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

Wed Feb 7 01:11:19 PST 2024

I totally agree we will have to ensure a minimal security and review
process. A paid marketplace is a trusted place.
We need some security scanner over plugins. And as the CRA will certainly
asks for proof of security scanner for the whole QGIS project, this is a
task we will have to handle no matter what.

Any other opinions about this idea?
Régis

Le mar. 6 févr. 2024 à 22:57, Tim Sutton <tim at kartoza.com> a écrit :

> Hi Nyall and other commenters on the thread
>
> Personally I think it makes a lot of sense to allow payment for plugins
> via the official QGIS plugin repo. A couple of (maybe contentious) ideas:
>
> * can we put an Apple-like commission split so that QGIS.org takes 30% of
> money coming from it? That will let us fund Lova into the long term and
> other eventual team members to be paid to maintain the plugin
> infrastructure. That will enable dudes like me who do backend work
> maintaining the plugins services unpaid and unseen can fade into the sunset
> and professional staff can take over the duty of keeping the plugins
> platform going.
> * Having a commission will also cover the cost of doing the accounting,
> keeping track of who is owed what from their plugin sales, accounting for
> everything, bank fees and what-not.
> * We need to make it clear that QGIS does not offer any guarantees for
> plugins sold (or downloaded for free for that matter) from the plugin repo
> * It would be great to also invest into other long standing issues like
> having plugin reviewers (or a clever AI scanner thingy) to make sure
> plugins play nice on people's computers
>
> Personally I would also like to have a 'hard opt in' for the plugin
> installer shipped in QGIS. The first time you use it, you would need to
> acknowledge that the plugins you get from the store may vary in quality and
> their security from awesome to downright dangerous. If you do not agree
> then the plugin manager link to the plugins repo essentially gets disabled
> and you need to hand install plugins using the 'from a zip file' tab in the
> plugin manager.
>
> Probably more contentious would be asking those orgs fronting their
> commercial services with a free plugin to give us (QGIS.org) a commission
> too for the upstream services they sell, but I guess that would be a) hard
> to enforce and b) bring out the complaints big time :-P
>
> Regards
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 9:08 AM Alexandre Neto via QGIS-Developer <
> qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>> I would say, why not?
>>
>> Many other open source projects have opted by having "market places" and
>> paid plugins (e.g. Blender, Wordpress). This did not stopped many
>> developers to keep publishing free plugins, while allowed others to have an
>> easy way to sell their work.
>>
>> Our plugin repository has now lots of plugins that are no longer working
>> or with bugs because the developer no longer have the time or will to
>> maintain it. Maybe if some of these developers could receive a compensation
>> for their time this could change.
>>
>> Besides, QGIS is now very robust and offers so many functionality
>> already. Opposed to the past where some "core" functionality was depending
>> of free  third party plugins.
>>
>> Notice that there are already paid plugins. Some need api keys to work.
>> And other are being kept "secret" outside our plugin repository and they
>> could be useful for many more people.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>>
>> A sexta, 2/02/2024, 16:38, Régis Haubourg via QGIS-Developer <
>> qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> escreveu:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>> I have been sleeping over this thread a bit.
>>>
>>> We already have a lot of paid plugins and in the psc we try to contact
>>> vendors to have them aware of the GPL licence obligations. This is a lot of
>>> manual work, and this does not scale up obviously.
>>> Offering a marketplace in our plugin management system can be really
>>> interesting, since this would give us a way to explain GPL obligations to
>>> authors and offer them a place to advertise their products a lot better
>>> than letting them deal with their own systems.
>>>
>>> That said, the same question for QGIS.org general funding and
>>> sustainability also applies.
>>> We have been having a better fundings this year thanks to marketing
>>> efforts of Marco and Andreas, which allows us to consolidate some tasks,
>>> but we still live on a very low budget compared to the size of the project.
>>>
>>> Ideas have been thrown about using existing marketplaces (Windows store
>>> for instance) to collect regular incomes via notarized QGIS installers, but
>>> this is not an easy move given that we don't have permanent staff to handle
>>> with the administrative work this gives.
>>> Developing our own marketplace for plugins could indeed be a way to let
>>> users do a voluntary contribution to the project when buying a plugin, or
>>> even trade a very small percentage on sales to maintain the platform. Most
>>> payment associative tools I know always offer this possibility, I wouldn't
>>> be shocked personaly.
>>>
>>> If we keep a mandatory link to a repository in plugin metadata,  where
>>> source code is available, I think we preserve users that can't afford to
>>> pay. We might write down market place terms of use where we ask plugin
>>> authors for fair uses (no ads, no illegal use, security rules etc, no fake
>>> repository that would not really allow users to get the real source code..)
>>>
>>> And I agree with Alessandro here, having public sources availables will
