Forums  ›  General  ›  General discussions
 

Predictions please!

 

You could also possibly offer install services, technical paid services and of course modification to modules.

Most of the Boonex 3rd party modules contain a clause that prohibits the module(s) being modified by third parties.  Someone like Deano can modify a module at the request of the licensed user, but it must be done on a one-on-one basis.

On the other hand, a module can be used virtually anywhere, but only in one application. No crime has been committed when module license owners modify a boonex module to work with Cheetah, thus the Cheetah conversion script is legal. 

* IMPORTANT: This is a commercial product made by Modzzz and cannot be modified for other than personal use. 

* This product cannot be redistributed for free or a fee without written permission from Modzzz.

 

replaced with an improved version 2.0.0 running under PHP 8, I would want to follow that path. However, I'm using four or five 3rd party modules I consider essential and if they won't work with version 2.0.0, I'll be stuck.

Even tho i will be making sure Cheetah will run under PHP8, it will still also maintain backwards compatibility with PHP7 as well. It even can still currently run under the last version of PHP5. So if needed, the latest version of Cheetah could still be used on a older version of PHP if required.

As far as income. I am no longer concerned about making any serious income with Cheetah. Reaching a point where i can make up the difference between what i will receive when i retire and what a normal full time job would get will be sufficient for me. I have no desire to make a ton of money with this. Only what i need.

I am going to be doing several things. Selling modules is one route, and also a premium membership on the site here as well which will provide access to other features such as modules that would normally require a subscription to a 3'rd party service for the module to work or running a special server to make the module work. Example would be a node.js server. Chat modules with audio and video support would require node.js. Some people find setting stuff like that up to be to complex, so i will offer node.js services to premium members. Things such as that.

You could also possibly offer install services, technical paid services and of course modification to modules. If someone doesn't have the knowhow to do any of these things, would easily pay to have goals accomplished.

Hopefully a few of these people will come in time. When I started my first site many years ago, people slowly came out of the woodwork to help with the graphics and moderation.  The 80-20 rule will apply here like anywhere else. Eighty percent of the people will sit back and enjoy while twenty percent will do the work. That's the way it's always been.

Documenting a script like Cheetah won't be easy and I've spent dozens of hours trying to work out the best way to do it. I've decided to develop a site from scratch and document it. With that in mind, I've already taken dozens of screen shots for either a book, or Youtube series (probably both), but I've been holding off for the reasons you mentioned in your last post in this thread:

I even will accept a template developer to take on the template which will have to wait as i have plans to change the core CSS and JS framework at some point which will affect that.

I need some kind of time-frame to determine whether the documentation created today will be obsolete in a year's time. The overall look and feel of Dolphin didn't change in five years, so any documentation written five years ago would still be useful for Cheetah today. However, this would not be the case if big changes are planned.

I've been involved with Dolphin for many years and more people have given up using it  because basic documentation was never produced. We can't afford to allow that to happen here.

The big question is: How many people on this site would benefit from documentation? Judging by the technical questions asked thus far, I would say none. That's not a huge incentive to spend hundreds of hours preparing it.

I will start another thread to address this question when I get home tonight.

 

We must keep in mind that Deano was the only person with the programming experience necessary to step forward and take the reigns, but there are a lot of clever people out there with marketing, web design and media experience.

Exactly, there are. And i don't have any problems with that. I am more then willing to work with others to a certain degree. For example, i don't want multiple fingers poking around in the same pie. I am working on the core and that will remain my task. No other coders. I however am willing to let others work on maintaining the modules for Cheetah. But again the same rule would apply. No more that one developers hands in any given module.

Also i am and still looking for those willing to write documentation. I even will accept a template developer to take on the template which will have to wait as i have plans to change the core CSS and JS framework at some point which will affect that. But i also would like Cheetah to have it's own unique icon set as well, so a good graphic artist would be a big help too.

And yes, as a result of the recent tragedy, i will be formulating a plan for someone else to get the keys for this project if something should happen to me. Geek-Girl would have been my first choice to pass this on to. Sadly no longer a option. So i will need to search for others.

I may have an idea to help GG sister and husband.

 

One concern I have for solo projects is succession planning and availability; especially in the event of tragedy and loss as we've recently experienced.

This concern has been raised before and it's one that also concerns me. Speaking frankly if I can, we've already seen a considerable delay in progress because of Deano's family concerns. This must be tolerated when a project is developed by one person and I'm in a similar state with my laser cutting projects due to recent health issues.

However, if the project was team driven, others could take up the slack and keep the ball rolling. This was also a concern of Geek_Girl and we spoke about it quite a bit when Boonex announced Dolphin's demise.

We must keep in mind that Deano was the only person with the programming experience necessary to step forward and take the reigns, but there are a lot of clever people out there with marketing, web design and media experience.

I always remind myself of a guy named Harold  Ponce-de-Leon who single-handed, developed an eCommerce script called osCommerce. It was a great script, but Harold literally ran out of steam and the project languished. It was eventually forked by a team of programmers and named Zen Cart. It went on to become the best free shopping cart script out there and it's still considered better than anything commercially available. 

