and still be open source. Just depends on how you do it.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:29 pm

I have it on record from the FSF and GNU legal beagle that as long as phpnuke is not required to run RavenNuke(tm) then I/we are free to go off on our own and change the license as long as we retain original authorship and comments where they matter. So, I can pretty confidently state that with v2.5 the RN Engine, which according to the FSF is really the MySQL access protocols (Engine), we are free to go our own way. I've been waiting for this for a long time. Now we have a critical foundational structure to discover and build upon Wink

. Let the games begin!!

So, what licensing schemes should we be entertaining and still keep the spirit of the project? We should probably split this topic off Wink

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:32 pm

I did some research on licenses not too long ago. I honestly couldn't find anything that supported my interest. Other's research maybe more thorough than mine and I would love to hear about it.

Split is good.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:45 pm

We can always invent our own Wink

registered · Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 7:03 am

I suggest using a license in which the content can be freely redistributed or sold that way modules creators can sell their modules freely.
what about this one

Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! wrote:

AT&T Public License

The license has two other obnoxious features:

applied to RN

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:28 am

Raven wrote:

We can always invent our own Wink

This was my outcome in all my research.

Involved Joined: Jul 03, 2006 Posts: 273

I have a hard time resisting these types of discussions. Surely I should as my comments will certainly lead to discontentment in some but alas I feel the need to get involved in this subject. Of course in usual fashion of those who know me this will likely be a short boring novel so if wish to skip all the hot air scroll to the end where I have included pretty much everything said in a short executive summary. Anyway my thoughts are as follows:

Should there be a charge to either download or gain support of RavenNuke? No absolutely not.

Should there be a charge for the nightly build? Maybe - (I prefer to think no but a nominal fee of $5 or $10 for weekly access with long term packages available is not out of the realm of reason)

Explanations:

Some have commented it doesn't take much to run a site. Well yup you can get "FREE" shared hosting sites but all "FREE" options usually suck. Ok so you can get cheap shared hosting sites for less than $10 or $20 a month. Yup but wait till you get large traffic spikes and lots of bandwidth usage and start using even 10% of the "500gigs storage" they said you get and watch how quickly your service starts going down and how your host provider looks for any excuse to shut you down like "Oh its 500gigs space but can only hold a maximum of 50 000 files" or other extremely lame excuses. Also watch as vulnerabilities in other sites hosted by your box result in a compromise of your system. Soon you will realize that in order to reach a large audience and achieve any semblance of success you will need a dedicated server and those aren't cheap. Suddenly prices go up and bandwidth charges etc and then $300 a month to run a thriving site is pittance to what it could/should actually use in investment.

So where does this leave the developer? Well be it a few bucks or a few hundred it is still expense on top of time. When our "REAL JOBS" are paying us well and not robbing too much of our time then we are usually quite content and happy to pay for its expense ourselves to do what we enjoy doing. But then sometimes you just don't have either time or money or both to keep up with the demands. Also we all want to get ahead in life. Hey, we enjoy coding but we also enjoy sipping umbrella drinks or Corona's on beaches in some tropic paradise or going to Stock Car Races or Watching a great movie or buying new clothes or going out to dinner or buying gifts for our nieces/nephews etc etc etc. What do the non-coders do to get those things? They work extra hours or take on extra jobs for extra money to get these things. Ok so what happens if a coder of a system like this does that? That's right no time for coding new stuff let alone support the old stuff. So what does the coder start thinking? Well perhaps if I could squeeze a few bucks outta this it'll help cover some costs, keep me motivated and dedicated and I will be able to justify more time spent on it so I won't have to go get a second or third or fourth job.

So here come the ideas for money making. But unfortunately everyone is really looking in the wrong direction. See the answer to the above problem is not necessarily answered by Charging for all the good stuff. The question has been asked several times "Is Nuke Dying?" and the answer is "Yes its dead already it just hasn't accepted it yet and layed down in its coffin!". OH before you all start yelling at me Raven's keeping it alive blah blah blah... let me point out that first how many sites are dropping like flies in the nuke community? Answer = TONS - Raven is about the last stand right now and even he is begging for support. Second how far behind in design and development is "Nuke" to what else is out there? - Answer = Leagues! Go look at many other CMS and see how far behind the trends nuke really is and it is lightyears in comparison. Third - What major "FREE" modules have been developed to enhance it in the last three years? Answer = Almost none. Other than the few core enhancement modules added to Raven I haven't heard of anything great except a few paid modules that are encrypted and sold. prob at least somewhere in the 70% range of existing nuke modules/blocks/addons etc (collectively referred to as addons from here on) are no longer being developed and maintained. Author sites are down or not active. I even noticed Clan-Themes a site which was growing by storm when it launched is slipping downwards now in activity.

