Re: [Fsfe-uk] BECTA discriminate against FLOSS?

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

Paul Turner wrote:
> Ian Lynch wrote:
> > > so I'm not about to risk many months of my life creating [a school
> > > administration system], especialy under a licence where I can ony
> > > guarantee selling one copy.
> > 
> > You could potentially get a lot of support business, but it would be
> > very difficult/expensive to break into that particular market. Many
> > have tried and failed.
> 
> This is both the strength and weakness of FLOSS.

In this case, is it more that the market for a school admin. package has
very few early adopters;  fewer than for, e.g. an office suite.  This
means that there is little initial take up.  Schools are probably all
conservative in their approach to choosing a package;  they want to use
one that everyone else is already using.  Finding one or more that
*have* to give your offering a try would be necessary, but difficult.

> If you have a popular 'product' and can build a strong team and user
> base you are laughing.  If you looking at a more niche 'product' then
> the time to develop it has to be funded somehow (even coders have to
> eat!). With the way the GPL and other FLOSS licenses work it would be
> a very big risk to invest significant time in developing something
> that somebody else can just pick up as another offering in their
> portfolio and charge for support.  They then have all the same revenue
> opportunities without the initial setup costs.

True, but they don't have the headstart you have as the `originator' and
driving force behind the package.  You've initially better knowledge
than them;  they've initial learning curve costs.  Publicity-wise,
you're more closely associated with it.  IP-wise, you own the copyright,
and possibly a trademark.  You can add client's requests into the pucker
code base, they have to try and persuade you to accept the patch else
their customers are faced with the dilemma of running the non-mainstream
version thus binding them into the one company for support.

If another company can earn money from supporting your product then
that's good news.  It means your product is popular enough to have
created a slightly bigger pie;  one that you still have a large slice
of.

Now, if they do a better job of marketing, etc., then they may grow into
a more profitable, bigger, company than you.  This may be a failing on
your part depending on your aims.  Still, at least they may consider
buying you out to get their hands on the real McCoy.

All rhectoric, of course.  Stuff I've heard put forward as arguments.
But food for thought.

Lastly, there's nothing to stop you from charging GBP250.00 for the CD,
printed manual, and six months support which some places will prefer
over downloading over the Internet, and working through it un-assisted.

Cheers,


Ralph.