On Saturday 02 January 2010 00:06:08 Krishnakant wrote:
On Fri, 2010-01-01 at 21:28 +0530, jtd wrote:
I disagree. In the past i needed some features in a certain package and wrote to the main developer who was then a research student, asking for a quote for the features. He said that he was too busy studying and would not be able to commit a time bound schedule. He also asked me to contact another team member. That 2nd developer was too busy with the same project, which he used commercially in NZ. So we wound up doing it in house.
I beg to differ on this. My experience shows that while strict development schedules are not always needed for small things like writing an extention to firefox or creating a small mail client,
You are absolutely right here.
for apps like ERP or accounting/ finance which is a subset, needs dedicated development. Projects like gnowsys has a big volantary support, but it would not develop to this level of maturity without a dedicated team which may have changed in terms of its number of members.
You are only partly right here. The project i was talking of is gnomemeeting - now Ekiga - in 2001. It was a very complex project and involved the wan / lan network, cpu load, UI, etc. In short hardware, network, and software stack debugging. IMO this is the worst case scenario. The team was dedicated (working almost fulltime) and professional (lead developers working towards Phds) but the big difference was they were volunteers. Some developers got paid off by getting PHds, some used the project to drive commercial installs.
I know good modules in isolation can be developed in vacation mode with some voluntary time, but that may happen in cases where people are into research, essentially meaning that their main work timing itself is flexible enough.
But if we want to sustain consistant development of a commertial grade project then payed developers who can give their full time to the project (and volantary spare time to some other project ) is necessary.
Why should free software based project not be treated as professional job or full-time commertial commitment?
Infact they MUST be treated as PAID pros. It is only the nature and timing of the payoff that needs to be thought about.
BTW banks / FIs do not fund research and development. For that you absolutely need a VC / angel fund, or your own capital. Quite often the lead developers bring in sweat equity - the labout that they put in to bring in the project to fruition - along with some money + a financier.
But if as you say the project is complete, you now need to make a business plan to sell to the bank. In that plan you can always allocate funds for development.
So if we need high performance accurate and commertial grade free software, dedicated team has to work full-time and such a team can only work with some financial security.
That is a proposal for a startup. If it is ready for use AND has a market you are in business. It is an issue faced by every new product / project / business. You need to build your business case and give it to a VC / bank / FI.
I can't agree more. that is absolutely right. But VC will mostly not understand that "free " word and even if it is understood, no one sees scope of profit. I don't see mark shuttalworth everywhere.
It depends entirely how you write up the project report. Get a project CA to do the project report. IMO the banks dont care about your software colour, after all you are providing a service.
To me the fund problem is purely a business issue rather than any shortage of money due to the project being open. WARNING: the money market is tight now and any new startup will have a tough time.
Another method would be to package the stuff and sell it. It will give you a hardcore feel of the market and is the acid test. You will be surprised by the results.
Most of us would be familiar with a product known as Ceasefire. That company had a phenomenal direct marketing team. They decided to expand by marketing polycarbonate boxes which could be vacuumed, so that foodstuff would remain fresh. That was their usp in a market saturated with plastic boxes and in their opinion would command a premium. They bet the house on the product range. It was a miserable flop and the company sunk.
IMO hit the market. You will know very quickly answers to everything.