Right.
But did you know? (Didinò) it was done already?
It has been done already by Steve and his students at SunyPoly.
Backgound: https://groups.google.com/g/designwrite/c/m4hbRwIQUTg/m/AIx2QiCHCAAJ and this TW: sunypoly-cushinj-project.
How to actually PROMOTE such things?
Did you know they existed?
Vorrei sapere.
Thoughts, TT
Kickstart what?
Just wondering.
TT
Until the founder dies from lack of support.
What you overlook (avoid?) is the “free” is still written by someone’s sweat.
Basta. No more on this.
TN
@TiddlyTweeter Don’t get me wrong. But the days of shareware are long gone and you won’t be able to bring them buy. I had bought some shareware in those times. But eventually all those sofware disappeared. It was not very succesful either.
So yes we need to find a way to fund the development, but newcomers would surely look elsewhere if what I call a greedy software is what they perceive. The successful author that get a reghular flux of patreons and alike do offer a service that their core users find useful and not too expensive.
Finding your software fits to one’s needs is the big problem. To be sure of that, you want to try free first. that’s what I say. Then being convinced it’s your best interest to support the project is not the result of a trivial process. Both steps are needed.
https://www.kickstarter.com could be used to launch a project for an implemçentation in tw of a tool that could be useful for subscribers, or for a new functionality in tw.
for instance, being able to interact easily with a database.
@TiddlyTweeter No, I did not know.
It would help if a howto was made to explain how it was tecnically mad possible, especially about the use of svg, which is impressive.
but this would not provide the viral impact we’re looking after.
a youtube channel perhaps? The difficulty would be to have it run regularly.
I strongly reject any subscription based services. not ethical. incite to monthly donation if you will, don’t request it, don’t mess with that kind of things. The net is great. Really free software will take the place of greedy software.
A subscription-based model would be the right path else, all these ideals will starve the creator to death. TW is already 18 years old, how long will the trial be?
Without getting into a division between your points of view.
I kinda agree with both of you. In different ways.
In contemplating “Subscription” one likely needs consider “Subscription To What?”
An optional route to …
Q3a: “It is still a mystery to me how any open source projects can earn money.”
A3a : The idea here is that you provide a “Subscription Package” that includes hosting, basic user support and layout variants.
You get the idea?
An option; not a requirement???
I’m sorta interested what @simon, maintainer of our most used hosting services, so far freebie, might think.
Just an initial comment
TT
I like that idea ! Inkscape, which is a free and open source vector drawing software, has something like that: Inkscape’s Spreadshirt Shop offers mugs, totes, sweats & tees | Inkscape
With the discussion of whether or not a subscription model should be implemented made me want to comment on what I’ve seen with other arguably more publicly known software going this same route of free to paid.
The best example I can give that anyone with some experience as a digital artist will know is a software called Clip Studio Paint, which, while not free- is trying to transition from a one time payment to a subscription model, and the community backlash was fairly large. (partially due to CSP’s broken promises and dishonesty, but that’s a discussion for another time, and unrelated to this topic.)
For users of TiddlyWiki that Don’t want to have to subscribe for the use of TiddlyWiki, I’d still like to recommend it be considered so we don’t starve the artist, so to speak, here (with Jeremy being the artist in this metaphor.)
Rather, I think the company Jeremy runs should have alternative methods of making income that work alongside tiddlywiki.
Something of a combination of Talk.TiddlyWiki and TiddlyHost where a free account is needed to download TiddlyWiki and communicate with the forum, and a subscription would be used for hosting, keeping backups, and multi-user running of tiddlywiki’s, as well as maybe having the option to contract other users for help with tiddlywiki’s, where all the proceeds would go towards TiddlyWiki.
This opens up the possibility of all tiddlywiki being in one spot and accessible to the community, and maybe have their own discussion areas for their plugins and features, and maybe users can even purchase them if the creator feels it necessary to put a price tag on it, with maybe a hosting fee for the plugin going back to Jeremy since it’s being hosted there.
This way, free users can still use alternative methods of hosting their TW without subscribing and interact with the community, such as GitHub, but the convenience of something like Tiddlyhost would provide a steady income for Jeremy to keep afloat financially when he doesn’t have an active client.
Now, would it be possible for Jeremy to purchase TiddlyHost, move tiddlywiki to it and create something like Talk.TiddlyWiki on it and improve upon that? I don’t know- that’s a big-big order, but I feel like it would ultimately be the best course of action.
(Another way of making income could be integrating said subscriptions with the usage of an app for android of apple that is actively maintained to work with TiddlyWiki, but that’s also a whole heck of a lot of work.)
Keep in mind a subscription is a method not a particular case. You can have any thing for free and subscribe for bespoke support with response time garentees or a subscription donation. Or subscription hosting etc…
Yea, that’s a good point.
I imagined some users might see it as either or, like I did for awhile, and feel completely turned off to the idea of anything subscription based for tiddlywiki, since nowadays everything has some sort of subscription tied to it, and has left a bit of a bad impression on a large amount of people, myself included unfortunately.
So I wanted to offer up my masterplan, so to speak- mostly in hopes of it sparking some ideas from others 
Also keep in mind that there are many secondary functions that are required for any subscription service.
Consider:
Unless these activities are all outsourced to one or more 3rd-parties, they will each take time and attention away from Jeremy’s focus on developing and maintaining the TiddlyWiki codebase and feature set. In the long run, it will probably mean hiring at least one other person to provide these services (or to oversee the 3rd-party outsourced handling).
-e
That is a lot for a single person to handle alone, I can absolutely agree there. I know I wouldn’t be able to manage that. Welp, my masterplan has quite a few holes in it, it seems haha
IMO the simplest and best thing that could be done right now is put a donate/support button in the top nav of https://tiddlywiki.com/, on the github page and maybe add a dedicated section in the settings of an empty wiki. So very few people ever heard of TiddlyWikiDotOrg - Open Collective, it’s not even mentioned at all on the official website!
I’ve always thought TW would do well as a VLE for schools and colleges as, in my experience, they are often clunky unwieldy bits of software which are very modal, ie you can find student details in THIS list but NOT from this other list in this other part of the system. I suspect however, that there is a lot of competition in the sector as well as a lot of inertia in changing systems. Wish I had a contact for you @jeremyruston! Hope something turns up.
Edit: VLE Virtual Learning Environment. Less fancy than it sounds. Software for keeping resources/ files/ links for students. Setting assignments etc. https://moodle.org/ is a much used tool, Google classroom or indeed Microsoft teams for education are other examples… Can also be the software used for registers/ commenting/ tracking reporting. Often ends up split into several bits of software that don’t always talk to each other, eg. moodle and Prosuite or bits of it.
Great points! All true.
Just my thought, there is, I think, inevitably, a scaling up needed for any subscription service to work well.
TT
Right!
This brings me on to …
Certainly TiddlyWiki.com is AMAZING for the depth of it’s self documentation.
I do wonder if we are giving away “The Crown Jewels” far too easily, too early?
Compare that to Roam frontage, which is just …
Sign Up or forget it.
Just a comment, TT
Yeah. I hate those kind of pages. And I’m not alone. There was a study awhile back showing that people would rather go clean a toilet/w.c. than come up with yet another login/password.
