Emacs-Shop

Emacs-Shop

[Andreas Röhler]

Hi,

what about introducing a kind of Emacs-Shop, where
people may download and even order extensions.

Some non-free editors are ahead in certain areas,
because they offer special tailored features.
Basically Emacs may deliver that likewise - all together
and finally even better.

However, writing Emacs extensions needs a level of
skills and investments, which is likely to distract
from tasks people face already.

So why not ask for a decent fee by courtesy, while
establishing a form, where extensions might be
requested for, negotiated,
sponsors and contributions collected.

For example let's have a place to download Emacs with
XML Schema Mode implemented, which might require $ 10.
Assume enough people welcome that, who wouldn't care
for that amount. Nonewithstanding it's code will be
free, students and others, who might notice $10, should be
able to get it from the archive. Paying should be a
courtesy, not a requirement.

Think delivering some revenue for contributors might
attract developers, speed up Emacs development process
and interest in.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Andreas

--
https://code.launchpad.net/~a-roehler/python-mode/components-python-mode
https://code.launchpad.net/s-x-emacs-werkstatt/

Re: Emacs-Shop

[David Kastrup]

Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:

> Think delivering some revenue for contributors might
> attract developers, speed up Emacs development process
> and interest in.
>
> What do you think?

Sounds like paying organ donors.  They will never be the same again.

Anyway, Emacs is free software.  If you want to set up an enterprise
like that, there is little enough keeping you from it as long as you
adhere to the GPL.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de>
() Tue, 31 May 2011 14:40:07 +0200

   Some non-free editors are ahead in certain areas,
   because they offer special tailored features.

   [...]

   What do you think?

This brings to mind a recent Emacs Wiki addition in which
it was remarked that Lucid was neat but did not sell:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/NeilSmithline

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 31.05.2011 16:06, schrieb Thien-Thi Nguyen:
> () Andreas Röhler<andreas.roehler@online.de>
> () Tue, 31 May 2011 14:40:07 +0200
>
>     Some non-free editors are ahead in certain areas,
>     because they offer special tailored features.
>
>     [...]
>
>     What do you think?
>
> This brings to mind a recent Emacs Wiki addition in which
> it was remarked that Lucid was neat but did not sell:
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/NeilSmithline
>

yes, but it only tells why Emacs hardly sells themselves.

Didn't propose that. Have a look at the charts to get some impression 
what sells.

So if Emacs is big opera of already Wagnerian scope, why not sell some 
tune from it in order to refund some persons how might need it?

Andreas

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de>
() Tue, 31 May 2011 16:44:21 +0200

   yes, but it only tells why Emacs hardly sells themselves.

Actually, the page doesn't explain why.

   Didn't propose that. Have a look at the charts to get some
   impression what sells.

What charts?

   So if Emacs is big opera of already Wagnerian scope, why not sell some tune
   from it in order to refund some persons how might need it?

To sell alone is not enough.  That's why teachers cry inside.

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 31.05.2011 17:02, schrieb Thien-Thi Nguyen:
> () Andreas Röhler<andreas.roehler@online.de>
> () Tue, 31 May 2011 16:44:21 +0200
>
>     yes, but it only tells why Emacs hardly sells themselves.
>
> Actually, the page doesn't explain why.
>
>     Didn't propose that. Have a look at the charts to get some
>     impression what sells.
>
> What charts?

Britney?

>
>     So if Emacs is big opera of already Wagnerian scope, why not sell some tune
>     from it in order to refund some persons how might need it?
>
> To sell alone is not enough.  That's why teachers cry inside.
>

No teachers, no cry. :)

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Stefan Monnier]

> what about introducing a kind of Emacs-Shop, where
> people may download and even order extensions.

That sounds fine.  I wouldn't enjoy doing it and can't being to imagine
how I (or anyone else) could make it work, so I'm clearly not the right
guy for that job, but if someone else wants to take on the challenge,
I think it can only benefit Emacs.


