Topic: Withdrawals w/Contribs.org Being Down - My Suggestions

[wallyrp]

Good Evening,

I had serious withdrawals when contribs was down as I was in the middle of working on various testbeds for various places I have SME installed. I sent an email to contribs at star-support.com but haven't received a response so I thought I'd post it here. I know a poll question was posed awhile back regarding some type of subscription. Here are my views and ideas:

1. The update feature was interesting and would have probably been supported if presented in a different light. Some type of quarterly price with the option of a year. Look for volume with a price leader of sorts.
2. I'm terribly interested in some type of TechNet of sorts in which I can subscribe to the forums on CD delivered to me on a quarterly basis. Again, volume with a price leader. This would provide a sort of off-site backup.
3. Included with the above as one option and/or priced separately, provide the contribs with howto's delivered on CD. I don't know how often contribs are updated but one thought might be to provide some type of royalty (for lack of a better term) to the contributors for a certain period to encourage uploads. A royalty example would be a flat fee of sorts for contribs that are included in the CD for one quarter. A contributor would have to create a minimmum(?) of contribs and updates to current contribs to be included in the next quarter. Does this make sense?
4. The last option that I can think of would be some sort of expedited response forum with a quarterly subscription rate. Kind of like an expedited support area. This option could also be tied into option two at an additional rate. Kind of as a bonus feature of sorts for new folks and at a certain price on top of the option 2 rate.

I have made a very small monetary donation in the past. I would love to make more but with five kids, it's kind of hard. I would look hard at the subscription rates and try to include those fees in my services to the clients I serve. At that point, it would be easier for me to support contribs.org with monetary support.

I'm including a poll (first time) with this but would like to see some kind of poll with pricing ranges to get a feel for what people are willing to pay. Anything would be a start. I don't know how the poll works or how it pans out but if it doesn't allow you to choose more than one option, choose the one the is most important to you. If it does allow you to choose, choose the most important down to the least.

A penny for your thoughts,

Walter "Wally" Padgett

[smeghead]

Hi all

Thought I'd have to add my 2 cents worth here.

I have previously suggested privately the following ideas:

a) geographic listing of companies offering support for SME that costs $xxx per annum
b) if you publish some site stats on bandwidth etc companies might be interested in sponsoring a day on contribs where they cover the costs for that day and get some basic promotion from the site in return
c) accreditation fees for commercial contribs/blades or provision fee by download or CD; subscription to same.

These ideas could be combined with any or all of Wallys or live on their own.

As I make money outta this package I finally put my money where my mouth is and made a donation (you know how it is, best of intentions, but never actually got to it until now).

If there were a range of options available for me to 'roll my own contribution' then I could choose those items I feel suited me best and could justify a not insignificant donation every year, for example:

Geographic listing - $300 per annum (after the first 3 referrals, these covers initial subscription cost - pay contribs $50 per referral)
Subscription service - $150 per annum (costed lower to make afforadble for more poeple)
Sponsor a day - $80 (wild guess)
Blades type service - $100 per annum per client or $500 per company for all clients per annum.  Free for home use.

As you can see it adds up pretty quickly but each aspect has value to a business such as mine.

[wallyrp]

Good Morning,

I thought that I would post a clarification with examples to the contrib royalty (for lack of a better term) option.

I believe giving some kind of incentive to the creative brains out there would spur more contribs. Here's a basic example:

Author A creates a set of contribs and/or howto's. These contribs and howto's must meet a standard set by the contribs staff/community to even begin to qualify for any type of royalty. A certain number, again, set by the contribs staff/community, of contribs and howto's must be presented before being elgible for any royalty. How complex or simple the royalty system is needs to be determined by the contribs staff/community. Payments of the royalties would be given on a quarterly basis.

The contribs and howto's must be submitted before a certain date so they can be included in the scheduled quarterly release. If the author does not meet the specifications and/or deadline, they will not receive any money. They also need to know that they will only receive money for only one or two quarterly releases. I recommend this to avoid recurring costs as well as provide incentive for authors to update contribs regularly to meet the issues that arise with out of date packages.

I love the contribs that I'm using and would love to see some of them improved upon. I'm not a programmer by any means but I can write some howto's if anyone needs assistance with that. I would need all the information so I could compile it correctly. Here are some of the contribs I use on a regular basis:

netprobe
phphelpdesk
the samba howto -
printer queue management
port forwarding
isolog
batch-users
squidguard filtering system
I've gotten some clients to purchase the dungog contribs
I've used the VPN contribs in the past with v5.1.2
backup2ws

I'm not sure how one would exactly administer this but I would think that there is a program out there that would come close to meeting the requirements of this option.

I would hope that everyone would step up to the plate with some solution that would generate some kind of monies for the site so that it is not sold. God only knows what would happen under new management. I personally like the management team that is in place and have no issues with the way they have done business.