[iks-community] Fwd: Aloha Editor is out.

Tue Jul 20 11:36:05 CEST 2010

Hi Arje,

Thanks a lot for your elaborate feedback. I very welcome that you share 
your experience with us. Since we're a cms vendor too you pretty much 
catched me with your argumentation. Nothing is nailed to the wall yet. 
We used AGPL for now to give the project a start as an oss project, and 
us some time to collect feedback and work on the business model as a 
whole (yes, Aloha Editor does affect our core business in a way).

It would be interesting to know if it really makes sense to fund you 
product development efforts from selling implementation services to your 
customers. Of course, your own software makes you a champion in 
implementing it, but still the investment in the software considerably 
lowers your average contribution per sold personday if nobody pays for a 
license. Any ideas on this?

I'll catch up with you shortly as a tender will keep until next week 
pretty busy!

all the best,
Alexander

P.S.:
http://www.contenthere.net/2008/09/bluenog-subtly-forks-hippo.html - yep 
this doesn't really feel good and especially not giving credit is 
something I personally don't like at all

Am 20.07.2010 11:04, schrieb Arje Cahn:
> Hey,
>
> I would love to get involved in the IKS semantic editor. For those of
> you who don't know me, my background is within the Apache Software
> Foundation and my company develops an open source Java CMS under the
> Apache License called Hippo CMS (http://www.onehippo.com). Our
> business model is around selling support subscriptions, consultancy,
> hosting and trainings. Some would say we've been fairly successful in
> doing so, even though we're using the incredibly open Apache license.
> We, too, have had our moments of doubt around different open source
> licenses. The good thing about a CMS is that it always requires
> tailoring so releasing it under Apache still gives us plenty of
> opportunities to make some money. But a WYSIWYG editor is a totally
> different beast. I can see that it would be incredibly hard to make a
> living from something that has the potential of becoming a commodity
> component. In fact - to succeed, it must become commodity.
>
> So I fully understand your reasoning to put the Aloha editor under a
> license that gives you some return on investment, and I feel that it's
> your good right to be able to make a living from the code you write.
>
> But it also reminds me of the time when the Xopus WYSIWYG XML editor
> entered the Apache ecosystem in 2001 through Cocoon and Lenya, and got
> pulled back again after 6 months into a commercial version. It's now
> nine years later, and the company behind Xopus has recently been sold
> to SDL, for an incredibly low sum of money. I know they've been
> working incredibly hard to build a great product, but the community
> effect was way, way below zero. I've used Xopus (the commercial
> version) for plenty of years as a plugin to our product. But we found
> that we got so dependent on the original developers, that we had no
> other choice than to move to an open source XHTML editor. We have an
> obligation towards our customers that we can and will fix bugs and add
> features to the components we use in our offerings. So we moved back,
> to a less-advanced editor, and ported to Xinha because of its liberal
> BSD license. But I want to move forward instead of backwards.
>
> When I first saw the Semantic Editor concept, and later the Aloha
> demo, I felt that this was the way I wanted to go. I signed up one of
> my developers to join the hackaton. We have the capacity to seriously
> invest in the Semantic Editor. And if I can get some of that
> investment back from the IKS funding, then that's really very nice.
>
> But - I'm having serious problems to think of *why* I would free up
> resources and have them write code that I'll then have to surrender to
> a company that wants to sell it under a commercial license. Please
> don't understand me wrong: I don't mind that you're *selling*
> something, I'd even happily sell your license to my customers if that
> would make sense to them. I just feel that this is not the way to
> create a thriving community. By asking developers to sign a
> "contribution agreement", you're adding a firewall that will scare
> away a large group of developers. I'm afraid you'll be effectively
> locking them out. And my experience is that the smartest guys are the
> ones that are the easiest to scare away.
>
> I hope you don't mind that I'm adding some critical notes to your
> statement. It's important to me to know where you're heading before I
> commit to this project. And also, I really want you to go forward with
> the Semantic Editor and I want to join that effort.
>
> "Whoever contributes will do that under a contribution agreement, that
> will guarantee that the contribution is published as AGPLv3"
> this is already enforced by the AGPL, so I see no need to sign an
> agreement for this
>
> ", that full rights a granted to the contributor for his contributions"
> ok, also covered by the AGPL
>
> "and at the same time rights to use/modify/distribute the contribution
> unter a commercial license for non oss audiences are granted to
> Gentics"
> this is where I'm having difficulties..
> If this is really what you want to do, you might as well go for the
> Apache license which is way more liberal, but also gives you the
> ability to sell the code as a "commercial product". Yes, you'll have
> free riders, we've had them too [1]. But at least it will give you the
> full innovative power of a wide community.
>
> [1] http://www.contenthere.net/2008/09/bluenog-subtly-forks-hippo.html
>
> Regards,
>
> Arjé Cahn
>
> CTO, Hippo
> a.cahn at onehippo.com / arje at apache.org
> Amsterdam - Hippo B.V. Oosteinde 11 1017 WT Amsterdam +31(0)20-5224466
> Hippo USA Inc. 185 H Street, Suite B Petaluma, CA 94952 +1 (707) 773-4646
> www.onehippo.com info at onehippo.com
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Mag. Alexander Szlezak
> <a.szlezak at gentics.com>  wrote:
>> Hi Andreas,
>>
