What is GetPaid?

GetPaid is a flexible framework for managing orders and processing credit cards for online payments. It is useful out of the box to collect donations and create simple stores and fully customizable to meet specific business needs. It is Open Source, easy to setup and install, and supported by a commercial and user community so you can quickly start generating revenue from your site while knowing there are ongoing improvements and support for the site. For developers, it is a flexible system that can be customized and extended for particular business processes. GetPaid is an addon product for the Plone content management system.

ifPeople Facilitation

Ever since hosting a "Birds of a Feather" conversation at the Plone conference in 2006, ifPeople's cofounder Christopher Johnson has been facilitating a community process to build a modern commerce product for Plone. That process led to an inventory of existing products (and why another one was needed) as well as a clear picture of the need for such a product.

Starting in spring of 2007, Christopher actively organized the project using a model of "social sourcing", which applies principles of entrepreneurship and inclusive design process to Open Source software. He has organized the fundraising process and overseen the four "sprints" on three continents, and provided the communications support for the project via a blog and public web site, built by ifPeople.

In addition to active leadership to make the project happen, ifPeople has contributed as a sponsor and also sponsored several developers from our team to contribute to the code base.

GetPaid Growing Up

The birthing of a new tool and community has been an exciting process, and though both are still young, are active and promising (see stats on GetPaid on Ohloh)    . GetPaid has been deployed on sites already, and has interesting examples of its flexibility for custom solutions such as a job board. As the project approaches its first major release, the Red Ochre Release (so named after one of the first currencies ever used), new initiatives to extend and improve the project are getting underway by the community involved, from form integration to event registration, membership, and advanced stores. As all Open Source projects, the future is shaped by the participants, so if you are interested, please learn more at www.plonegetpaid.com .