http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/ImageJ-Plugins-shop-tp5018455p5018500.html
> Hi everyone,
>
> There are many different schools of thought on software development and
> deployment, even within open-source software. It is important to keep an
> open mind to other perspectives, and assume best intentions. So first and
> foremost, I implore everyone to maintain a respectful tone in ImageJ
> community discussions.
>
> === Reusable tools are something to strive for ===
>
>> When we develop software tools for ourselves - these tools start out
>> in a form that is useable mostly by yourself. It is usually when we
>> are developing it for our friend/colleague that we care for
>> re-useability. But once we do develop for someone else - the tool
>> quality improves, documentation gets added, the tool gets feature
>> updates and bug-fixes, etc.
>
> This narrative certainly rings true in my experience. The fact of the
> matter is that developing a reusable tool of broad scope is substantially
> (sometimes vastly) more work than developing a one-off tool of limited
> scope. How to fund/accomplish that extra work is often a thorny problem. I
> applaud efforts to do so, because the alternative—a lack of reusable
> tools—is not a good situation.
>
>> We want to build a web-based community of developers and users that
>> benefits from such exchanges.
>
> 100% agreed. That is why we have ImageJ update sites. It is a big reason
> for the existence of ImageJ2. It is why we have the ImageJ wiki (
>
https://imagej.net/), and why I wrote the page
https://imagej.net/> Distribution.
>
> === ImageJ is permissively licensed ===
>
>> We want to enable tools to be - discoverable, re-useable and supported
>> by the author, for a price. Existing media (methods section of a
>> paper, supplementary pages, and methods journals) are unsuitable for
>> this purpose.
>
> ImageJ is funded by taxpayer money, and permissively licensed (
>
https://imagej.net/Licensing). It is available to the community for any and
> all purposes, including commercial ones. From a general,
> non-science-specific perspective, an "app store" for ImageJ extensions
> could be extremely convenient, and could expand the ImageJ community.
>
> === The problem with non-free extensions ===
>
> That said, ImageJ's primary use case is scientific image analysis, and it
> is vital that such analyses be 100% reproducible. Non-free extensions are a
> barrier to that reproducibility. For a detailed rationale, see
>
http://imagej.net/Open_Source and
http://imagej.net/Reproducibility.
>
> === Objections ===
>
> I have two primary objections to imagejplugins.com as presented:
>
> 1) In practice, it would encourage non-free plugins intended for scientific
> analysis, resulting in less reproducible science in our community. Even
> with fully reproducible FOSS, science is still difficult to do well (
>
http://imagej.github.io/presentations/2017-02-16-imagej2-neubias/#/18/2).
>
> 2) One of the primary goals of ImageJ2 is to unify online resources. We
> still need to integrate several major resources onto the primary ImageJ
> site (
https://imagej.net/), including the ImageJ user guide (
>
https://imagej.net/docs/guide/), ImageJ 1.x plugin documentation (
>
https://imagej.net/index.html), and ImageJDocu Wiki (
>
http://imagejdocu.tudor.lu/). A new site imagejplugins.com would be a step
> backward from that. If you want to move forward with an "app store" for
> ImageJ extensions in this vein, I strongly encourage you to gather
> requirements publicly from the community, and work toward some kind of
> central community standard—i.e., something official, supported by the core
> tooling of ImageJ. Yes, it is more work, but it is better for the same
> reasons developing reusable plugins is better.
>
> I also have a third pragmatic objection: implementing the security elements
> necessary to support a payment infrastructure is a lot of effort. The core
> ImageJ or Fiji development teams have neither time nor energy to facilitate
> making it possible, for reasons stated above.
>
> === Ways to fund development of ImageJ extensions ===
>
> Circling back to the broader question: how do we fund development and
> maintenance of reusable ImageJ extensions? There are many possibilities,
> such as:
>
> 1) Consulting—pay for the development, not the code. Several commercial
> entities (companies, consultants, freelancers, etc.) make a living coding
> solutions for clients, including ImageJ extensions [1]. In the typical
> case, the client pays for consulting and/or code development services, and
> the results are then released as open source whenever possible. In my view,
> this is a nice crossroads of commercial and OSS development.