That was a wake-up call for Harold and he also took on a team to help him regain web prominence.  He was relatively successful to the point where both scripts are a force to be reckoned with. 

A similar battle is going on with Buddypress and BuddyBoss for the Wordpress platform.

I have a serious problem accepting that one person can develop a free core while others develop plugins or modules that cost a fortune. I honestly believe those people should contribute 50% of their earnings to the core developer to encourage him to continue. This is what killed Dolphin. Boonex was supplying a free car and the 3rd party developers were charging a fortune for the fuel. I have over AU$1,000 worth of third party modules, but all Boonex ever got from me was $5 to join their forum. 

Getting back to your problem @Kalstok, it will become increasingly harder to upgrade. If you have a large membership, maybe you can create a CSV file of the data and transfer it to the new site, but stuff like photos, videos etc may be more trouble than they're worth. Geek_Girl mentioned this recently and I can vouch for it. I actually ended up moving everything over manually and it's not as hard as you think.

A colleague had a site with 800 members and he didn't upgrade for several years. I did it for him and it took me almost a year to get the site running properly.

I just purchased a Profile convertor (mover) from Modzzz. I haven't tried it, but it converts all profiles to a CSV file which you can append to a database with free software out there. Moving photos, blogs and videos is another story.

Unless you have a heap of money, asking a third party  to do it is probably out of the question. Maybe you could simply develop a parallel Cheetah site and ask your members to upgrade. There's nothing like a clean slate.

Good luck. 

I would be inclined to wait for a version of Cheetah that is compatible with PHP 8. I'm currently on PHP 5.6 with Dolphin 7.3. I would likely need to do a manual transfer to Cheetah because I'm on an older version of Dolphin and I accept that some of the third party modules I have purchased with Dolphin may not work with PHP 8 or Cheetah and that the platform is the priority before modules/apps are introduced. There's no doubt I would have hired GG to help me as I had done in the past. However, I need to somehow find another way forward. Deano is clearly passionate about providing a platform for communities to help bring people with common interests together and I appreciate his candid responses here. I like the idea of a blog, even if entries are brief, so that we can see progress. One concern I have for solo projects is succession planning and availability; especially in the event of tragedy and loss as we've recently experienced.

 

The Clients would have a interest in G_G's estate, but the sister and husband could be held responsible if they accidentally destroy some person's hard work.  There are plenty of people who can help - for a fee. I live in a small town of 140,000 and there are at least ten hosting companies that I know of. There's probably twice that amount that I don't know of. Hosting is a saturated and competitive business. As you say, it's not something you can probably help with, but your site(s) are no doubt important to you.

Oh of course but they won't, they are nice people. As for hosting i don't know.

The Clients would have a interest in G_G's estate, but the sister and husband could be held responsible if they accidentally destroy some person's hard work.  There are plenty of people who can help - for a fee. I live in a small town of 140,000 and there are at least ten hosting companies that I know of. There's probably twice that amount that I don't know of. Hosting is a saturated and competitive business. As you say, it's not something you can probably help with, but your site(s) are no doubt important to you.

 

 

They r really trying but they r not computer savvy.

That in itself could be very dangerous. I have no idea how big Geek_Girl's client base was, but the situation needs to be handled by someone with server experience. G_G may have charged people in advance and the family may find themselves repaying people if the sites can't be maintained. Someone familiar with servers should be able to replace passwords and recover sites. My experience is very limited, but I do it all the time.

The sister and husband will not be held responsible because there was no partnership. They r trying to be nice and help those that can not have access. However, with what you suggested i thought of the same, but who? I know she was doing a lot for her clients cause we would be on the phone and she would tell me about her projects, but who can and would be able to take on that responsibility, I only dealt with her. I don't know who to ask.

 

They r really trying but they r not computer savvy.

That in itself could be very dangerous. I have no idea how big Geek_Girl's client base was, but the situation needs to be handled by someone with server experience. G_G may have charged people in advance and the family may find themselves repaying people if the sites can't be maintained. Someone familiar with servers should be able to replace passwords and recover sites. My experience is very limited, but I do it all the time.

The concept of Premium Membership is a great way of raising funds. One item you could add as a premium membership offering is "Code Snippets". An example being your snippet to put check boxes into two columns. This could be extended to do the same with radio buttons.

I'm sure you already have several snippets left over from Deano's Tools, but there's heaps out there. One example being the Random Cover which you incorporated into Version 1.2.0. I have another on my Demo site which needs tweeking:

Slideshow for the Home Page cover.  https://digital-junction.com/demo/

I spoke with her sister today and shared some personal info regarding GG with sister. Till today i'm still in disbelief. Her sister and husband r lost regarding GG clients. Unfortunately many of her clients did not save their login credentials after GG gave it to them. Her sister is trying to match many login credentials with certain clients websites or servers. They r really trying but they r not computer savvy. GG will never be forgotten!

