Hi Nuno,
You make a number of cogent and powerful arguments for not opening up
the source. I can only respond to some of them under...
>>>>> "Nuno" == Nuno Lopes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Nuno> [snip]
Nuno> I would be interest in hearing from people driving
Nuno> consulting businesses and developers willing to fund such a
Nuno> project and community. It would not be just another CMS but
Nuno> The Open Source CMS on Microsoft.NET.
Nuno> People (developers, consultants, etc) are saying "Open up
Nuno> Your Source". I ask, what is your interest? Are you willing
Nuno> to share the profit that you have around the software that I
Nuno> provide you? Probably not, but if you are give me a call I
Nuno> have an Open Source business model for you around a CMS
Nuno> System. Very simply the model is around "Help to pay the
Nuno> developers and technical editors and to sustain its growth"
Nuno> (Knowledge acquisition and expertise is expensive but if
Nuno> shared one can build very interesting things that talk
Nuno> directly to users, not just technical people).
I run a consulting business based on free software (that is free as in
speech, not free as in beer). I have a product (VishwaKarma) that is
a free software control panel for web hosting companies. It was
originally created for a client; the deal subsequently fell through
and I enhanced it and released it under GPL.
Today I can categorically state that I have made more money from
installing and customising VishwaKarma than I could have from
marketing and selling it. A good product doesn't need too much
marketing -- word of mouth and Google are the software developer's
best friends today. I also get invited to speak at conferences about
VishwaKarma and related topics, which is a sort of indirect marketing
too.
Due to being labelled as the author of VishwaKarma I have received
numerous contracts from web hosting companies for solving other
problems that they face. People come to talk about VishwaKarma, and
they stay to discuss the rest of their business and the issues they're
facing. That often translates into direct service revenue for me.
Another large market is VishwaKarma customisation for specific
projects. Someone wants to add features that aren't present in the
original package; another person wants to disable some features; a
third one may want a completely different look and feel for the
package. Each of these activities ends up generating revenue for me.
The client, on the other hand, feels comfortable with having full
control over the software s/he is deploying and s/he feels that s/he
is getting the best support possible for VishwaKarma (after all, the
author knows the software best, right?). All this while the client is
also comfortable with the (implicit) advantage that s/he isn't
dependent on me for support -- if I stop supporting the product
tomorrow, the client will be able to hire any half-way competent Perl
programmer to maintain the software, or develop the skills to do so
in-house.
IMO writing and supporting free/libre software is a paying
proposition. In your situation, off the top of my head, I can see
enough opportunities for making money out of the package that you are
proposing:
- You can consult in installing it.
- You can charge for extending and customising it.
- You can sell commercial licenses for use of the software in
proprietary (non-free) products a la Qt, MySQL and Berkeley DB.
- You can create industry- or vertical-specific versions of the
package (e.g. CMS for hospitals, CMS for software development houses)
and sell those wile keeping the base free. Work with industries
within which you have experience and contacts.
- You can build other products on top of your free engine and sell
those, a bit like selling a financial accounting package while giving
the database and schema away for free.
Finally, the biggest advantage of giving away your software is an
intangible one called `reputation' or `respect'. I agree that it is
impossible to quantify a direct monetary benefit from this quality.
The benefit exists despite being unquantifiable, however; Linus
Torvalds didn't become a millionaire by being just a good programmer,
he became one by giving Linux away free.
I hope this helps to answer some of the questions that you have
raised.
Regards,
-- Raju
--
Raju Mathur [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://kandalaya.org/
It is the mind that moves
--
http://cms-list.org/
trim your replies for good karma.
