Update on Composr, myself, and the future

Composr v11 has effectively been in developer-led beta testing for a few months now. There are a few rough spots that need my attention, hence "effectively", but it's close enough to being true. Patrick Schmalstig has been doing an excellent job finishing off some of the things, and then doing a lot of testing and bug fixing. My primary focus has been enabling Patrick. Composr v11 will be far more stable than any Composr release to date. I am very grateful to Patrick who has taken on a role that fell through with the developer that preceded them.

It has been an extremely difficult few years for me, which I have previously discussed but I now need to discuss more. Adapting from a simple monk-like life in the north of the UK where I've looked after Composr and clients, and had enough income to pay bills - to a life as a US family-man (husband, Dad, doer of all the DIY etc) - has been extremely difficult. But more than normal I'd say. I've had a lot of problems to solve that I never saw coming, like things breaking or being more complex they should have been a couple of times a week for years. And, I've been chronically ill for years, getting worse over time. I had been struggling to narrow down the cause of headaches, tiredness, coughs, etc, having been misdiagnosed years ago as having stress. Well, actually, no not at all. My septum is severely deviated and over time this has led to some big problems in my nose. One of my sinuses is now completely sealed off now, and is a reservoir for bacteria that can't drain- so every time I get a bacterial infection, I get infections lasting months, and suffer very poor quality sleep making me something of a zombie some days. Right now I am on a 21-day strong course of antibiotics to treat the symptoms (which I can go back to any time now that I know the cause), and a whole cocktail of other medications to get through each night. Finally I now have it fully diagnosed and have a simple surgery to remedy it, booked for April. All this peaking while having the responsibility of looking after a baby, with an insomniac wife. And a UK family emergency recently that I won't go into.

It's been super-hard, and explains why Composr v11 has been super-late.

I've also known for quite some time the whole funding/development situation behind Composr CMS was untenable. In fact it has led to a lot of very tardy responses to people in recent years that I can only apologise for. I was always willing to pay myself less than the market rate as a developer (despite me now being nearly 40) to keep Composr CMS funded and developed. That wasn't the plan, but developer costs have skyrocketed, and income inequality has gone up. The truth is very small businesses and individuals cannot pay ocProducts the rate needed for me to hire new top developers with experience and degrees, and institute proper training programmes for them, while also accounting for the funding of Composr CMS development. The model is just unworkable at this point.

Where I'm from (Yorkshire) we like to be honest about things, and me in particular because a lot of the problems I've had in my life stem from people either implicitly or explicitly lying about things, I want people to see reality for what it is. Most other Open Source developers would just disappear quietly into the night, let their projects die, and nobody would know why. That happens all the time. I want other Open Source developers to see this, and learn a lesson. (And I'm not disappearing either.)

I have all the costs and burdens related to an American family who expect a good life, I have health care costs for myself (no free UK healthcare for me anymore). My financial runway came to an end. So, I'll be starting a new job in 10 days as a senior programmer for a silicon valley company (not one of the evil ones). I was interviewing with companies in January, which some people know about but I didn't want to discuss until now. I won't be discussing the specifics of my new job here - it will be strictly firewalled.

I can't help but feel very bittersweet about it. I will soon be starting an amazing job that almost anyone would be jealous of. But I have failed an almost-20-year mission to build a robust company to manage the needs of regular people wanting complex websites. I have (with help from others) created an amazing free product, which will continue to be developed and improved with time. I have never compromised on my principles; in particular I didn't corrupt my mission to 'help the little guy' by taking on investment like the most well known CMSs did. I don't now run an Open Source company that had to expand (to meet investor demands) by buying out and maintaining Closed Source products. I don't run an Open Source company owned by a private equity fund. We aren't funded by the US Military. We stick to our principles here. I've suffered for that, but I'm also very proud of it. That felt good to burn a few successful competing products for a moment, haha.

Composr v11 really is coming. Anyone can try it out on Git. I'm not going to release a product that doesn't match our standards, so no it's still not done. If I have to keep paying Patrick out of my silicon valley megadollars, so be it. Whatever it takes to get a high quality product out there that meets its goals.

