Hi there, as I could not find an answer if I can create an extension that can be offered for sale through the XWiki Store, I like to ask it here for the benefit of the community.
In my case, I searched for an extension that does not exist yet, but I’d also pay for a specific extension. Now, I’m also fine to create one myself, but then I also like to provide bugfixes and maintenance updates through some small fee (really small) by offering the extension in the XWiki Store.
Is that possible or supported by XWiki?
If not, maybe this should be considered as it will also allow more people make a living from contributions that are valuable for the XWiki community. What do you think?
An alternative would be to offer the extension on another store website, but I don’t like it as people would not see more content from the XWiki community or SAS.
XWiki supports configuring different extension repositories.
There’s one extension repository located on htpps://extensions.xwiki.org. This one is for free community extensions.
Anyone can create his/her own extension repository (for example, by installing the Repository Application in an XWiki instance). You’d then need to ask your users to configure that repo in the config of their XWiki instance (in xwiki.properties).
If you’re a sponsoring company with at least 3 active committers, you’re allowed to have your own extension repository be in the default configuration of XWiki instances.
XWiki SAS is a sponsoring company with more than 3 active committers and as such their extension repository (located at https://store.xwiki.com/) is listed in the default config of XWiki. Thus the paying extensions that XWiki SAS provides are listed in the Extension Manager inside of XWiki.
Now, if you’re a single dev and you’re not a committer on the XWiki open source project, I think the simpler would be to contact XWiki SAS (Contact us - XWiki) and ask them if you could use their extension repository to sell your XWiki extension (they’d probably ask for some small percentage of the sales).
Alternatively you could make your extension available for free on the community extension repository and since you’d be the author, allow users to contact you if they need support for your extension. The extension would be free but support isn’t.
WDYT?
Maybe we can help here. Could you explain what extension you’re looking for?
thank you very much for this great explanation, this was exactly what I was looking for and your explanation makes it totally transparent and understandable.
I can now think about the best solution for me and the community. Personally, I like to pay a small amount for a good extension and rely on continuous updates rather than a freemium extension where support is expensive.