>> Thanks for your comments. Working on our task to push Aloha Editor out as
>> fast as possible didn't leave time yet to clear some of the licensing
>> questions.
>>
>> My thoughts are wandering around the following insights:
>>
>> Aloha Editor should be freely accessible under a license that provides oss
>> code to use for everybody, so it can spread and prosper and at the same time
>> build the commercial foundation for future development.  In the end Aloha
>> Editor should reward it's contributors and creators.
>>
>> Behind scenes: Most oss project have a driving force behind it, usually
>> individuals with strong engagement acting alone or within a company and
>> contributors grouped around them.
>>
>> Then there are the leechers, who just take, but don't give back in terms of
>> code contribution or money and thus do nothing for the common cause.
>>
>> Our idea is to encourage active contribution by a mutual exchange of
>> benefits between the community and Gentics.
>>
>> That means andybody can deploy Aloha Editor by using AGPLv3 code, or
>> purchase a commercial version which frees from the obligations of AGPLv3.
>>
>> Whoever contributes will do that under a contribution agreement, that will
>> guarantee that the contribution is published as AGPLv3, that full rights a
>> granted to the contributor for his contributions and at the same time rights
>> to use/modify/distribute the contribution unter a commercial license for non
>> oss audiences are granted to Gentics. This will help to fund continous core
>> development, defend agains IP issues and build a strong foundation of the
>> project.
>>
>> When it comes to plugins, GPL/AGPL ist not ideal when it comes to ajax
>> frameworks etc. There's a lot of discussion going on about when something is
>> considered a derivative work and thus needs to be published as (A)GPL again.
>>   Thus special license arrangements for developers of plugins etc. might
>> help. I'm happy about input and still working on it.
>>
>> To my opinion the ideas outlined so far  will balance the interests of the
>> public, developers and Gentis. Feedback and ideas are welcome though! ;-)
>>
>> all the best,
>> Alexander
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Haymo Meran schrieb:
>>>
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>>> *From: *"Andreas Kuckartz"<A.Kuckartz at ping.de
>>>> <mailto:A.Kuckartz at ping.de>>
>>>> *Date: *16. Juli 2010 09:48:04 MESZ
>>>> *To: *iks-community at iks-project.eu<mailto:iks-community at iks-project.eu>
>>>> *Cc: *"Haymo Meran"<h.meran at gentics.com<mailto:h.meran at gentics.com>>
>>>> *Subject: **Re: [iks-community] Aloha Editor is out.*
>>>>
>>>> Haymo wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> AGPL in our point of view is the only way for a small
>>>>> company to distribute a self founded front-end framework
>>>>> with no possibility to up-sell a commercial admin add-on.
>>>>
>>>> I am well aware of the difficulties to earn money with Open Source.
>>>> While a lot of experience has been gathered and scientific work has been
>>>> carried out in this area it still is a learning process. Some of the
>>>> different kinds of implications of a license on the future are not
>>>> necessarily obvious from the beginning.
>>>>
>>>> One point is that developers have to spend time to think about the
>>>> consequences of using a software component distributed under a specific
>>>> license.
>>>>
>>>> Some questions which arise immediately:
>>>>
>>>> What does the license imply for plugins? Do they have to be distributed
>>>> under the same license? Who decides?
>>>>
>>>> Can a community of developers be grown which helps to improve and
>>>> enhance the software when such improvements in the end will be sold by a
>>>> single different company? There is an amount of inquality here which
>>>> might (not necessarily will) prevent people from joining such a
>>>> community.
>>>>
>>>>> PS: After the hard work the last month I think
>>>>> I deserved some rest. I'll bee on a sailing trip next
>>>>> week and not answer to the mailinglist ;-)
>>>>
>>>> Sure, have fun!
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Andreas
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Gentics Logo Haymo Meran
>>> *Haymo Meran*
>>> Aloha Editor appears on 3rd page in the google search. We need some #SEO
>>> and more links to http://aloha-editor.com. #alohaeditor
>>>
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>>
>> --
>>
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>> __________________________________________________________________
>> Mag. Alexander SZLEZAK                       Gentics Software GmbH
>> Chief Executive Officer
>> Sales/Legal Affairs
>>
>> P +43 1 710 99 04 - 599                         Gonzagagasse 11/25
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__________________________________________________________________
Mag. Alexander SZLEZAK                       Gentics Software GmbH
Chief Executive Officer
Sales/Legal Affairs

P +43 1 710 99 04 - 599                         Gonzagagasse 11/25
F +43 1 710 99 04 - 4                       A-1010 Vienna, Austria
M +43 699 1 350 41 01                       http://www.gentics.com
E a.szlezak at gentics.com           Handelsgericht Wien ? FN 199328f

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Der Inhalt dieser E-Mail ist eine persönliche und vertrauliche
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Adressaten bestimmt. Sollten Sie nicht der vorgesehene Empfänger
sein, ersuchen wir Sie höflich, sich sofort mit uns ins
Einvernehmen zu setzen und die E-Mail zu vernichten.
Für elektronisch übermittelte Auskünfte und Ratschläge, die nicht
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zeichnungsberechtigten Vertreter unserer Gesellschaft autorisiert
wurde, bestätigt werden, wird grundsätzlich keine Haftung
übernommen. Gänzliche Virenfreiheit kann niemals garantiert werden
und eine Haftung findet hiefür gleichfalls nicht statt. Es gilt
österreichisches Recht unter Ausschluss allfälliger Kollisions-
oder Verweisungsnormen. Gerichtsstand ist Wien-Innere Stadt.