I haven't publicly discussed it, except to some degree on the tracker, but there is a transition plan, and there has been for a long time - as I've known for a long time that the ocProducts business model to funding and managing Composr CMS could not continue anymore (and was also problematic as it disincentivises third-party contribution). Now is not the time to go into detail there, but in essence it will be run very similar to a DAO, democratically but based on how many points people have (more points = more control and influence). A democratic free-market system that promotes quality-work - as opposed to a centralised system (what exists now), or creative chaos (most Open Source projects). Composr will be reborn into a new phase of life through this, I have a lot of faith in it. The code is all implementing for this as a part of v11, but the legwork actually transitioning to it still needs doing. It will be a bit of time until that's done.

The day before I start my new job, I will no longer be lead developer of Composr. I'll be a contributor, and I'll be temporary benevolent dictator until the new democratic model is properly in place.

ocProducts and myself are not taking on any new work, including support work. In cases where we have primary control over code, hosting etc, we have already been transitioning things away. Patrick is taking on new work, although it is their prerogative as to what they want to be doing. I am hoping other developers will also make themselves available over time. Please do not expect to pay less than market rate (and certainly not ever expect any free 'favours'), and as far as you can give referrals for quality work received. Far too many times I have quoted far under market rate, and then been chided as expensive. These kinds of things are not good for any developer's health, ultimately not for the client (because it's not sustainable), and not for the ecosystem (as it prevents growth). I do understand why it happens: people can only pay what they can pay, and people become dependent - and people are emotionally involved with their projects, so react emotionally. Open Source is rife with race-to-the-bottom pricing and funding problems in general (here's a recent real horror story). Let's work together to fix all that rather than creating any more dependencies please.

For the next 10 days I will continue to work hard wrapping up what I can with Composr v11. Patrick will continue to work hard, working full time for ocProducts and then for me directly. I'll contribute whatever is needed in my spare time to wrap things up after I start my new job. I encourage anyone who can to do informal beta testing from the GitLab v11 branch and report any bugs.

I want to give thanks to everyone who has continued to support me on Patreon, to the clients who have been very understanding in recent years, and to everyone who has been supportive, to all Composr contributors til today, and to all Composr contributors of the future. I'm not leaving, but things are changing.

Thanx for the update Chris! As always, all the best to you and your family and high hopes your challenges will soon be a thing of the past!

I was looking for something different to do this weekend: Composr 11 testing it is! :-)

Thanks SoccerDad.

Re-reading my post, I had a lot of negativity there because I've been going through such a tough time, and a big part of me is really sad to have to change things so abrubtly while still having v11 being unfinished, and abandoning the business model that I worked so long to try and stabilise. And it's a little embarassing to make myself and my business affairs/experience such an open book, and to post yet another update without v11 actually being done - knowing some people will probably see it as me whiny and only care about getting a free product and free/cheap support, or judge me by standards I can't meet. Yet, this is the core of my ethos, to actually grapple with these hard things publicly, to be transparent, so we can all grow.

Really things are looking up. My health problems are identified and scheduled to be resolved. A necessary transition has been going through that will give Composr new life, while other projects would have been abandoned. There's an innovative plan for the pitfulls other projects suffer from (the aforementioned chaos) to continue to be avoided, despite the abrupt management change. Patrick is well-embedded in their role having had about 6 months training with me. I'll have plenty of income from my new job to fund things to the level I choose.

Users will need to adapt to me not being able to directly help them on things. There's a lot of unhealthy dependency on me that has developed over the years, needs that really should be met by a diverse group of (properly incentivised) contributors / volunteers / companies. That will be painful to some people, but ultimately will be good for the project in the long run. I hope people stick through it and take it as a call to come together.

Patrick and I look forward to seeing your bug reports SoccerDad  .

Hey Chris!

For what it's worth your post didn't sound too negative to me but even then, given the familial road you've had to travel recently along with the fundamental change to your other baby, Composr, it's entirely understandable that some doldrums will creep in.

Bottom line: while Composr does represent a significant portion of your life's work as a programmer, nothing takes priority over your family and it sounds like you are definitely taking that to heart, kudos!

I suspect that with the release of V11, Composr in turn will take on a bit of a life of its own while simultaneously revitalizing the community here as well.

All the best my friend and just as a reminder: you and your team have earned a well deserved tip of the hat for the remarkable product and solid support that y'all have offered the Composr community.

Here's to the new direction, may it be even more fruitful than the past! :-)