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Quote:
jmass wrote:
Quote:We host all the sites ourselves too, another part of the service we provide. And so far we have not distributed any of the major work we have done, yet it is all GPL.
Nothing wrong with changing that. Release early, release often.
Yeah, sometimes I wake up in the morning and just want to give it all away!!
And we don't think twice about releasing stuff that's related to the core. But modules that provide specific functionality are another story.
It's a more complicated issue than just "release early and often." Doing that would help make our product better than others, and would make lots of people want to use it, etc. So that's a good thing right?
But the problem is, our "product" is not the product. We're not trying to compete with others who make products like our modules. Our product is the overall service we can provide to customers. And some of our XOOPS modules are key ways we can differentiate our services from other competitors in the consulting marketplace. They let us do things for clients that other consultants can't provide.
So it's not really about releasing the software, it's about the effect releasing the software would have on our competitors' ability to compete with us for new clients. Releasing the code levels the playing field between us.
That's the fundamental effect of open source software on the entire software industry.
But why should we level a playing field we think is in our favour right now? One train of thought says that since we think we're better on other merits too, who cares if we level the playing field?
As a not-for-profit enterprise in the first place, leveling playing fields is sort of what we're interested in. It helps raise the tide for everyone, which is a goal of ours. But not if it undercuts our business so we can't go on doing that.
I suspect we will release it all eventually. A lot of things become very simply when everything is open source *and* freely available. But how and when I'm not sure.
I think the issue is very similar for others who do similar things like Andy Mayer and his event manager module. If you're reading Andy, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
--Julian