BuddyPress.org

As a developer I agree and understand gregfielding and foxly. It is though for developers to promote an open and active development enviroment along side paid subscriptions. Developers are far and between in regards to BuddyPress in comparison with the demand from users in the forums for features. Just look at how many post come with “What I would like in BuddyPress”, however contribution to third party plugins is ever so often.

It would be good for developers to contribute to each other and stimulate open source. Subscription fees don’t allow that, because another developer is not going to shell out money. So just merely to argue the point between paid and non-paid. Paid works fine for demand and users, but on the flip side it damages open source development and developer collaboration.

However, I do think in the last few months more developers have joined the bp community, which is good.

Paid subscription also doesn’t necessarily mean quality. Nothing in regards to Brajesh intent or skill or longevity that I know off, but I have been burned before by paying for software and never getting support and the product being abandoned. However, if the team is good, then it can also mean better quality, but free open source can be just as good or better or worse. It is no measure.

So from a developer standpoint I agree with foxly and gregfielding, but from a user demand perspective I can understand you have needs and wont mind paying for it. It fills a need, but it doesn’t help the open source community, which is what we are.

Can they co-exist? Probably, but in a perfect world, duplication should be prevented and collaboration should be encouraged.

Ps. I wrote this just to share my thoughts, I have no intend to fuel either fire or take sides, just discussing the issue at hand.