Forum for discussing general topics related to Couch.
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IMP: With the release of version 1.3.5, Couch has become open-source and IonCube encryption has been removed. This thread is retained only for its archival value.

We have received emails and posts on our forum regarding how folks are finding it difficult to configure ioncube loaders.
Some have even criticized our 'claim to simplicity' when, to be fair, the complexity they mentioned had nothing to do with Couch per se but in getting ioncube installed.

I think we need to clarify our position on this subject-
We are a very small company and have barely started off. Heck, we have not even made our first commercial sale yet! (4th. Jan 2010, the day of writing this post)
As a tiny start-up we are obliged to protect our intellectual property which represents more than an year of our hard work.
We understand fully that encoded source code is a sticky subject for some and it does throw in that initial level of complexity that colors the user's view of our product. We have deliberated over this issue and opted to go with ioncube encoding knowing fully the consequences it could have - because it is a matter of survival for us. Our aim by using it is to issue valid licenses to users and hence ensure providing proper support to them.

We'd like our users to appreciate the fact that of the other existing players in the niche Couch caters to, we are the only ones to provide a full fledged downloadable version for users to try before committing to it. Also we are the only ones to offer free licenses to personal and non-commercial projects.

Having said that, we promise that as soon as we, hopefully, establish ourselves a little we'll do away with the encoding completely and open the source of Couch.

Thank you all for the support you have given us.
WOW .. that answer to my question. nice effort developing COUCH. wish you best of luck guys.
i want to see COUCH as a leading open-source project. so keep on going.. good work.
Mossawir Ahmed - UI UX Web Developer
I fully support your decision in encoding the source for now, as a startup business it's important to ensure you have every part covered before making further steps to open up the source to the world.

Open-Source is a big step, and relies merely on the community.

I believe that you offer excellent options, no one has to pay for the license for personal or non-commercial sites, this is a free entry ticket, so why do people complain? I do not know.

Luckily I believe this post really sums up everyone's worries regarding the ioncube encoder.

It's "annoying", but if we all were in the same shoes or on the same boat - I must admit I'd do the same thing.

Keep up the great work, CouchCMS-team! :)
gSvoren Design - http://gsvoren.net
gSvoren wrote: I fully support your decision in encoding the source for now, as a startup business it's important to ensure you have every part covered before making further steps to open up the source to the world.

Open-Source is a big step, and relies merely on the community.

I believe that you offer excellent options, no one has to pay for the license for personal or non-commercial sites, this is a free entry ticket, so why do people complain? I do not know.

Luckily I believe this post really sums up everyone's worries regarding the ioncube encoder.

It's "annoying", but if we all were in the same shoes or on the same boat - I must admit I'd do the same thing.

Keep up the great work, CouchCMS-team! :)



gSovren, Thanks for understanding and supporting our decision regarding the encoding,
we really appreciate your kind Support.
I think it's great that you defend your work this way, specially since the piratery it's ruin everything in what is paid CMS. I'm also a web designer, and i would hate that the work that i'm doing gets spoiled because i didn't take precautions.

Even though Ioncube can be a PITN to install for some people, i find it more difficult to create a whole CMS from 0 and to be so powerful and simple as couch is.

I fully support your idea and i hope the best to the team and even more future sales ;)
i have major problem with ioncube encoder, see:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=168

i prefer CouchTeam, in next plan to change for another PHP encoder from market, many are less expensive

because facts:
1.
nobody really have a dedicated server for configuring parameters from ioncube specificities,
and CouchCMS normally is better for small websites, logically hosting on shared servers from ISP around the world, EUROPE, AMERICA, ASIAN, AFRICA,
2.
take consideration this case:
php.ini must load this file:
ioncube_loader_dar_5.2.so = 1.1mo INSIDE memory of server, horrible
ok, i'm not reading ioncube docs well, but take care !!
NO hosting = NO couch = NO design

good solution Couch BUT bad hosting deployment = ???
Hey Guys/Gals,

My thoughts on this ionCube thing'y...

As a web developer and designer I am always looking for 'solutions' to problems. The problem you guys hit is the "I already have a website and want to edit it using a CMS" or "I like that design but it does not have a CMS system", etc. CouchCMS will I hope in the long term cure that issue by supplying a rich system that can cope with all the ways in which those problems need to be solved... That's GOOD :)

What's bad - restricting open source developers (such as my business) that LOVES a product - doesn't mind PAYING for a product, BUT does not want to be hampered by infrastructure. We basically move onto the next providers solution... not quite in our case as we like the product and will hang in there to see if it 'matures'.

However, restricting even the installation by a minute amount - suddenly means that you WILL loose many many potential experts and clients in the field. The name will NOT spread as well as really good CMS systems and worse of ALL you will not get third parties (yes, such as ourselves) HELPING your development for the product - we can't... No API, Not OPEN, etc, etc. GUYS THIS ONE IS SERIOUS (of course IMHO).

Without the development of the product into the bigger picture it will always stay as a niche product and with the restrictions on host, well, you almost cripple the poor boy before he's had a chance to walk!

My suggestions (again for what they are worth) are:

1. Open source and take away the horrible ionCube stuff (don't put handcuffs on us guys)

2. Create a rich API and promote virally - blimey, it almost speaks for itself (I did tell you that I loved the product didn't I?)

3. You guys create some really nice addons (eCommerce integration [proper eCommerce not just simple one product paypal stuff]) and CHARGE FOR THE ADD-ONS

4. You guys CHARGE for SUPPORT - hey, it's your time. If people can't be bothered to read the documentation (which needs to be excellent) then CHARGE THEM FOR YOUR TIME AND SUPPORT - it's what everyone else does!

