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Why are you not charging money for this? At the very least, you should offer a hosted version of this (borrowing the wordpress.com/wordpress.org model would se

Why are you not charging money for this? At the very least, you should offer a hosted version of this (borrowing the wordpress.com/wordpress.org model would seem the best plan) so that non-technical churches could click a button and just have it magically spin up a website and start billing their card every month. Seems a bit silly looking in from the outside that you'd spend seven years building something that's clearly worth selling, then refuse to sell it. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few "church.io hosting" businesses spring up within a week if you don't build that option yourself.

humanrebar 12y ago
There's nothing wrong with giving stuff away for free. Many small churches already have budget problems and phobia of change and technology. But offering a completely optional hosted version is a good idea for churches with more money than technical prowess.
- hnriot 12y ago
  Vatican City the 18th wealthiest nation in the world per capita.
  - shortstuffsushi 12y ago
    The Vatican in no way represents the average. They're about as far an outlier as you're gonna find. The parent comment mentioned specifically small churches with low budget/tech-phobia as well.
    - hnriot 12y ago
      right, but the small churches are franchises just like Taco Bell. They all belong to a bigger church.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Vatican City the 18th wealthiest nation in the world per capita. Per capita stats for the State of Vatican City really don't tell much even about the wealth of the Catholic Church as a church. Its kind of live judging the wealth of the United States by dividing the assets of the federal treasury by the number of people who live in the White House and the US Naval Observatory.
dabernathy89 12y ago
While I don't think he needs to sell it, the hosted option is definitely something to look into. I saw the "Install in the Cloud" option and thought "Oh cool, they'll provision a DO droplet and install this for you!" Unfortunately any church that wants to use this is going to need someone technical enough to handle the installation themselves. That said, it's open source - so anyone (including me!) is free to set this up. edit: apparently at least someone is doing this: http://www.powerchurch.com/products/onebody/ http://www.powerchurch.com/products/onebody/
- sushimako 12y ago
  > I saw the "Install in the Cloud" option > ... > Unfortunately any church that wants to use this is going to need > someone technical enough to handle the installation themselves. I thought it would be awesome if that button would actually (eventually) result in setting up a droplet and installing the software for me. I think sandstorm[0] is going into that direction. I guess one tricky part of such infrastructure would be maintenance. Optimally, a user could spin up a "church.io"-drop (or e.g. "smtp/imap stack + $antispam + mailpile"-drop) and never have to care about any updates. providers can offer subscriptions for regular (curated) updates of each "drop". With such infrastructure in place, the curch-community could click said button, follow through some dialogs, enter a CC and 5 minutes later have their own instance + domain. timmorgan gets paid per install by the infrastructure provider (who profits on the long run through subscription-fees). I think the concepts of unikernels and clive[1] fit well into this picture, by exposing a more concise resource/environment API to the developer and easing deployment (which would be a nice thing, even without the picture painted above). [0] https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ [1] http://lsub.org/ls/clive.html http://lsub.org/ls/clive.html
  - timmorgan 12y ago
    I strongly considered building on DigitalOcean API and doing some sort of pre-built image where I transfer it to the customer or something. I'm interested in Sandstorm -- will check it out!
    - 12y ago
timmorgan 12y ago
Glory to God! :-) It's just my passion. I really hope someone does build this as a slick hosted service. I don't do well dealing with customers :-)
- hangonhn 12y ago
  It's lovely to see someone make something beautiful and useful for the sake of his own love and passion. We may not share the same love or passion but I admire your spirit.
- dopamean 12y ago
  I like this honesty. Do what you love. If you love writing code and not dealing with business and selling stuff then write code and don't go into business. PS. Nice app.
- sdreyesghn 12y ago
  Doing all of this based in your faith, conviction and altruism is admirable. you have my respect.
- JPKab 12y ago
  Good for you man. But just realize that sadly, many churches operate as businesses where the pastor and his family just pocket tithes for their lifestyle and build fancy LED signs instead of giving to the poor......
  - xanderstrike 12y ago
    Some do, most don't.
  - billjings 12y ago
    Churches, like people, are better understood in concrete instances than in abstract declarations.
  - bduerst 12y ago
    I think this is a common misconception. While I am sure there are outliers as with any normalized distribution, the mean salary for clergy is about $45k/yr (according to the US BLS).
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Seems a bit silly looking in from the outside that you'd spend seven years building something that's clearly worth selling, then refuse to sell it. Building something that fits your needs and releasing it to others as open source rather than setting up a business to sell it is, if "silly", a common form of silliness without which there wouldn't be much open source software at all.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"Why are you not charging money for this?" Just because we're posting in a temple of Mammon doesn't mean everybody has to bow at that altar.
- gknoy 12y ago
  It it bowing at the altar of Mammon to have a career? (An honest question, as I'm not sure what your or Tim's take on that is.) I believe that there's room for being able to make a comfortable income out of something like this, without making the money the priority. Tim could choose look at it not as "I'm getting rich!", and instead as "This is a way for me to sustainably build something I love and ensure that my users can get reliable updates, because I can do this for my career instead of working at {CompanyX}." One could likely even charter it as a business where outside a regular salary, the remainder of any profits get donated back (or costs reduced). It's __certainly__ more trouble than giving it away for free, as you'd need an accountant and worry about taxes. On the other hand, if this is a service that you feel every church deserves good access to if they want it, being able to work full-time on it might make it happen more easily. As for the churches, I'm sure that many of them pay for services that they feel are worth it. Landscaping, maintenance, etc, are not always something that every church can do in-house, and this service sounds like it falls into the bin of "things people would pay for".
  - maerF0x0 12y ago
    As well he could take the "expand my territory" bent implying that the more funds applied, the more churches could have this, the more churches that have this the better the 'kingdom of God' or whathaveyou

humanrebar 12y ago

There's nothing wrong with giving stuff away for free. Many small churches already have budget problems and phobia of change and technology. But offering a completely optional hosted version is a good idea for churches with more money than technical prowess.

