We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Khalil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923
In my previous article—Before there was a beginning—we looked at some of the problems with the Joomla! 4 project and the myth that these problems can be easily cured simply by throwing money at them. We also looked at a couple of the interest revenue-raising ideas that people have proposed. This topic continues my story about how I arrived at the decision to build this websiteMuch of the material for this article is sourced from my comments on the Joomla! forum posted a couple of months ago..
How to obtain revenue for Joomla development and, thereby, use those funds to remunerate the otherwise-voluntary nature of how the project comes together has been something in the news over the past couple of months. I don’t know whether financial incentives will improve the amount of work involved with the Joomla! 4 project or the quality of that work. That’s a matter for debate but, in my view, the financial incentives would have to be on a par with, say, the salary levels that operate in successful businesses. In other words, one would be talking in terms of millions of dollars.
Whether these levels could be achieved is something we can only speculate about at this time. And, if those levels can be reached, will it result in a lift in the output and quality of work? I really don’t know.
Joomla is open-source; there’s nothing about “open source” that suggests people should be entitled to all the benefits of products or services obtainable through that source without having to pay for some of themFor a more thoughts on this, I recommend looking at https://steemit.com/opensource/@crell/open-source-is-awful..
While it is only one suggestion that has been made, leveraging the Joomla! forum as a fund-raiser would yield two positive outcomes:
- The forum could provide a small, regular stream of income, the funds from which could be applied to other activities managed under the auspices of OSM; and
- The joining fee to use the forum would largely eliminate the waste—and the efforts required by forum moderators to clean it up—generated by forum spammers.
I have no problem paying a modest annual subscription fee to use the Joomla! forum and I think the proposal equitable and not an unreasonable impost. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with paying a small usage cost unless, perhaps, because of diffulties choosing an EFT payment system for some countries where some members of the community live. Even if people only had one question about Joomla, and it cost a dollar or two in order to create a forum account to ask that question—regardless of whether that question was answerable (or answered in a timely manner)—it would demonstrate the value of the Joomla! forum as the most reliable source of up-to-date, relevant, practical advice about Joomla.
Spammers and obvious time-wasters (as a general rule) won’t spend a cent to join a forum to post “Buy the best **spam** product here” knowing that they’re wasting their money. We read a lot of how-can-I-prevent-forum-spam topics on internet discussion forums and, speaking from years of experience, when you foirce someone to pay up-front for the privilege of being able to post on a forum, a subscription model is probably the most effective counter-spam method available.
I doubt that a modest forum subscription scheme will generate a significant income. Indeed, when I made the suggestion, one immediate response came from a person who was too poor to afford paying a dollar. Even so, a rough projection of earnings based on a $1 to join and $1 per year membership could raise maybe four thousand dollars in the first year (after deducting EFT transaction fees and administration costs) and possibly three thousand dollars per year after that. It’s not a lot of money but it would lessen the forum moderators’ task in spam-reduction housekeeping.
I don’t know how you crowdfund Joomla as a project. Yes, the entire project has funding needs and until the OSM board sorts out this whole foundation thing its ability to solicit “major” donations is limited but, without having tangible benefits outside of a “thank you for your sponsorship/donation” (which may very well be enough for a number of individuals, but organisations typically want some kind of return on investment), I’m not sure how you get things going in this area. Also, a lot of the project’s income generating capabilities are limited by what the people in “control” will allow at any given time.
In conclusion, while I can’t think of a way to raise millions of dollars for Joomla, I think the ideas I’ve mentioned here and elsewhere would not cause riots within the community if they were seriously taken onboard. What do you think?
There’s still more to come in my next article.
