Simply to have some support oriented company give me quality production
builds of the current project state 4 times a year on Win32 (just produce
the builds, test them, and let me and anybody else download them), I'm ready
to pay a sponsoring fee somewhere between $1000 and $2000 a year.

Okay, there is still the other $499K to be found.

The rest is very dependent on the kind of services that structure could
provide. We may ask for consultancy on some very special designs for
instance. Though it's hard to say in advance how much should be, would or
even could be spent on such in advance.

I think the business future of that NewCo could be thinked in sponsoring
terms.
Describe what work tasks the NewCo would do for the community ('would take
responsibility and commitment to do'). Let's lists some possibilities : run
nightly builds or weekly builds on various platforms, write new tests suites
and let them run for the benefit of the community, host the source tree and
CVS server, play role of coordinator of contributions, write and maintain
install scripts for the various platforms, coordinate documentation writing
efforts, do publish the consolidated documentation in suitable manners,
eventually make paper versions available (FOR SALE of course), and so on and
so on...

For all this community supporting work, the NewCo should IMHO be funded by
"sponsoring" of individuals developers, and companies who recognize the need
of an organization to help them develop Interbase and use it successfully in
commercial projects.

I'm not listing here "do develop Interbase, write new code, and so on". The
NewCo should not be seen by people as the people who DO Interbase and
develop it, but as the people who do all the tasks needed to SUPPORT the
development efforts of the community.

Then comes the second part. NewCo could as well offer consultancy, and
pretty much any other service you could imagine, for a sale fee, both to
developers, but also to end-users.

So I see two trends in the revenue source of the NewCo. First, a fixed
sponsoring amount received each year from the "community" in exchange for
the organizational help provided to the community. That's the "non-profit"
kind of association side of the NewCo.

Second, a very difficult to estimate revenue flow from quality support or
add-on services NewCo could offer both to developers and to end-users.

I think it is quite easy to write down a summary of the supporting tasks
NewCo could do for the community, estimate the annual costs of those tasks,
ask HOW MANY people or companies are ready to SPONSOR that part of NewCo,
split the costs among them, and see how much each should contribute annually
to get that working.

Please all, do understand my idea correctly. It is not paying for an
open-source software that anyway you could download for free and compile by
yourself. It is contributing funding pretty much like a member of a
not-for-profit organisation dedicated to make your own job of developing
further Interbase (or simply using Interbase) easier.

For the other part, the business part (add-on services and so on), well I
think it will be as easy or as difficult to estimate the revenue stream as
for any other business plan.

-------------------------- www.tipgroup.com -------------------------
Olivier Mascia T.I.P. Group S.A.
om@... Company Phone +32 65401111
Director, Senior Software Engineer Private Mailbox/FAX +32 43204716


-----Original Message-----
From: Ann Harrison [mailto:harrison@...]
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 5:57 PM
To: IBPHOENIX@egroups.com; IBDI@egroups.com; IB-Architect@egroups.com;
interbase@...
Subject: [IBDI] Open Source and support


I want to see InterBase (tm) succeed, not only as
an open source project, but also as a reliable,
cross-platform database for which users can get
top-quality support and new releases that address
their needs. I believe firmly in Open Source as
the model for software development and distribution
in the coming decade. The products that succeed,
however, require infrastructure (i.e. people,
equipment, high speed lines, etc.) Successful
Open Source products must appeal to commercial
software developers, people who want a tool to
do a job - not a kit for making tools.

To that end, I'm trying to build a business
around InterBase. The first step is to determine
whether there is a business - no venture angel
is going to jump in and give us the money to
start marketing in hopes that we'll sell support
contracts sometime maybe. We need proof of
concept, now.

Starting an organization that can provide excellent
support and leadership in product development will
not be cheap and I will not start unless I believe
it can succeed. We are looking for a total of
$500K (US) in contracts - not purchase orders, but
a commitment that if the number is reached so we
can promise you the services, that you are in the
market for services.

Sorry to be so blunt - and for the cross-post,


Best regards,

Ann




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