hnriot 12y ago
Vatican City the 18th wealthiest nation in the world per capita.
- shortstuffsushi 12y ago
  The Vatican in no way represents the average. They're about as far an outlier as you're gonna find. The parent comment mentioned specifically small churches with low budget/tech-phobia as well.
  - hnriot 12y ago
    right, but the small churches are franchises just like Taco Bell. They all belong to a bigger church.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Vatican City the 18th wealthiest nation in the world per capita. Per capita stats for the State of Vatican City really don't tell much even about the wealth of the Catholic Church as a church. Its kind of live judging the wealth of the United States by dividing the assets of the federal treasury by the number of people who live in the White House and the US Naval Observatory.

dabernathy89 12y ago

While I don't think he needs to sell it, the hosted option is definitely something to look into. I saw the "Install in the Cloud" option and thought "Oh cool, they'll provision a DO droplet and install this for you!" Unfortunately any church that wants to use this is going to need someone technical enough to handle the installation themselves. That said, it's open source - so anyone (including me!) is free to set this up. edit: apparently at least someone is doing this: http://www.powerchurch.com/products/onebody/ http://www.powerchurch.com/products/onebody/

sushimako 12y ago
> I saw the "Install in the Cloud" option > ... > Unfortunately any church that wants to use this is going to need > someone technical enough to handle the installation themselves. I thought it would be awesome if that button would actually (eventually) result in setting up a droplet and installing the software for me. I think sandstorm[0] is going into that direction. I guess one tricky part of such infrastructure would be maintenance. Optimally, a user could spin up a "church.io"-drop (or e.g. "smtp/imap stack + $antispam + mailpile"-drop) and never have to care about any updates. providers can offer subscriptions for regular (curated) updates of each "drop". With such infrastructure in place, the curch-community could click said button, follow through some dialogs, enter a CC and 5 minutes later have their own instance + domain. timmorgan gets paid per install by the infrastructure provider (who profits on the long run through subscription-fees). I think the concepts of unikernels and clive[1] fit well into this picture, by exposing a more concise resource/environment API to the developer and easing deployment (which would be a nice thing, even without the picture painted above). [0] https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ [1] http://lsub.org/ls/clive.html http://lsub.org/ls/clive.html
- timmorgan 12y ago
  I strongly considered building on DigitalOcean API and doing some sort of pre-built image where I transfer it to the customer or something. I'm interested in Sandstorm -- will check it out!
  - 12y ago

timmorgan 12y ago

Glory to God! :-) It's just my passion. I really hope someone does build this as a slick hosted service. I don't do well dealing with customers :-)

hangonhn 12y ago
It's lovely to see someone make something beautiful and useful for the sake of his own love and passion. We may not share the same love or passion but I admire your spirit.
dopamean 12y ago
I like this honesty. Do what you love. If you love writing code and not dealing with business and selling stuff then write code and don't go into business. PS. Nice app.
sdreyesghn 12y ago
Doing all of this based in your faith, conviction and altruism is admirable. you have my respect.
JPKab 12y ago
Good for you man. But just realize that sadly, many churches operate as businesses where the pastor and his family just pocket tithes for their lifestyle and build fancy LED signs instead of giving to the poor......
- xanderstrike 12y ago
  Some do, most don't.
- billjings 12y ago
  Churches, like people, are better understood in concrete instances than in abstract declarations.
- bduerst 12y ago
  I think this is a common misconception. While I am sure there are outliers as with any normalized distribution, the mean salary for clergy is about $45k/yr (according to the US BLS).

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Seems a bit silly looking in from the outside that you'd spend seven years building something that's clearly worth selling, then refuse to sell it. Building something that fits your needs and releasing it to others as open source rather than setting up a business to sell it is, if "silly", a common form of silliness without which there wouldn't be much open source software at all.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

"Why are you not charging money for this?" Just because we're posting in a temple of Mammon doesn't mean everybody has to bow at that altar.

gknoy 12y ago
It it bowing at the altar of Mammon to have a career? (An honest question, as I'm not sure what your or Tim's take on that is.) I believe that there's room for being able to make a comfortable income out of something like this, without making the money the priority. Tim could choose look at it not as "I'm getting rich!", and instead as "This is a way for me to sustainably build something I love and ensure that my users can get reliable updates, because I can do this for my career instead of working at {CompanyX}." One could likely even charter it as a business where outside a regular salary, the remainder of any profits get donated back (or costs reduced). It's __certainly__ more trouble than giving it away for free, as you'd need an accountant and worry about taxes. On the other hand, if this is a service that you feel every church deserves good access to if they want it, being able to work full-time on it might make it happen more easily. As for the churches, I'm sure that many of them pay for services that they feel are worth it. Landscaping, maintenance, etc, are not always something that every church can do in-house, and this service sounds like it falls into the bin of "things people would pay for".
- maerF0x0 12y ago
  As well he could take the "expand my territory" bent implying that the more funds applied, the more churches could have this, the more churches that have this the better the 'kingdom of God' or whathaveyou