MarketPlace for Zope Software Components
First my thanks to Douwe Osinga <dmo@oberon.nl> for clearly expressing the position in favor of open source software.
I would never buy components without the source code. In my >experience support for commercial components is rather >irregular and not being able to debug or even fix problems in components you use can really damage your >product. Sending back the fixes is no more then logical, so >everybody profits. Having the source and sharing patches means >that you're already pretty close to full open source.
I agree with what he has to say. If I were a hard core software developer, I would prefer open source software, I can download it for free, get it to work, make any changes I need, and get support on a mailing list if I have a serious problem. In fact I would object to not having modifiable source code. But there is also another way to look at this problem. I believe that there is another target market that might prefer commercially supported components. Which could also include source. I am thinking of an end user market. More like an excel user than an object-oriented developer. These people would like to have an environment where they can drag and drop different components, and click on a few values to configure them. These end users want a clear catalogue of components, with a more detailed description of what each component does. They would like the components preinstalled on a server, they just select which ones they want to use. And they would need to pay for these components in order to support the marketting of these components, marketting investment which zope could benefit from. I have seen lots of object-oriented environments, and I believe that zope is the first technology that really enables a market in software components. I think that there is a real opportunity here. Are there any commercially sold software components for zope? Is anyone intersted in buying commercially supported zope components? Actually I am looking for a zope component to run the python and zope webring. Which is what started my thinking on these matters. Regards Chris 1-510-795-6086 lozinski@openstepnews.com lozinski@jobmart.com
On Friday 19 October 2001 04:32, lozinski@jobmart.com wrote:
First my thanks to Douwe Osinga <dmo@oberon.nl> for clearly expressing the position in favor of open source software.
I would never buy components without the source code. In my >experience support
for commercial components is rather >irregular and not being able to debug or even
fix problems in components you use can really damage your >product. Sending
back the fixes is no more then logical, so >everybody profits. Having the source and sharing patches means >that you're already pretty close to full open source.
I agree with what he has to say.
I have one major problem with it: you give away the source, you give away your IP and with it your revenue. It's hard to justify spending $$$ to develop software just to give away the source at the end of it.
If I were a hard core software developer, I would prefer open source software, I can download it for free, get it to work, make any changes I need, and get support on a mailing list if I have a serious problem.
This assumes an abundance of open source developers who are willing to work on projects for nicks. And provide continuing support (believe it or not, some open source projects get big and unmaintainable by anyone other than the original developers.)
In fact I would object to not having modifiable source code.
But there is also another way to look at this problem. I believe that there is another target market that might prefer commercially supported components.
This is what we're seeing. We sell our closed-source product for Zope right now.
Which could also include source.
No - see aforementioned self.foot.shoot() Otherwise, you're charging stupendous amounts of money to a) limit the market penetration and have NDA-style purchase contracts and b) be able to actually make money while doing a). We, on the other hand, are selling to the regular schmo, and they are much happier to buy a closed-source, AU$1500 (that's "peanuts" to you yanks :) product.
I am thinking of an end user market. More like an excel user than an object-oriented developer. These people would like to have an environment where they can drag and drop different components, and click on a few values to configure them. These end users want a clear catalogue of components, with a more detailed description of what each component does. They would like the components preinstalled on a server, they just select which ones they want to use. And they would need to pay for these components in order to support the marketting of these components, marketting investment which zope could benefit from.
This is what we're aiming for in trying to re-package Zope as a batteries-included GUI-controllable set of software. One of the big components of that is the preinstalled software and product management. There will be some discussion on this on the zope packagers mailing list once I get some time from our current paying product release cycle :)
I have seen lots of object-oriented environments, and I believe that zope is the first technology that really enables a market in software components. I think that there is a real opportunity here.
Are there any commercially sold software components for zope?
http://www.bizarsoftware.com.au/
Is anyone intersted in buying commercially supported zope components?
Yep. Richard
[Some of this may seem harsh, please understand I have no experience with any of this thread's contributors' software, and am not disparaging it. I just have had a stream of bad experiences with closed software in general.] Richard Jones wrote:
I have one major problem with it: you give away the source, you give away your IP and with it your revenue. It's hard to justify spending $$$ to develop software just to give away the source at the end of it.
Except customers (like me, we're not a software house) are learning that a free software/open source/what have you solution is better for us by leaps and bounds. I can't count how many times I've tried components and found them to be short-sighted in their scope or just plain unreliable. The simple (unfortunate?) fact is, almost all software is buggy in some way, shape, or form. Without source code, I can't fix it to the point where I can build a reliable solution on top of it. This makes it extremely unattractive to me. A closed product has to be damned good and extremely well-supported to overcome that.
This assumes an abundance of open source developers who are willing to work on projects for nicks. And provide continuing support (believe it or not, some open source projects get big and unmaintainable by anyone other than the original developers.)
Of course they do! Bad design is not limited to closed source. :-) Don't get me started on a large part of the current crop of OSS projects. There's a long list of thost I will avoid just because they quite frankly suck. But there is no obligation to provide support for free. Most open source businesses don't. If your time is valuable to someone, someone will buy it. I would happily pay what we currently pay for anuual licensing and support of software just for the support half of it, and probably more, if we could get the source code. It often annoys me that I run into bugs and short-sighted design that I'm sure I could fix, but am not allowed to. [snip the rest -- the whole "free software doesn't sell" argument is covered in other forums] My dream is that we will gradually move to an environment where people who understand coding will work less for software houses and more for end-users (businesses that truly are too small to support one can rent access to one). Software won't be sold as much as it will be shared, which can dramatically increase the quality and quantity of software available to a business as well as decrease their cost. And the people who need the software get software that's tailored to their needs, not their needs tailored to their software. -- Matt Behrens <matt.behrens@kohler.com> System Analyst, Baker Furniture
participants (3)
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Behrens Matt - Grand Rapids -
lozinski＠jobmart.com -
Richard Jones