Topic: Microbusiness and Chumby

OK...all posts lead to here.

A suggestion before the hackers get carried away with grand ideas....as it's not just Joe that has a tendency to this kind of thing! smile

If I would like to start a microbusiness either modifying/hacking or selling accessories or software for chumby, what do I need to know?

I would really like it if you could get together with your legal advisers and produce a booklet to guide us as to what we can and can't do with chumby, his name and logo. Long legalese agreements are also needed for us to take to our lawyers but a layperson's guidebook would be very useful for people just thinking tentatively about this. (Particularly for people with short attention spans, no cash and no real profit motive who just want to put a few things up on the web so they can generate more funds to support their expensive crafting addiction!)

It is important to have this ready ASAP if you are really going to launch chumby Q107. Some forumers and other interested parties may need that amount of time to bring together resources and designs etc. in order to take advantage of the hype that will surround the release.

I predict that with a few months advance notice,  like you have given here with pre-launch info and the forums, a constellation of micro-businesses could spring up that would shine an even brighter light on chumby. You say you want people to be creative with your product...that needs to be backed up with a pathway on how to go about it.

The reason why I say microbusiness is that crafters, in particular, love the unique and hate the mass-produced and logo-laden objects that abound in this world. I think you could structure your legal stuff in a way to support their grassroots creativity.

What is particularly hard to get my head around is the notion of OpenSource and how this is going to operate with limitations imposed by licensing, IP, copyright and trademark issues. You are charting new territory with this product. It is not quite anything goes because you are a business entity. You really need to educate the hackers on their boundaries. Like with the USB device compatibility issue, it will be much better to outline the game rules now, rather than in a few months time or after the release date.

I actually think that getting this info out there in an easy-to-digest format should be one of your priorities in the coming weeks, considering it will be of mutual benefit to both Chumby Industries and people who have unique development ideas.

If you have already got plans for this, I sincerely apologise for telling you how to suck eggs...as my Grandma would put it! smile   My heart is in the right place on this one...because I wish your company every success.

2 (edited by Steve Tomlin 2006-09-08 22:33:15)

Re: Microbusiness and Chumby

Angela,

Stay tuned, I'll be doing a blog post on this shortly.  We have a new and dramatically liberal license for chumby hackers.  We've even done our best to preface the (unfortunately apparently more or less necessary) legalese with plain English that explains what we're all about and what we're saying you can and can't do.  So I hope it's what you're looking for -- and, once you read it, let me know what you think.  Crafter and hacker microbusinesses mod-ing chumbys is *precisely* what we want to support in every way possible.

Trademarks are a slightly different story -- we have to pretty carefully protect those because we don't want a lot of confusing "non-Chumby" chumbys invading the marketplace, if you know what I mean.  But taking a *real* chumby and mod-ing it?  Go for it.  Make some really cool ones and maybe we'll find a way to help you and other chumby crafters to sell your wares directly through Chumby's site -- it's definitely something we'd like to try to enable.

st

Re: Microbusiness and Chumby

Wow...thank you! Show me another CEO that interacts directly with his customer base! I'm really liking this new business model...definitely something I can feel positive about being a part of!

I will send private email eventually to reveal my plans and to check they are OK with you...it will give your legal structure a test run ...actually I think I sent many of them through the send me a sample mailbox...so you'd have a good idea what I intend to do.

Personally, I would love to have a shopfront at chumby.com. I was thinking of using etsy.com. I don't have the funds to invest in setting up a big web presence, so a blog with a link to my Chumby Shop would be excellent. Make it as simple as you can for me (because I have a real job, well kind of)....and give me extra status (and freebies) being a featured store/founding member for all the wonderful ideas I am coming up with on this forum *her head growing to the size of chumby's*...

If it was my Chumby Mall, I'd have a quality control, moderation system in place where people will have to apply to be allowed to have a shop though. Kind of like how juried craft shows and markets work....and it shouldn't be expensive to use. You could have one section for designers...like shops... that is juried and one area for anybody to sell one-offs...test the waters etc.

One question...what about modded logos like my avatar? Am I able to put a modded chumby graphic (picture not words), perhaps with a disclaimer making my relationship to the company clear, on my website/blog page/labels? Or would that be bad?

I am really looking forward to your blog post...thanks Steve!

Re: Microbusiness and Chumby

Getting some legal feedback on this.  I love the idea of people taking initiative and making the chumby their own -- personalize it, hack it, mod it.  All is fair game for the most part -- again, new license coming soon and I will blog about it when it goes live (*more* liberal than our current license, so if people were okay with the original, they should like the new one even better).

However, not sure how careful I need to be about trademarks, so we're looking into this.

st

5 (edited by Steve Tomlin 2007-01-09 11:34:21)

Re: Microbusiness and Chumby

Here's the link to my blog post describing the new license:

http://chumby.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/ … more-open/

or go directly here to see the license in full:

http://www.chumby.com/developers/developer