[Typo3] typo3.org

[Robert Markula]

Rob De Vries wrote:
>> Sponsoring might be interesting, I'll get in touch later on...
> 
> 
> Just an idea.
> 
> If all proffesional users of Typo3 (company's who make website for other 
> company's using Typo3) pay's an annual fee of 100€ and get an official 
> invoice for this, then this money can be used for the Typo3.org hosting.
> Let's asume there are 500 prof. company's who uses typo3 This makes 
> 50.000€/year. I guess you can do alot with 50.000/year for hosting.
> 
> Why I propose this? When you work with typo3 on a prof. base, you need 
> to be able to gain access to the typo3 information(docs, newslist, 
> extencions etc ..) at any time of the day.
> 
> In return you can make a list with all 'profesional' users of typo3 
> (those who have paid the fee, regarding if they have ever made 1 site 
> with typo, or published an ext or contributed to the community) and some 
> additional features, like a 'job' section where pro-users can place an 
> ad when they look for a freelancer for a certain task (like sponsored 
> jobs for making a specific extension). This could also boost the 
> building and/or finishing of some important extensions (like the 
> CSS-styled-content & css_styled_image_text)
> 
> Also, this will 'force' professional users to pay a fee.
> an ex.: I always ask a client to pay a fee to Kasper (or typo3). the 
> amount is free to choose but I can't obligate them to do so. I have to 
> be honnest, almost non of my client do so, even if I ask them several 
> times and tell them this is a fair thing to so so.
> 
> I don't think it is a 'bad' thing to ask for money. Especialy when you 
> give something in return. And why not make a difference between Pro and 
> non-pro typo3 users? Both sides can only gain with this. Pro-users have 
> access to some special sections on the typo3 site, and non-pro users can 
> enjoy the benefits of the pro-community.
> 
> Alot of us are able to make a living because of typo3 and typo3 is 
> becoming big-bussines. And like all busnisses you need to invest wisely 
> to asure the future of it.

Do this and you'll lose a lot of users to other, "truly" *OPEN*-source 
CMS's.

But we could go another way. Take the MySQL licensing policy. They offer 
two licenses:
- One open source license, which requires all software that uses MySQL 
to be open source as well (GPL).
- One commercial license, which is for organizations that do not want to 
release the source code of their applications for free/as open source.

Couldn't this concept be applied here as well? Just with e.g. extensions 
and APIs? On the german list we recently had a topic about a vendor 
selling (quite questionable) extensions for thousands of euros. 
Organisations like that would be prime candidates for this commercial 
license.

This way the community would always receive something - either products 
in the form of e.g. extensions (I am just thinking of TemplaVoila), or 
money that is used for the further development of Typo3.

Quoting from the MySQL Licensing Policy 
(http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/):
"The guiding business principle of MySQL is one of fair exchange, or 
Quid pro Quo ("something for something"). From a licensing perspective, 
we have two different products depending on usage and distribution, 
though technically they have the same source code."

 > Just my idea on this cloudy afternoon.

We have a sunny day :)

Ro (sorry if this post appeared twice)