Funding plugin dev

It might be a good idea to start a fund/get donations to develop some of these plugin ideas. I, for one, would be willing to fund some plugins but I need a repository of ideas that I can look through.

I'd like to see:

  1. plugin desc: what does the new plugin aim to do? The plugin dev or nominator should create this and pitch it to the community.
  2. popularity: how many people want this plugin? A voting or rating system would do the trick.
  3. cost: how much funding is needed? Maybe a progress bar could even show how far we've come along in terms of getting 100% of the amount.
  4. time estimate: how long would the plugin dev take?

Considerations:

  1. Would people send funds to a PayPal account or just pledge the money without paying anything until the 100% mark is reached? If the former, how can this be refunded? Would an expiration date help solve this? For example X amount must be raised by X time. If not, all paid money will be refunded.
  2. Can the developer take donations or charge for the plugin?
  3. Are there minimum or maximum donations?
  4. Could we host this elsewhere? We all know the pains of having to search for plugins here on Elgg or having discussions about them (eg, notifications on topics, not groups)... might another solution be better?

I'd like to see more growth here on Elgg but it's obvious that there aren't enough good devs out there. We support them already by giving them feedback, suggestions, even thanks but sometimes they just don't have the time to give back to the community because they have paid work to do. Might paying them help?

I see a number of existing plugins that are good but could be even better, however, I'm quite sure that the dev can't add features or integrate the plugin better because of lack of time.

Your thoughts?

  • @Sawjer

    I started my post with that line exactly - let's be practical!

    If I understand you correct then you're talking about some kind of Elgg market place, similar to the plugins pages in Elgg community but with the added ability of payment/purchase mainly.

     

    I've been thinking of this market place thing which allows developers to "sell" their plugins and it hit me - Lovegin John has developed the Social Commerce (pro) plugin which probably needs some modifications but it bests suits this idea.

    Each developer may register to that elgg marketplace website, each developer can add his items (plugins) which may be purchased by anyone.

     

    What do you think?

  • The marketplace is already out there: Elggdev, Webgalli, iZap, et al.  Give it up guys!  Really!  Stop beating a dead horse.

  • Webgalli is a company which sells Elgg-based service. Same goes for iZap. Same for Elgg.in

    With Elggdev, can I, as a developer, register and put a plugin for sale like vazco is doing with his user?

     

  • Why not just register your own domain, put up your own plugins and sell them?  That's the point.

  • @Yakiv

    If I thought it would have made any difference explaining it to you then I would but obviously it would be a total waste of my time.

  • @Yakiv

    If I thought it would have made any difference explaining it to you then I would but obviously it would be a total waste of my time.

  • I just want to say something here..

    Has anyone thought about whether devs would act ethically if there's a pot of money involved? Would they go pricing each other down? I hope not.

    I say this because earlier today, an elgg webmaster and a great client contacted me to let me know that another person was trying to get some work from her by telling her that he writes code for me.

    Oh well.

  • @Carlos

    muhahahah that was mee!!

    Just kidding. Excuse me but this forum needed a wake-up call with some humor with all the bad vibe going on around here! :-)


    Now to the bottom line - I'm pushing this elgg market place forward and it will answer both needs that were discussed here which are:

    1. Developers can easily register an account on the website and publish their plugins for sale. It will be the user's decision whether to buy according to his acquaintance with the developer, the developer's rating and so on. This Carlos, by the way, answers your need of being payed for each plugin download.
    2. Another way would be for a collaborated funding as Anna suggested where users are free to create a new plugin template where they describe what they want in terms of functionality/requirements from the plugin and then a developer can take lead on that plugin and develop it according to the specification the users community has provided.

    Regards,
    Liran.

  • Hi Carlos, who says the lowest bid is the most acceptable? If a group of sponsors are putting money into the pot, it is in their interests to get the best job done for the most reasonable price... not the cheapest at any cost.  A devs credibility to do the job would be based on track record/CV/Rseume/feedback etc, and it would be up to the commissioners to decide with price, experience, skills, past history, quoted turnaround time, level of support etc in mind as to who gets the job.  Surely this is normal... it works in other free markets.

  • @Liri and @Mark..

    Thank you both for the info. 

    By the way, I wasn't objecting or criticising. Rather, I thought I'd mention today's incident and thought may be you would have some thoughts to address this kind of thing if it ever happens.. I say this because I really hope your platform develops and functions.

    Cheers.

    -Carlos

    Note: I ended up doing that simple job for the client and it's all complete.. the reason for her sticking with me was that she did not like the conduct of that other person. It is good for devs to always remember that devaluing one another does not only upset competitors, but is also hated by clients.