Dec 23, 2005 — Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems Inc., a premier Microsoft technology solutions provider, is pleased to announce the launch of a premium community benefits program for DotNetNuke. The purpose of the program is to offer a variety of additional value-added membership services, while at the same time emphasizing the core project values — to provide a technologically superior product that is perpetually and freely available throughout the community.

The DotNetNuke Benefactor Program was created with the intent to preserve the delicate balance between the needs of the open source community, the serious business ecosystem it has fostered, and the on-going management of the project. In strict accordance to its community roots, participation in the Benefactor Program is completely optional and none of the new project services offered compromise the projects open source ideals or impose any restrictions on the existing community.

The DotNetNuke Benefactor Program is divided into multiple levels to cater to the diverse needs of various community stakeholders including end-users, knowledge workers, developers, system integrators, independent software vendors, and enterprise platform adopters. For each stakeholder group, a value-added services offering has been created which is focused on delivering a key set of benefits.

Membership programs are certainly not a new invention for online communities. However, a membership program whose sole purpose is to ensure the long term vitality of an open source project so that it provides the maximum freedom and is supported by the people, for the people, is definitely a powerful and innovative concept.

For more information about this exciting new program please visit:

DotNetNuke Benefactor Program

On the eve of the third anniversary of our project, it is still hard for me to grasp the massive impact of my Dec. 24, 2002 open source gift to the ASP.Net community. The DotNetNuke project was conceived with the best of intentions and despite having its share of challenges, it has continued to flourish and provide exceptional value. I am very proud of this accomplishment.

That being said, the level of responsibility and accountability has increased exponentially in the last year, driven by the growth and mission critical demands of the community. Each time we commit to delivering more, we increase our management and administration requirements, and stretch our meager resources even further. On many levels I feel that we are constantly struggling to satisfy the requirements of our burgeoning membership. After considerable research and deliberation, I have concluded that in order to accommodate these heightened expectations, the project requires more dedicated resources.

Therefore, I am very excited to announce the introduction of the DotNetNuke Benefactor Program. This program is designed to fully adhere to our open source project ideals but at the same time provide the monetary sustenance we require to take the project to the next level. And it accomplishes these goals by offering a whole new set of premium services which are designed to provide additional value to our project ecosystem. We sincerely hope the community recognizes the acute intuition and judgment which went into the creation of this program, and ultimately embraces it for the considerable benefits it offers.

From myself, and the DotNetNuke Core Team, we wish to extend our gratitude and sincerely wish you a Happy Holiday season.

Shaun, that's a great idea! First thing I'll do tomorrow is grab my creditcard and buy myself a t-shirt of $799! Thanks for a great product, your support and patience...

Happy Holiday season to you, the rest of the core team and this wonderful community!

Done.

Not even a hesitation to show my gratitude, dedication and support.

I just have to figure out what amount I can go with before I end up sleeping on the couch.

Count me in as well. A small price to pay for what DNN has given me the ability to do.

While I like the idea, I probably won't be able to support it (in monetary terms).  I figure I'm a Silver Benefactor, but there is no way -as an individual- I can justify $199 for a t-shirt and a forum avatar.

The prices need to be about 50% less than they are to make it worthy of any consideration, figuring it is a yearly subscription and not a one time cost.

I want to support the community, I understand that everything has a price, and I agree that people should be paid for their time, but the current pricing plan is just too steep for little ol' me.

I can only imagine what this is going to do to the average price of modules.

Done and worth every cent!

ElecEagle,

The Benefactor Program should not be viewed through a commercial lens as that is not at all its intent. It is simply a channel for those willing and able to support the project financially to do so while having no impact on the open source ideals of the project. We will continually try and improve benefits to benefactors, but it's a virtual certainty that at no time will we be able to provide benefits that exactly match the dollar value commitment for a level.

If you are in the U.S. a good analogy is to that of public radio or public television fundraising drive. When you commit funds, you generally get a mug or a CD for a commitment of anything from $50 to $150. The commitment is from the benefactor to support the continued programming that they like. The mug/CD is just a token of appreciation from the radio/TV station and not a "fair market" trade.

Also, the Benefactor Program will have no impact on the average price of modules. Market forces drive that pricing and having a voluntary contribution program for DotNetNuke doesn't change anything in the market.

Nik

 

 

All,

Thanks for all the hard work as always - I think this step will go a long way to improve DNN if viewed from the bigger picture.

As a struggling module developer (there's not much money in module development, believe it or not, although more than working for free ;), is there any way of subsidising some of the cost with products for the Core team? From the start I have thanked DNN core team members by giving free subscriptions to my products (and had quite a few responses). Of course, I am quite happy to contribute financially and recognise your hard work, but I was wondering if there was any way module developers could "trade" some of the value of their products to offset the cost?

On another note, I look forward to the module certification benefits of this program (if some of the old ideas are implemented). I hope this will raise the bar in the quality of modules and prevent some of the messy situations that occasionally arise currently between customers and vendors.

Thanks

Rodney,

Thanks for continuing to be an active member of the DotNetNuke community and contributing your products to Core Team members.

In Shaun's letter to the community (in the newsletter), he discusses the need we have, which is for dedicated resources that can help us meet the expectations of the growing DotNetNuke community. The Benefactor Program will help us achieve this goal by getting some level of funding to be applied in this area.

Although your offer to "trade" is quite generous, unfortunately we cannot take you up on it right away. If you noticed in the Newsletter, one of our survey questions pertains to discounts on products/services. I believe module developers such as yourself will be able to contribute if/when we extend the benefit levels to include such discounts. Should we decide to implement such benefits, we will look to product developers to contribute indirectly by making available free/discounted products to benefactors. It's a bit early to make any decisions in this area since we just launched the program, but give us a few months and I am confident we'll be ready to take you up on your offer.

Again, thank you.

Nik

 

I might be willing to contribute, as DNN has been a great tool to leverage on projects. However, it is tough, since I cannot login on the site to see the costs. I even got a password reminder to ensure that I use the correct one, but every time I try to login, I get nothing. No failure, no success, nothing.

If you are having trouble logging in, try deleting your cookie as this can sometimes be corrupted.

I just have to figure out what amount I can go with before I end up sleeping on the couch. " src="/emoticons/emotion-2.gif"/>

AnyUserNameWillDo wrote:

I have to admit though, I think 200 (99 is fair, but no private forums) is very reasonable for most professional developers. 

I went with just $99 because I give all my DNN modules away for free. But, I do save money using it for my Wife's site. If you haven't saved at least $100 using DNN then you're doing something wrong :)