The MODX OpenCollective and modmore

You may've heard: it's now possible to support the MODX project via OpenCollective. This community-style funding will allow paying people who work on the MODX core and everything around the project a fair rate for their work.

The expenses policy, used for determining payouts from the funds raised, can be found here.

modmore has a unique and, in some ways, conflicting position as both supporter, admin, and potential payout recipient. So I wanted to share with you what our stance on this initiative is. This way, you can hold us accountable to how we go about this new way of funding work on MODX.

1. modmore is (and will continue to be) an Agency Sponsor on the Collective. We're a small business, but want to support others in the community.
   
   
2. As a member of the security team, handling the vast majority of incoming reports over the past few years, I intend to charge the collective for that type of work. That's capped at $50/hr per the policy (half my normal rate), and payouts for that must be approved by Jason, the Security Team Lead.
   
   
3. I'm also a core integrator and regular contributor, which under the collective rules would be eligible for payouts. However, the time I spend on that (usually 1-2 days a week, though I've had to take a break since the sprint to finish MODX 3) is and will continue to be "modmore-sponsored", and not billed to the collective.
   
   
4. The rest of the team at modmore (Murray and Isaac) are independent freelancers. They may occasionally spend modmore-sponsored hours on eligible projects which will not be billed to the collective. They may also work on MODX in their own time, and make their own determination on billing the collective within its rules or not. If payouts are requested by people who work for modmore, I'll recuse myself from approving those to avoid a conflict of interest.
   
   
5. If we work on bounties (set by the core team and collective admins) or projects (pitched to and approved by the collective), those are exempt from the above. So if we pitch a project to work on a major feature or re-development, that time will be billed to the collective regardless of the above.
   
   

If you have questions about this, please do feel free to ask in the comments or via an email.

Personally, I really hope the collective will allow others in the community to grow and take a more prominent role within the development. It would also be amazing to at some point have sufficient budget going around to collectively hire a project manager to better manage planning, roadmaps, and communication around the project.

If you'd like to help fund the MODX project and community, sign up here.