[Fsf-friends] Money ??

[Toufeeq Hussain]

Hi,

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 20:41:48 +0530, Sandip Bhattacharya
<sandip@lug-delhi.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-03-04 at 20:16 +0530, Ankit Malik wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > I know this is an old question! In fact I have asked this at loads of
> > places but with no satisfactory answer.
> >
> > I hope you guys answer it >>
> >
> > "Mr. X is a software developer. He develops a Software Y and releases
> > it as free [as in freedom and beer] So how does he earn money"
> 

<snip>

> Coming back to your question...
> 
> So this said person gives away his software for free, and sells the
> service of installing it for his clients. No body knows the software as
> well as he does, and not all clients want to mess around with hacking a
> software to customize to their needs. So this guy is bound to get work
> based on his services. IF he has a get-rich-quick idea in mind, I am
> sorry, but FOSS isn't his area. Let him stick to closed source - in
> which case there is a 90+% chance that he will fail (in keeping with
> market norm).

Thanks You Sandip.
Let me give you another example.

Imagine the state of the IT Industry in India.
Most (90%) of the companies are services based companies.
They don't develop products.

In the case of a FLOSS developer, he has an added advantage in that
*he* is the product developer and *he* is also the service provider.

Ofcourse, if you include the amount of customizations that can be
implementaed for your clients, the oppurtunities are limitless.

And your clients will also not mind your product being FLOSS Licensed
as long as it serves their purpose and they will be happy to have a
community constantly developing *their* software (for free) , so that
they don't have to care about maintainence.

Ofcourse they might want it customised for a new release, this is
where repeat business comes in for you. :)

Regards,
Toufeeq Hussain