This model works :) it's almost a win win. Will you get some people ripping it off? Yep! There's always parasites out there and they will always find a way. You should aim to appeal to the REAL businesses that will PAY and of course make the base system FREE and OPEN SOUCE (see comment about getting 3rd party developers above).

Take the Joomla / Drupal / WordPress model - it's exactly the same. The modules created by 3rd party dev teams are good (some of them in any case) and you have to BUY THEM. You need loads of good, decent modules, addons, etc. to make this an even better product...

Come on guys, what I say is "open up and commercialise your skills - not the product"

Rant and suggestions over - I still hate the ioncuby'thing'y - it's a waste of time and takes me way back to 'shareware' days of the horrible 80's....

BUT LOVE THE PRODUCT - so frustrating, when you're nearly there...

Best wishes
Jonathan
Good points Jonathan.

We have been mulling over the possibility of going open-source - maybe not GPL but open-source like ExpressionEngine.
You are right about the IonCube thing hurting the adoption of Couch and something needs to do be done about it.

As you rightly paraphrased, the problem that we set out to solve with Couch was - 'I already have a website and now need to add a CMS to it'. That part is, more or less, achieved. But that vision also constrains the scope of Couch. By aiming at that we are necessarily targeting only very basic and simple sites while, with some more development, Couch is capable of handling a site of almost any complexity.

We have a development road-map - open up the architecture to support custom tags, custom editable regions, plugins and modules. Once that is reached, Couch should be ready to take on just about any project you throw at it. Hopefully it won't require more than a year to get there.

Once there, we'll go open-source.
Thanks for the prompt reply...

My only concern is adopting something 'now' that I cannot look at to see when and if things go wrong (e.g. over the next year). So many times when we have issues with an opensource system, we look at the code behind, we breakpoint, we do ALL the things you guys would nicely do for us - if you had the time - and then we either fix or submit a potential fix with bug report to the opensource holders.

My issue are these...

1. If we adopt your system, what happens if you guys decide to do something else? Where does that leave me and my customers? Without it being open now it would mean you would have to have an escrow or similar - if you are serious about taking this forward. After all, we run commercial businesses that our customers rely on, and the worst case scenario is that you guys go under and all my customers using your system, loose their support... which brings me onto ...

2. If we have the source we have that nice 'gut' feeling that point (1) above is covered, and secondly we can actually HELP you guys move this great product forward. Surely the might of 100's of opensource developers and the global community would benefit and get your product to the "eyes of many" far far sooner?

We are in a very fast paced world and to get people (especially developers) to hang on a whim and a prayer that 'perhaps' one day we may .... etc. is asking a lot. The competition is rife and like the search engine adage - if your not on page 1 you don't exist....

At the end of the day it's going to be easier to see your file signatures with an opensource model than encrypting. The community is very good at self policing these things.

I'm on the fence - I guess I should say that it's up to you guys to persuade me, but we all are busy and I'm perhaps just another developer liking the product. Having said that, if you had 1000 such people such as myself, singing the praises, suddenly your product has a community and ardent following...

My advice would be 'think sooner about your commercial model' - a year is a long long time :)

It's not the money you charge - it's the benefit you give to the customer - these things only solve problems and you don't want to loose a years worth of 'problem solving' ... ummm IMHO ;)

Kind Regards
Jonathan
I just want to share my view on this matter as well being a graphic designer with a decent knowledge of web development. eg. I know how to handle some basic code in php but not quite familiar (yet) with it.

Since dynamic web pages are becoming more and more requested by clients, a cms seems to be the way to go. The blog concept has contributed heavily to this concept, whereas people used to create custom cms'es with their own tables, web developers tend to go with one of the many available cms'es around.

Using some sort of cms like couch opens up opportunities to offer to your clients without having to know anything like e.g. php (at the speed things are changing, you can't just be a professional in all aspects). As I recall from an interview from the people behind couch cms, this seems to be the conclusion and philosophy behind the creation of couch cms from day one!

The past year I took a look at several cms'es, going from the popular joomla, wordpress 3.0 and up, drupal, modx, cushy, perch,... too name a few. I've build a project with wordpress and expression engine already and had to learn things the hard way. Wordpress seems to be so popular but for me it's always a love/hate relationship because it's so difficult to get used to the documentation, get decent feedback and get things working with a lot of useless plugins that might break in another release.

The basic idea why I find wordpress a pest at times? Because it needs you to know a lot of php to get things sorted out, a lot of debug hours to get things going (especially with plugins) and a lot of stress with updating every month...

That is the reason why I went off the road with wordpress and began with expression engine. It has support you can count on and does the trick without the need to know php or something alike...
Still, it's a pain to learn it's own language as well.

After a while I realized that the only thing that could really hold my interest would be something that is affordable (even for minor projects), with decent support if needed and not such a high learning curve to go through. In short: couch cms seem to do the trick.

It's power is in its simplicity, well designed concept, familiar code handling and clean manual with a decent tutorial to get started from. Compared to other cms'es you learn things in no time. After reading 7 tutorial pages you tend to know most of the cms, whereas wordpress' codex let you jump into even more complexity and questions that still need to be answered and or tweaked.

Though, don't get me wrong! Keep in mind that couch still needs a lot to grow to get fully competitive with other cms'es. I tend to think that the idea and concept from what it started (and what makes it unique), should be held in tact!

I wouldn't like to see those wordpress "flaws", overrun this project.
Therefor, I have no idea whether this encoding is really a bad thing.
There's an API coming which I am looking forward to, and custom coding via hooks might be usefull, though don't let it break its core, resulting in updates every two weeks...

Just my opinion on this nice project!
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