[QGIS-Developer] Theoretical discussion: A QGIS paid plugin marketplace? (was: sponsored plugin)

[Roger Merritt]

Hi everyone,
I sit back and love things like QGIS, Postgres/PostGIS and VirtualBox. All
developed by major software shops where many people get an income in some
way.
I sit back and have released a Plugin to load Vector Themes to Databases,
and have asked for donations. I have been told that receiving $10 in any
one year will be a good year, lol.
I have been involved in Spatial Upgrades for 30 years now, and have a very
capable Windows Desktop Application, and I estimate it would take 3-5 years
effort to port it to a QGIS Plugin. Spatial Upgrades are like Rubber
Sheeting but with enhancements like Rigid Objects (eg buildings) and
Straight Lines (eg power lines).
My fundamental issue is why would I invest so much time porting my
expertise to QGIS when remuneration is a fantasy?
Essentially the QGIS community will miss out on what I could offer because
there is not a paid plugin marketplace.
My 2 cents worth...
Roger



On Thu, Feb 1, 2024 at 9:28 AM Nyall Dawson via QGIS-Developer <
qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Hi lists!
>
> I wanted to kick start a (hopefully!) civil, THEORETICAL discussion about
> the role of a paid plugin marketplace for QGIS plugins.
>
> This has been on my mind for a while, and recently was bumped by this
> email to the list:
>
> On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 at 19:38, gam17--- via QGIS-Developer <
> qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >     like many of you, I have developed and maintained a plugin for many
> > years completely free of charge.
> > I have never received any donation or compensation of any kind and now I
> > would like to find a solution.
> > Has anyone already found a way to receive donations?
> > I was thinking of asking for a sponsor that would be displayed during
> > execution, for example in the window titles or through a specific menu
> > item like QGIS does (in this way the sponsor would be much less
> > visible).
>
> So again, stressing that this is a THEORETICAL discussion, I'm interested
> in hearing people's thoughts on the potential role of a paid plugin
> marketplace for QGIS.
>
> Here's a bullet point dump of where I'm currently sitting:
>
> - Yes, I'm aware that plugins must be GPL, and that this makes paid
> plugins a little trickier in that they're obviously still subject to the
> GPL.
> - The GPL does NOT prevent charging for software, or mandate making it
> public to non-paying customers. We could potentially have GPL plugins which
> are only available to paid users, and only make these plugins available
> privately to those users. YES, the GPL **DOES** mean that those paying
> customers can redistribute the plugin publicly and freely without issue if
> they want (and regardless of whether the original developer wants!)
> - In fact, there's already likely thousands of private, paid for plugins
> out there! I'm talking here of plugins made specifically for internal use
> by one organisation only. Yep, that organisation COULD make the plugin
> public/freely available, but in many cases they are specific to that one
> organisation's needs or contain organisation sensitive logic/data. These
> plugins are completely compliant with the GPL, despite being private and
> paid for by that organisation.
> - There's nothing preventing a public GPL QGIS plugin from depending on a
> subscription based back-end, and offering zero value to anyone not paying
> for that backend. And there's a growing number of these plugins, which
> depend on users paying xxx large corporate entity regular high fees to
> access the backend service. The GPL doesn't (and arguably
> shouldn't) prevent these large entities from making money off QGIS plugins.
> - But this means that the current situation is unfairly weighted toward
> these large entities! A one-person team making an excellent plugin and
> providing an awesome tool for use in QGIS has a MUCH MUCH harder time
> finding ANY financial compensation for their efforts! I don't like this
> situation at all, and I'd say it goes against the "spirit" of why QGIS was
> made under the GPL in the first place. The big corporate entities win, the
> smaller community focused developers lose out. 👎
> - Despite the fact that a paid user could freely re-distribute a paid-for
> plugin, there's still potential financial gain for the developer in making
> a plugin available for a charge on a theoretical QGIS plugin marketplace.
> - The blender market is a great example of this. There's LOTS of GPL
> blender add ons available there at charge. Eg
> https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-ops--boxcutter-ultimate-bundle?num=2&src=top
> as one example. If those numbers are accurate, that developer has sold >35k
> copies of a GPL licensed add on at $39 each. I'm going to go out on a limb
> here and guess that that developer's motivation to make their add-on
> excellent is considerably higher than the developer of an equivalent QGIS
> plugin 🤣 (not to mention that their time investment is much more
> justifiable). And any ONE of those 35k paid users could have made the
> plugin freely available for everyone else... but that hasn't stopped the
> sales.
>
> So what does everyone else think? Would there be a THEORETICAL place for a
> THEORETICAL paid QGIS plugin marketplace somewhere in the future? Or is
> there a better model we could (theoretically 🤪) follow to financially
> reward plugin developers?
>
> Nyall
>
>
>
>
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