Just want to check this with our members before making it official, but here's the new plan:
Withdrawal of current version of Caribou to be replaced with a slightly cut-down version.
All WordPress themes to be licensed under the GPL compatible WTFPL and freely available to download.
One price only access for support and assistance for six months (likely to be around the £30/$50 mark).
More sophisticated, non-GPL items available by direct order from Interconnect IT (the Spectacu.la parent company) on an individual and per-case basis. Consider that to be consulting and service related work with SLAs and the like, rather than ad-hoc forum support which comes on Spectacu.la
Members who paid up to the Intermediate level of membership will be changed free of charge.
Members who paid for the levels above will be refunded the difference.
All this is as a result of the recent blow-up over the WordPress.org repository and how we perceive business risks. We believe that with the deepening integration of WordPress.org's repositories into the WordPress product there's a big risk that third parties who don't play by Matt Mullenweg's rules stand a big chance of being frozen out of the market. We were only just getting started when the great withdrawal occurred, at which point we'd invested quite a lot which we're nowhere near close to recouping. But it left our three year plan in tatters.
It means that Spectacu.la can no longer provide themes with any sense of exclusivity about them, but there's nothing to stop you approaching us (or another designer) to do this for you.
Investment into Spectacu.la will be reduced, somewhat, but we'll still be filtering some of our great tech developed for clients into it, along with a license that grants even more freedom than the GPL - the WTFPL v2 - I suggest you look it up... it's the simplest and best free license you can find!
We'll be implementing these changes in the coming month or two.
As a business Interconnect IT's primary focus is to continue with corporates and to investigate the leverage of web technology such as WordPress in that sphere - Spectacu.la will be as much a showcase for our talents as a business in its own right. If it makes a profit, great! But profit is no longer the primary driver behind Spectacu.la - great themes will continue to be, however, even if investment is reduced slightly.
Whaddaya think?