Thanks for those updates Deano. They're very reassuring, but I believe we need more bums on seats even at this early stage. I've been holding back on documentation which I offered to participate in, purely because the numbers aren't there to encourage me to make the effort. I sometimes think you must feel the same way, but the question is: "What comes first? The car or the road?" Cheetah can work without documentation, but having some documentation in front of you would make life easier.

Although it has nothing to do with me, I'd love to see 200 members on this forum and 50 plus downloads of Cheetah. We're looking down a huge hole with Geek_Girl no longer being with us, but it's a hole that needs to be filled as quickly as possible. I'm sure she was maintaining a number of sites for a number of people and those people may need someone to help them. Oddly, there haven't been any calls for assistance, or server requests since she left us and I wonder how those people are coping.

One way of keeping this site viable may be if you could post weekly updates or antidotes like the ones in this thread. A blog may even be worth considering. That way, we'll know you're still out there and the project is moving forward.

I read about a program called Rector

I just took a look at that. Looks like it might be quite useful. I am going to need to check that out more closely.

replaced with an improved version 2.0.0 running under PHP 8, I would want to follow that path. However, I'm using four or five 3rd party modules I consider essential and if they won't work with version 2.0.0, I'll be stuck.

Even tho i will be making sure Cheetah will run under PHP8, it will still also maintain backwards compatibility with PHP7 as well. It even can still currently run under the last version of PHP5. So if needed, the latest version of Cheetah could still be used on a older version of PHP if required.

As far as income. I am no longer concerned about making any serious income with Cheetah. Reaching a point where i can make up the difference between what i will receive when i retire and what a normal full time job would get will be sufficient for me. I have no desire to make a ton of money with this. Only what i need.

I am going to be doing several things. Selling modules is one route, and also a premium membership on the site here as well which will provide access to other features such as modules that would normally require a subscription to a 3'rd party service for the module to work or running a special server to make the module work. Example would be a node.js server. Chat modules with audio and video support would require node.js. Some people find setting stuff like that up to be to complex, so i will offer node.js services to premium members. Things such as that.

I read about a program called Rector which is supposed to convert PHP 7 to PHP 8, but I'm guessing there's more to it than that. Although I'm using Cheetah 1.3.0, it's still in Beta and as far as I'm aware, it's still being developed as a PHP7 script even though PHP 7 is about to become unsupported.  

I'm running a free community site, but my hope is for it to still be around long after I'm incapable of maintaining it. If 1.3.0 is eventually released, but quickly replaced with an improved version 2.0.0 running under PHP 8, I would want to follow that path. However, I'm using four or five 3rd party modules I consider essential and if they won't work with version 2.0.0, I'll be stuck.

Somehow I wouldn't get my hopes up about the 3rd party module purveyors supporting Cheetah in the near future.  This is something I think you're going to be stuck with and as I've said before, it's also a possible way of deriving an income:

Build the free core with basic modules and sell advanced or new modules. Provided they're cheap enough and not like some Wordpress modules that sell for hundreds of dollars a year, this could be the best way to move Cheetah forward.

As far as a possible income stream is concerned,  I'm wondering if you're considering going down the same path as Dolphin and Oxwall, where the public version was manipulated by the needs of the "bulk" users, being large porn and dating site owners.  This is why Boonex often took little notice of Dolphin users and Oxwall eventually folded.

Unknown. However I can say this.

In 3 to 4 months i plan to drop the need for paid licenses in Cheetah. I will be working on other methods to raise funds for Cheetah. Without a requirement for paid licenses i am hoping it will begin to attract more attention and perhaps some attention from past dolphin module developers who may be willing to assist with helping get these older modules working on php8.

Also, i do not reach full retirement age for another 9 years. I however will not be waiting that long. I made the decision last month that i will be taking early retirement in 4 years so i can spend more time on this project. This should give me additional time to help with such things.

And i also would like to build some of those modules capabilities into Cheetah or provide other cheetah modules that can at least replace some of those features.

I don't expect php7 will disappear anytime soon. So holding off for 5 years maybe, but 10, not likely.

Most of our members are probably running Cheetah with 3rd party Dolphin modules that are no longer being supported by the vendors. 

With PHP7 coming to an end, it's already been quoted on this forum that those modules are unlikely to run under PHP8. 

For those of us using these third-party modules, it would seem that we will be committed to using a version of Cheetah that works with PHP 7 for as long as we can, or find someone to upgrade our modules. to work with PHP 8.

The question is this: How long can we reasonably expect to run a PHP 7 version of Cheetah and our current modules before the system completely fails?

It's a question that concerns me, because I've invested a lot of time and money into the now defunct Dolphin and the several modules I'm running on my site.

We hear of people still running Dolphin 7.3 and earlier, assumedly with PHP 5.6 which hasn't been supported for years. 

Therefore, is it likely that a site running with Cheetah 1.3.0 could still be functionable in 5 or 10 years time?