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Hi All,

Just wanted to put this out there as it relates to MojoMotor addon development.

I just posted some thoughts on addon development to my blog:

Read it here

An interesting, well researched, well balanced, emotive piece of writing. I thoroughly agree with every sentiment in this post and I’d advise anyone serious about MojoMotor add-on development to read it.

Well done Jeremy.

As I replied on the blog post, I agree with your first point (good support is very much worth paying for) and disagree with your second (free alternatives of our addons tear down our work).

Let’s take, for example, Maverfax’s free addons on this site.  “Paypal,” a free alternative to MojoAddons “Payup,” is dead simple - any beginning addon developer could easily code this.  Or “ShowMe,” allowing insertion of other layouts and pages into any layout, something I feel should be in the core (at least layout or snippet embeds).  This is a free alternative to MojoAddons “Pieces.”

These addons and other alternatives (free or commercial) aren’t “tearing down the hard work [you]’ve done.” They’re giving the customer choice, and it’s not a great idea to build a business model based on scarcity or a monopoly, at least not without a backup plan for when the competition shows up.

I appreciate your conclusion urging developers to innovate. I feel this applies doubly so to the commercial developers, because with more people discovering MojoMotor and developing alternatives it’s going to be harder than ever to rely on support as your sole selling point.

-Aaron

I can see where you’re coming from and agree.

I guess where I was going is, if you’re going to create an addon that replicates another’s functionality, do it better. I think of two EE addons as an example here, NavEE and Structure. They both tackle the same problem, creating a menu structure for EE site, but they take completely different approaches to reach that goal.

I know that our early release addons are certainly not the end-all and be-all of functionality that we can and will offer in the future, so it’s kindof disappointing to see something come out that’s so similar in syntax.

And lastly, I do think that support is a key ingredient with addons. There are always better coders out there, but the point in using an addon in the first place to save time and avoid having to do the work yourself. Without guaranteed support, you very well could end up digging through some addon code if you can’t get the help you need. It’s definitely not the only selling point, though. And I do hope some of the features we’ll offer in the future will make the addons a worthwhile buy for the consumer.

I really do want to spur on developers in a positive direction and not just sit around here an whine. So, yeah.. let’s get out there and make MojoMotor as powerful and as flexible as we can!

From the original article:

What I do condemn is blatant imitation of commercial addons. I’m certainly no intellectual property expert, and I don’t really want to dive into legal battles. But the reality is, there have been several free addons released that clearly have a basis in the functionality my colleagues and I have envisioned and built.

This is passive/aggressive and in rhetorical terms is creating with the negative. Even though you have no idea if you have recourse to an IP argument you are making one.

Your article reads like a rough draft. Essentially it boils down to a “I staked this out!” sort of argument. If you thought of it first you get to charge for it. So if there are free expansions you’ll stay away from that functionality even if you feel you can do it better? Afteraall, you do state:

I totally support the creation of free alternatives, as long as they don’t duplicate the functionality of our addons with nearly-identical syntax, etc.

What disturbs me about this idea is that you are in some degree in direct competition to the core product. Is Derek not allowed to include an option to allow tags in editable regions? Is PayPal integration off the table? Flat file backups? True global region includes?

I can see someone not making friends by producing an add on that duplicates the function of a paid add on, but the idea that once someone has an idea that multiple implementations of that idea are a bit off in my mind. I’ve made several feature requests. Does that mean those ideas are mine? That if someone else runs with them I should get a kick-back?

I’d love to see those features go into the core! When that happens, we’ll continue to add functionality to our addons or retire them, if they are no longer needed.

The point is not about IP. I mentioned it because I wanted to make it clear that that’s not where I was going.

The point is about building a community of developers and users who are working together to make MojoMotor the simplest, most-powerful and best tool out there for the job. And that can’t be achieved by simply copying someone’s work. The kind of activity I speak of stifles the creativity that could be going on. You’re right in that it doesn’t make friends, and that, as I see it, is the fundamental problem that I’m speaking to in the latter half of my post.

And your point about getting a kickback for your feature requests doesn’t quite match what I’m saying. An idea is one thing “let’s build a PayPal addon.” No problem with that. It could be achieved 100 different ways. But between the idea and the actual code that results is a lot of work to determine “how am I going to do this to make it easy to use and make sense to the user?”

I do appreciate your feedback here, and perhaps some of the phrasing of my initial post didn’t communicate the way I wanted it to. But really, all I’m saying is that in our small and focused community, we need to do our best to make friends, not enemies. We need each other here, and the kinds of activity I’ve been seeing really doesn’t help us in that respect.

I think you were a bit irritated by what you see as someone infringing into your territory and this bleeds through a bit in the article.

I’m in agreement with what you’ve written as clarified. I did misread parts.

Thankya, sir.

The kind of activity I speak of stifles the creativity that could be going on.

Since I haven’t yet seen other publicly available alternatives to MojoAddons software, I’m assuming the “kind of activity” you’re talking about is Maverfax’s PayPal and ShowMe addons. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

As I said before, the Paypal addon is dead simple. I’m not even sure why anyone would use it (or Payup) instead of just using the actual form code. I think the hubris here is in MojoAddons charging for an addon like this in the first place - am I missing some added value in the Payup addon?

The ShowMe addon takes the idea of MojoAddons Pieces and runs with it.  Here’s the innovation you wanted!  Now you can embed layouts, content, or both combined.

My point is - where is the problem here?  Jeremy, I respect your opinions and I do like what you’re doing with MojoAddons, but saying that developers who create alternatives to your addons are stifling creativity or are tearing down your hard work is just hyperbole.

-Aaron

Well, the main reason we built Payup was to hook into our custom fields addon, allowing you to easily manage a small store, such as MojoAddons. That’s how we did it anyway.

I think the point is dead now anyway though. So.. moving on..

I just want to say that my Paypal addon wasn’t copied off Payup - I had no idea of it’s existence at the time - and that I did not create ShowMe to just copy off of Pieces, but rather to innovate it on what I thought were key parts Pieces were missing.

And Jeremy, if my addons really annoy you that badly, you could of just contacted me and asked me to remove them. If you want, I’ll still do that.

Nah, it’s cool now. Just wanted to make a point.

Keep up the good work, though. You’ve got talent. Use it.

I don’t think the point is “dead.” It a decent discussion to have.

I’d thought of posting something like this, but from the perspective of a MM customer. I’m sure a robust extension or add on community is a good thing for most people, but for the hobbyist on a limited budget they can be annoying. When I see any extension, module, or add on for EE that I want what I usually think is “Why isn’t this in the core product?” I especially think this if a competitive platform like Wordpress has the feature.

One of the reasons MM has caught my interest is that it’s simple. I don’t want it to do all things. If there is pressure to expand the core product (through feature bloat or add ons) it runs the risk of becoming too difficult (or too expensive).

I’m also kind of waiting for the product to become stable before I try to figure out what I want to add to it. I’m still learning the base product. I know I would feel a bit burned if I bought something like “pieces” only to have it rolled into the core product.

People need to feel like they are able to take something back for their time. Whether this is a better product, gratitude, pride in contributing to a community, or just plain old cash. I do want to see MM get as good as it can get. A goodly portion of the change logs are attributable to my reports (or at least I’m taking credit). I don’t code, so I contribute how I can. I hope you keep contributing as well and are able to get whatever you need from your contributions without feeling like you’re being imposed upon.