        Stefan

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 31.05.2011 16:23, schrieb Stefan Monnier:
>> what about introducing a kind of Emacs-Shop, where
>> people may download and even order extensions.
>
> That sounds fine.  I wouldn't enjoy doing it and can't being to imagine
> how I (or anyone else) could make it work, so I'm clearly not the right
> guy for that job, but if someone else wants to take on the challenge,
> I think it can only benefit Emacs.
>
>
>          Stefan
>

Thanks! I'll keep this list on the run, should it take shape.

Andreas

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Antoine Levitt]

31/05/11 14:40, Andreas Röhler
> For example let's have a place to download Emacs with
> XML Schema Mode implemented, which might require $ 10.
> Assume enough people welcome that, who wouldn't care
> for that amount. Nonewithstanding it's code will be
> free, students and others, who might notice $10, should be
> able to get it from the archive. Paying should be a
> courtesy, not a requirement.

So that's basically a donation. There are a few donation systems you can
directly use on your website, https://flattr.com/ being one of them. But
an "emacs-shop" on the model of (say) apple store seems unlikely to go
very far.

I could see some money being made on some kind of standalone org-mode
though - a growing number of people are using emacs just for org.

Re: Emacs-Shop

[David O'Toole]

I hope we can do the reverse and get those other people using Emacs :)

Isn't there already some kind of open market for setting bounties on a
piece of code you want written? maybe it has an elisp section?

> 31/05/11 14:40, Andreas Röhler
> I could see some money being made on some kind of standalone org-mode
> though - a growing number of people are using emacs just for org.

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 31.05.2011 21:00, schrieb David O'Toole:
> I hope we can do the reverse and get those other people using Emacs :)

Lets assume someone wants 'org' - just org.
OK. We deliver an Emacs, which will not open with scratch buffer, but as 
a calender, a task-table or whatever is wanted in that case.

If Emacs opens as org-mode, why not have all the other stuff behind?

It's of importance IMO to take resp. reduce the need of initial 
customization. That's all basically.

>
> Isn't there already some kind of open market for setting bounties  on a
> piece of code you want written? maybe it has an elisp section?
>
>> 31/05/11 14:40, Andreas Röhler
>> I could see some money being made on some kind of standalone org-mode
>> though - a growing number of people are using emacs just for org.
>
>

Re: Emacs-Shop

[Jambunathan K]

Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:

> Hi,

> Some non-free editors are ahead in certain areas,
> because they offer special tailored features.
> Basically Emacs may deliver that likewise - all together
> and finally even better.

I am sure there are buyers (I mean corporate buyers) for source
editors. 'Source Insight' - http://www.sourceinsight.com/ - I suppose is
one such popular editor. I have seen it being used in many of the shop
that I had worked with. I do love that editor. (OK, not all folks are
monogomous!)

I wish Emacs had semantic search capabilities.

For example, when I am on a line like this:

       obj->get()

and search for get, I would very much want the search results be
strictly limited to only the "applicable" classes depending on how obj
is declared. (You know what I mean!) Searching for get accessor using
grep, etags, cscope or ebrowse even will invariably overwhelm the user.

Even though I have not worked on object-oriented code bases extensively,
I had to get past the above wall everytime I had to look at OO code. 

With CEDET I think the situation might have improved wrt context-based
searches. I haven't yet had an excuse to try CEDET.

Furthermore based on my own observation, many of my colleagues use vim
as opposed to Emacs. 

I think there are many challenges wrt selling Emacs to enterprises. When
there are off-the-shelf editors like the one mentioned above that are
readily usable the challenge only becomes much more formidable.

Btw, one common complain about Emacs is that it is difficult to
learn. This is one big lie. The real truth is that people are too lazy
to spend half-a-day of effort training themselves via the tutorial.

So sell Emacs but don't call it Emacs.

There was a mention of viability of selling Orgmode commercially
somewhere in this thread. I was reminded of the following post:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2011-04/msg00173.html

I wonder the seeker found what he sought and got enlightened!

Good luck with your new initiative. I am sure you would no longer say
that you don't have a teacher.

Jambunathan K.


-- 

Emacs-Shop

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Andreas Röhler writes:

 > what about introducing a kind of Emacs-Shop, where
 > people may download and even order extensions.

Feel free to spend your time on it.  But before investing much of
that, look up the history of sourceXchange and coSource.com.