Posted on February 4, 2011 // Short URL

(The Concept Of) The Drupal App Store

Views and Panels creator, Earl Miles, joins Jeff Eaton, Kent Bye, Seth Brown, and Jeff Robbins to discuss the Drupal App Store and how to raise $2,731,140 so Earl can buy a Ferrari.

Links:
http://drupal-building-blocks.com/
http://drupaleasy.com/podcast/2011/02/drupaleasy-podcast-52-your-mom-tom...
http://groups.drupal.org/node/122904
http://bxl2011.drupaldays.org/node/319
http://wpplugins.com/plugins/
http://www.angrydonuts.com/contributing-to-open-source
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/30453381/the-shape-of-design
http://www.angrydonuts.com/contributing-to-open-source#comment-3974
http://www.istos.it/blog/drupalappstore/drupal-stores-and-apps-and-lack-...

Podcast:

Drupalize.Me Podcast

Tags:

views, podcast, earl miles, apps, drupal app store

Comments

sirkitree

Pay for support?

I kinda like the idea of offering a support contract on a module page that someone could purchase to get priority help on said module... hrm.

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Robert Douglass

Great podcast!

This is the most balanced discussion on the topic to date - great work, people.

In the podcast you ask "Robert Douglass works for Acquia. Does that mean that Acquia is thinking about this, testing the waters? Is Robert representing Acquia in this concept?"

The short answer is "No, Robert's just stirring up a ruckus".

The longer answer is that Acquia is definitely trying to create opportunities for developers and companies to create Drupal products and find commercial channels for them. We're experimenting with being a software reseller for products like Open Publish and Open Scholar: http://acquia.com/resources/drupal-solutions/publishing
http://acquia.com/resources/drupal-solutions/education

We're also trying to create a marketplace for whole websites and themes on Drupal Gardens: http://www.drupalgardens.com/forum/community-marketplace-buy-sell-or-share

And on the Acquia Network we're embracing a model where we enable 3rd party web services to enhance your site, usually through a coupling of a module and a web service.

In the sense that Acquia provides the market-making mechanisms for these products (ie in some cases we even collect money from the customer and pass it on to the service provider), yes we're building several variants on an app store. Recent additions here include New Relic and Mobify services.

These are things that are already going on, already announced, and not new. The trend to spot is the effort to create a real vibrant marketplace for products that moves the Drupal economy beyond the hour-worked-hour-paid model that still accounts for most of the money people earn as Drupal professionals.

Reply

SB

Donate / Support Development

I think the best way to do this is to put on drupal.org an option to every developer to integrate a donate now button with his paypal account...

Based on the amount of the contribution make a list and give badges.

Let's say that someone pays between:
1-5$ - no list
5-10$ - listed
10........

5000$ - listed on the main module page as a supporter.

PS: Make the comments on podcast pages AJAX :)
I was listening to the podcast, hit preview and you know the rest :)

Reply

deepM

contribution

Would modules be better if i paid 1$ for them, would i pay and get it for lifetime or should i pay for each installation?
Currently many modules have bugs and strogn support of community for solving and finding this. Would people then also contribute or would we demand for bug free module? Seems a dangerous teritory, i am not against paying but repercusions could unexpected.

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grendy

I'm little surprised nobody

I'm little surprised nobody objected to Jeff's characterization of the GPL as "viral" (at about 19:20).
This label is silly; it is copyright itself that is viral. If you create a derivative work of somebody else's copyrighted code, you cannot distribute the result without a license from the original author. This is true no matter what license you use.

Copyright law's notion of derived works is what ultimately governs what is and isn't covered by the GPL. The is no universal definition of what constitutes a derived work - the only way to know for sure is to go to court.
Since most people don't like getting sued, we tend to rely on guidance from experts such as the SFLC when they say modules must be GPL.

Even the "exceptions" noted are not a guarantee. For example writing a standalone PHP package that integrates through a bridge module is pretty strong evidence that your package is not derived, but ultimately it depends on what's in your code.

Overall I think an app store is doomed - high-priced apps will be quickly repackaged as free downloads, and the too-cheap-to-care $0.99 apps will be of such poor quality that a site built from them would be a nightmare. The point about the complexity of module interactions is a good one - Drupal modules are not at all like stand-alone phone apps. Image if Apple tried to run the "KernelPatchStore"...

Thanks for an interesting discussion!

Reply

Adrian

The name "app store" of

The name "app store" of drupal is really misleading.
Modules of drupal are not apps, they function nothing in standalone themselves.

It is weird to bring the monetary model of Apple's app store into drupal community.

Reply

Robert Douglass

About "App Store" as a name

The name "App Store" is very leading, and that's intentional. The observation that @Adrian made thta "Modules of drupal are not apps, they function nothing in standalone themselves" is a good summary of the problem that the DrupalAppStore discussion is meant to address. Drupal doesn't have apps - things which solve specific problems for specific people on specific types of websites - and this is a weakness of the Drupal ecosystem.

The process of building a commercially viable application (whether it gets delivered as a module, a feature, a distribution, or a webservice) is different than the process of building Views or Panels. It involves things like audience research, marketing, support and warranties, none of which play any role in how things are done on Drupal.org right now. Thus the whole process of asking ourselves "What is an App?" is very healthy and will hopefully move the community to address the fact that we don't have any.

Apps, however they emerge, will involve a new community of developers and a new community of product-seeking end-users. It will mark an evolution and expansion of the current Drupal ecosystem. There is no reason it would have to disrupt the ecosystem we currently have; in fact it should act to enhance it.

People should not hear the term "App Store" and think that they're going to wake up one day and find that Views costs $50 to download from Drupal.org. That's not happening, no way. They should hear the term "App Store" and imagine a new breed of finished, pre-packaged, plug-n-play solutions to concrete problems, all of which are driven by market needs.

Reply

Michael

Transcript

I hate audio / video. I want transcript!!! Scrolling / skimming is so much better than putting on headphones and listening for ... holy crap 85 minutes, no wonder no transcript.

Reply

merlinofchaos

A Tesla! I want a Tesla Roadster!

Since Tesla Motors is using Drupal for their website, I think it's only fair.

As Janus might have sung:

Oh Drupal, won't you buy me a Tesla Roadster ?
I wrote the code that views your noders,
Now you spend for design, not pricy coders,
So Drupal, won't you buy me a Tesla Roadster ?

:)

Reply

S1l

Parrot

I seem to have missed the Drupaldays link under the links in this podcast, so I'm adding nothing new here. Discard my comment :)

Reply

Websule

Drupal Ecosystem

Hi All,

Thanks to Lullabot for this podcast and relevant links.

Actually, We are already in the making of a Drupal App Store plus Marketplace, Open Source training and Resources Center.. all at one place, addressing most important outstanding issues related to Drupal Business.

Project is 70% complete and will be launched shortly in beta version. I will be providing a pre-launch beta invitation to interested drupallers on demand.

I know community will be giving mixed reaction, but we will only get to know how it works upon launch.

Please feel free to offer any suggestions that you would like to see in there.

Best Regards,
dipps
Websule.com - Drupal Specialists.

Reply