Hi everyone, I already maintain a number of modules and contribute solutions to issues I find as I can. I however have a question about monetisation of a module that I contribute.
I know the community is open-source and that we do our best to contribute, but some projects are done for pure love of code and not as a project that was done because you are necessarily making money elsewhere to build it (meaning sponsorship).
My idea is that most modules have at least one configuration page. Is it against Drupal's terms of service to place an advertisement within that page so the developer might be able to recover some development costs? What is everyone's take on this practice? What other solutions would folks have about getting some income from the development they do?
Personally, I love the Drupal community and coding here, it does however bother me that there isn't much money to be made in just coming up with a solution that was never sponsored. The application developers on other platforms (phones especially) benefit from these sorts of options and I am just curious what kind of options people might be able to come up with.
Comments
Existing discussion
There's an ongoing discussion about this topic here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/142779
I tried to look for it, but
I tried to look for it, but there are some previous discussions on this topic that were negative. A mention in README.txt or on the project page is generally accepted. A mention on the project page linking to relevant help files is generally accepted. A link on the settings page that says "please consider giving me money" is on the line. Saying "this project is charity ware, you must donate to use it" is over the line.
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"Freemium" option
An option that could be considered is following the "freemium" business model where you have a basic no-frills service that the module integrates with, and for more bells and whistles you have a value-added service that you could legitimately charge money for. Some examples are:
... and the list goes on. Shareware notices (which I believe violate Drupal contrib policies, and if not IMHO go against the spirit of the community) or "chip in" type solicitations rarely work. People will generally pay for a version that brings something more to the table (unlock more options, more bandwidth, more lookups, etc).
Beyond actually trying to build a product and business model, you're going to have little luck trying to monetise a module that is out there already in all its glory, by itself.