Interview: Moxiecode Systems' CEO Discusses TinyMCE
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Among writerly tools in the open source world, TinyMCE is one of those under-the-hood gems that deserves notice from many users. Also known as the Tiny Moxiecode Content Editor, TinyMCE is a cross-platform, web-based JavaScript/HTML WYSIWYG editor control, released under the LGPL by Moxiecode Systems AB. It integrates with many content management systems, such as Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress. Joakim Lindkvist, CEO Moxiecode Systems AB, recently gave us some thoughts on how it's used, and what open source needs.
OStatic:Â Are you involved full-time with the TinyMCE project?
Joakim Lindkvist: Our company does more than just TinyMCE, but for the last 3 years or so, it has been a major part of the work we do, in some form. Hard to put a number of hours on it, and my colleague works more than me on the project. I would say 75% for him and 30% for me.
OStatic: A lot has been said about the reason people contribute to open source.  What motivates you to participate, and then freely give your work away?
Joakim Lindkvist: We are a small company. TinyMCE has made us a name on the global market and produced business for us that we thought was impossible to achieve. We talk with most major web browser developers, and a lot of big companies such as Interwoven, Oracle and Microsoft.
OStatic:Â What technologies does TinyMCE use?
Joakim Lindkvist: Javascript, HTML and CSS. But we also have PHP and .NET plug-ins.
OStatic: What are close alternatives to TinyMCE? What advantages or disadvantages does it have?
Joakim Lindkvist: The only real other alternative as we see it, is FCKEditor. The market is kind of split 50/50 between us now with the rest quite far behind. We of course think TinyMCE is a better platform, but when it comes down to it, the differences between these products are small. The biggest difference might be the professional commercial add-ons we offer to our editor.
OStatic:Â Who is your typical user?
Joakim Lindkvist: A typical user is a web developer, perhaps someone making their own content management system, or who wants to switch out the editor in some system they already have. Support is primarily through our forum. We actually do not offer any non-commercial support. We simply cannot serve all the users. We try to provide good documentation, and a living community where the users help each other out.
OStatic:Â What's coming next for TinyMCE?
Joakim Lindkvist: We are trying not to add to much functionality to the core, but instead increase performance as much as possible and keep up with the browser changes. A lot of work is on improving integration as well.
OStatic:Â How would you say TinyMCE benefits from being open source?
Joakim Lindkvist: The testing and help we get from the community is just priceless. It makes it a much stabler and a more complete solution than any of the commercial variants.
OStatic:Â How have you monetized the TinyMCE project?
Joakim Lindkvist: Before TinyMCE we did a lot of normal consulting work, building custom CMS systems, and just plain HTML/CSS coding as well. We still do that today and make money for our company that way, but the success of TinyMCE has allowed us to focus on product development much more. Our commerical plug-ins MCImageManager and MCFileManager are doing very well. Good enough so that we can focus our time on TinyMCE development.
OStatic:Â What does the open source movement need?
Joakim Lindkvist: I think the open source movement is doing very well in most aspects, but one thing that really lacks is documentation--and of course, support. We are developers. We want to focus on developing things, and not so much on support and documentation, I can see why many open source projects fail in these ways, although I think we are doing a reasonably good job.
