Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: My open source dilemma

Author:Eric Kidd
Posted:8/15/2000; 7:52:32 PM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/15/2000
Msg #:19745 (In response to 19742)
Prev/Next:19744 / 19746

Honerable as open source is you can't use it to pay rent, employees, and the hundreds of other bills that business generate unless it's tied to a revenue stream.

I always prefer business plans that involve revenue. :-)

So instead of thinking about open/closed concerntrate for a while on the whether or not anyone will pay for what you are creating. In otherwords -- is there a market?

That was the big suprise--my consulting business was split between custom software development and one modest piece of open source software.

But when I totalled up my revenue for the year to date, the open source package was my biggest and most reliable source of income. It had gotten my foot in the door with some excellent clients, and provided lots of credibility during the sales process.

When my heart and the numbers pointed in the same direction, I was very happy. So I'll be spending some more overhead time improving my open source package, just to see what happens.

But thank you for your advice, and good luck with your projects!

Cheers,
Eric

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