>
> 2) Public funds, such as scientific grants. This is how much of core ImageJ
> and many Fiji plugins are funded. See
http://imagej.net/Funding. I think
> public agencies are (in general) becoming more aware that reusability,
> including continued maintenance, is a necessary piece of the puzzle.
>
> 3) Training courses with registration fees.
>
> 4) Patreon (
https://www.patreon.com/) and similar donation mechanisms.
>
> The main thing to keep in mind is: how to fund the effort, while keeping
> the science reproducible?
>
> In the vein of "pay for the development, not the code," one idea I have
> discussed with other developers is a web-based bounty system for issues.
> Users may pledge money towards issues (i.e. bugs and feature requests) they
> want to see solved. Developers may work on these issues. When work is
> complete, the users confirm that their requirements are met, and the
> payment happens. Of course, there are many nuances, edge cases and pitfalls
> which must be carefully considered for such a scheme to work in practice.
> But these are the sorts of places where there is room for ethical
> innovation that keeps the science open while creating new revenue streams.
>
> Regards,
> Curtis
>
> [1] E.g.: True North Intelligent Algorithms (
http://truenorth-ia.com/) and
> OptiNav (
https://www.optinav.com/imagej-plugins).
>
> --
> Curtis Rueden
> LOCI software architect -
https://loci.wisc.edu/software> ImageJ2 lead, Fiji maintainer -
https://imagej.net/User:Rueden> Did you know ImageJ has a forum?
http://forum.imagej.net/>
>
> On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 3:33 AM, Thomas Boudier <
[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Pushkar,
>>
>> I think there is a big misunderstanding on what you want to do. I f you
>> want to set up a repository of existing plugins, ok, why not, but what for
>> ?. There are aleady many official repositories for plugins, I do not think
>> we need one more. And if you want to create a repository, please ask the
>> plugins developers if they want their plugins to be hosted on your
>> repository.
>>
>> If you want to have commercial activity with ImageJ/Fiji, there is space
>> for this, and the best (and only ?) way to do is to set-up a company and
>> provide programming service to develop custom-made plugins to
>> third-parties.
>>
>> I think the idea of a shop mixing free (and open-source) plugins with paid
>> ones is not a good idea as it is not the ImageJ/Fiji philosophy, so please
>> clarify your intentions.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Thomas
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/04/2017 15:33, pushkarparanjpe wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you for pointing this out.
>>>
>>> Andrei Stefan wrote
>>>
>>>> First, I am a bit confused about who "we" is in Pushkar's emails.
>>>> On Pushkar's web site the google maps location of the "business" is
>>>> located close to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, in a
>>>> residential
>>>> area.
>>>>
>>> Currently, I am operating out of Liverpool, UK. I have updated the default
>>> map location of the website template just now.
>>>
>>>
>>> Andrei Stefan wrote
>>>
>>>> Pushkar, even though your emails seem very well phrased (business
>>>> language)
>>>> in terms of your intentions with this ImageJ plugin "shop", personally I
>>>> am
>>>> not convinced that you shared the true story behind your intentions.
>>>>
>>> I would love to get on a call with you and talk about the motivations for
>>> starting this website. I am writing to you separately to share my mobile
>>> phone number.
>>>
>>> Cheers!
>>> Pushkar
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> View this message in context:
http://imagej.1557.x6.nabble.c>>> om/ImageJ-Plugins-shop-tp5018455p5018485.html
>>> Sent from the ImageJ mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> /***************************************************************/
>> Thomas Boudier, Associate Professor, UPMC,
>> Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.
>> BioInformatics Institute (BII)/IPAL, Singapore.
>> /**************************************************************/
>>
>>
>> --
>> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>>
>
> --
> ImageJ mailing list:
http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/list.html>