So why is it dead? Can it come back to life? These questions need to be answered before you think about what you are gonna charge for and what you aren't.
It is dead because of several reasons but a few of the most prominent ones are the quibbling that goes on in the community. There is not a strong unified front leading it. It has always been a rag tag scattered bunch of bunches all trying to do their own thing. Also it got infested too quickly by those only concerned about money or whining cause so and so "STOLE MY WORK". I laugh everytime I hear these arguments. I am a coder - I write from scratch code but I also often "STEAL CODE" Hey if someone has written a function that does exactly what I need why re-invent the wheel? Yes I have used unpaid for software to either write my code with or design my sites with or run my computer or listened to pirated music or watched a pirated movie. But I also have paid for many of these things too. When I believe something is worth it I show my support and go buy a legit copy (not as often with the music or movie but I will go to theaters and concerts or sometimes rent flics and support them that way) do I whine to beat the band when someone "STEALS" a piece of my code? No!
I laugh as I read an article about phpnuke-downloads.com and how they supposedly are selling copies of a lich king theme that is copywritten by someone else and was a paid download by this copyright person. I believe it has since been released free and I believe this is what it looks like:

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Now Look at the original Lich King site:
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Does anyone else see why I am laughing at all this hypocrisy? I mean what constitutes the salable copyright here? Lets see according to GPL rules the code for the theme can't be sold as it becomes encompassed by nuke license so as long as images are separate it can. Well WHO FREAKING DREW THE IMAGES? I am sure as hell it aint the theme author or at least I can say sure as hell he has no right to call anyone a thief! Seems phpnuke-downloads aint the only ones with their heads up their arssse. Honestly this kind of thing first makes me laugh but then really annoys me! Now before you start attacking me I would like to point out I openly admit I am a thief too as guilty as the ones involved in this theme. I do not judge that I am better than them nor am I actually condemning what they do. People want good looking websites and also need some individuality and therefor these themes, and charging for them, give them that. Hey I make themes with borrowed stuff too! But what I am condemning is the"don't steal my stuff you low life" attitude too many people have. NUKE SHOULD BE FREE! YOU CAN'T STEAL FREE! If all these skilled players just got together and worked together, not to make a buck but to make a "GREAT" truly free product with "TONS" of truly free options to go with it then the project would thrive and grow at tremendous rates and before you know it sources of revenue from things like advertising etc could be easily achieved without any concern or even appearance to affect the growth and potential of the project itself. I could give you many ideas and ways to make money if the site was as big as wordpress, drupal, joomla etc all of which are completely free with far larger free options available too them and as well with far larger communities and as well much more money flowing everywhere around them. Oh yes they have some paid stuff riding their backs too but they don't focus too hard on that nonsense to be distracted from what really matters.

Well I could keep going on but I am tired and the keyboard needs a rest.

Executive Summary:

Duck is a Quack!
Don't Charge for anything Raven just focus on building a "GREAT FREE PRODUCT" and as they said in Field of Dreams "If you build it they will come."
Encourage the community to stop charging for quality modules. Release them freely and celebrate don't whine if someone steals credit or code.

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:30 am

Your way off base about the lich king theme. You better check your facts again bud.

Our Free Version
http://www.clanthemes.com/shop_item-162-free-wow-wrath-of-the-lich-king-theme.html

Our Commercial Version
http://www.clanthemes.com/shop_item-100-wow-wrath-of-the-lich-king-theme.html (never released as gpl the same with all of our commercial products)

Pirated Version
#httd://phpnuke-downloads.com/WOW_Wrath_Of_The_Lich_King_PHPNuke_Theme-15-1262.html

duck wrote:

I even noticed Clan-Themes a site which was growing by storm when it launched is slipping downwards now in activity.

Sales are up 6% from last month. Traffic is up 27%. Slipping? Modified business model at which most of you have yet to see. That is the nature of working on the internet. I wish you would double check your facts before you make claims that are not true.

Involved Joined: Feb 03, 2006 Posts: 269

You should keep RN free, but make paid for scripts and modules and stick them in a wrapper and release them separate to the GPL... best of both worlds then...

Nice reply btw Floppy, duck was referring to the wrong theme, not to mention the other things phpnuke-downloads is re-selling of ours, oh well, back on topic Rolling Eyes

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:02 am

floppydrivez,

Didn't realize your selling the Emporium module in your Club?

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:09 am

I sent you a PM, but its been removed.

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:46 am

floppydrivez wrote:

I sent you a PM, but its been removed.

Been removed? You mean you removed it or is there a problem?

Duck, thank you for (finally) jumping in and voicing your views/opinions! I was more concerned because you hadn't said anything Laughing

. Your points are valid and I remind everyone: They are his views and that's what this thread is soliciting Wink

Alien73, there is nothing in the GPL that prevents anyone from (re)selling a GPLd script/application. The GPL is there to prevent piracy, if you will, vis-a-vis authorship, copyright, etc.

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:53 am

As I told Alien in my PM it came directly from phpnuke-downloads.com (not added by me), but I take full responsibility for it because its my site.

It has been removed along with another questionable addition. The difference between me and astalavistabd is once notified I responded with a responsible action. Even though burn wave / emporium is dead and GPL I still removed it.

I encourage you try that here and see where it gets you.
#httd://phpnuke-downloads.com/Emporium_Shopping_Cart_Module_v2.3_Pro-14-917.html

No, no one from CT should ever follow in his footsteps, but walk a day in their shoes before you pass judgment. The only thing I can do is act responsible when a situation presents itself and reinforce my stand with my staff so it isn't something I have to do again.

Crowd Control I guess...

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:27 am

You can get it for free if you download PNC 2.1

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:47 am

No need for emporium - Alien Cart(tm) is coming soon Dance-Y