>>> still let a large audience to the payment system. QGIS' audience is so
>>> large.
>>>
>>> All in all, this kind of system requires more efforts to maintain
>>> everything in place, and I would be in favor of growing up the budgets to
>>> have dedicated persons able to handle this, just like we already manage to
>>> do with documentation and infrastructure management (Thanks Kartozo, Lova
>>> and Selma, you do a great job)
>>>
>>> In short, I would be in favor of going this way, but we need to handle
>>> this as it is: grow up QGIS.org core to be able to handle those tasks. And
>>> growing the budget is the first thing missing maybe.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>> Régis
>>>
>>>
>>> Le ven. 2 févr. 2024 à 02:01, Emma Hain via QGIS-PSC <
>>> qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org> a écrit :
>>>
>>>> Hi All
>>>> The economics of this is very interesting.
>>>>
>>>> As a community, we want to give something to our fellow members that
>>>> they need. It allows for our creativity in scratching an itch, and sharing
>>>> that solution. However, we can break the mold and work out a novel way to
>>>> deliver. The open-source pledge North Road uses goes some way to doing
>>>> this. Whilst there a lot of tools are within the licensed (paid) version,
>>>> those tools are available for release once production costs are met. This
>>>> enables the plugin to continue to deliver to those who cannot pay for the
>>>> licensed version, whilst funding further work as technology organically
>>>> develops or additional needs pop-up. Also note that the remuneration funds
>>>> our support for the FOSS4G community, whether via sponsorship or applying
>>>> resources on the committee. So the funding for the plugin gets recycled in
>>>> the community, as well as going someway to providing a living wage.
>>>>
>>>> Shutting out people from the use of desired services should not be what
>>>> we are about - there has to be another way.
>>>>
>>>> In regards to taking over a plugin, this is how FOSS continues, if
>>>> someone is passionate about it, they can ask the creator to take it over.
>>>> As part of the marketplace, the community should also have this as a
>>>> service, a page listing the plugins that are not maintained or won't be
>>>> maintained and is anyone available to take them over. This is a great way
>>>> for up and coming developers to learn the craft from mentors.
>>>>
>>>> Keep the discussion going - this community is so creative that I think
>>>> we will come up with an option.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> Em
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 at 22:33, C Hamilton via QGIS-Developer <
>>>> qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Nyall,
>>>>>
>>>>> First, thank you for all that you have done over the years. You have
>>>>> helped me a number of times in answering questions. Open source software is
>>>>> an interesting beast. There is so much donated time without compensation
>>>>> yet people need to feed themselves. My first QGIS plugin was in 2016 and I
>>>>> now have 12 QGIS plugins that are published (several more that are
>>>>> unpublished), but I am facing a dilemma. My work has funded all my
>>>>> development except for one plugin which I did for myself. Unfortunately, I
>>>>> was never really able to break into the ESRI culture here and a year or so
>>>>> ago was told to stop doing further QGIS development and to focus on other
>>>>> research. I did not find something that I liked as well so I am going to
>>>>> retire (because I can) in May. So my dilemma is what is going to happen
>>>>> with my plugins. I care about them. I have an agreement with another
>>>>> organization to take over support but after the first meeting I have no
>>>>> confidence that they will be able to do it. I will probably still fix some
>>>>> bugs after I retire, but I am not all that interested in working for free.
>>>>> I want to explore new hobbies in retirement so any QGIS work would be
>>>>> minimal unless it also fits in with one of my hobbies.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know how to get compensation in the open source world unless
>>>>> there is a company who is investing in and developing open source software.
>>>>> It would be nice if there were a mechanism for developers to get some
>>>>> compensation.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a difficult topic to address, but I hope something comes out
>>>>> of it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>>
>>>>> Calvin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jan 31, 2024 at 8:28 PM 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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>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Emma Hain — Product Manager/Senior GIS Analyst
>>>> emma at north-road.com
>>>> [image: https://north-road.com]
>>>> *North Road*
>>>> Cartography • Development • Spatial Analysis
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *north-road.com* <http://north-road.com>
>>>> <https://twitter.com/northroadgeo>
>>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/north-road-studios>
>>>> <https://www.facebook.com/North-Road-997236690392419/home>
>>>>
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>
>
> --
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>
> Tim Sutton
> Kartoza Co-Founder
> Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
>  * Desktop GIS programming services
>  * Geospatial web development
> * GIS Training
> * Consulting Services
> Tim is a member of the QGIS Project Steering Committee
>
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