On Sunday 23 April 2006 23:14, Monique Y. Mudama wrote: > I don't understand why the idea of spending money to get an open > source solution seems, apparently, unreasonable to you. I'm grateful > for all of the free (as in beer) open source software I'm able to use. > But as a developer, I'd get mighty P.O.'ed if someone told me I "had" > to code something. Offer me money, and I might accept. (Note: I'm > not a debian developer. I don't mean that anyone should offer me > money to write something for debian, although if enough money were > offered, I might consider it *grin*.) Hi,
As Monique I'm not a debian developer, but I'm an opensource (OS) developer, as in beer and as in speech. I write web aplications. I'm currently working on 5, all of them in HTML::Mason: * BWPMS (www.bwpms.com), a multisite content manager, design independent, modular, that I use mostly to create small business web sites. The sources aren't yet available, as I didn't had time to redraw and reimplement www.code.online.pt, the site where I share all my os webapps. I call it, currently, 0.1.0 and will release the version 0.1.1 when I redraw the code online site. * MaBliki (www.code.online.pt/view/MaBliki), A Bliki implementation, now with 0.2.0 under development, already being used in www.cultodavida.com, that is multisite, and uses the same template engine that BWPMS, consequently, completly design independent. 0.1.x is available, 0.2.0 will be when some few more features are implemented (Edit posts, RDF and Atom feeds, etc). * Hercules (being used in stats.camelot.co.pt), a webstats engine, based in POE (Perl), capable of handling the stats for a small Portal (large for Portuguese standard, as it was in use, in my time, at www.iol.pt), processing 2 millions pageviews a day. I want to improve him for multi-host capabilities (having several servers processing stats in parelel). * Comercium (not a sharable install yet), a simple ERP for small business. It's designed to have Sells (Prospecting, Clients, invoices, repeated sells), Buys (vendors, buy, repeated buys), Products (with and without Stocks - fisical products have stock, and services don't have), Finances (Control cash and cashflow, clients payments and prepayments, vendor payments), and accounting (that will have accounting reports, to be defined yet). This already allow me to invoice my clients, but almost everything else is yet to be implemented. * Tendere (an ecommerce plataform), mostly specified, but yet to be started. And this is just to say that, as an opensource developer a mostly code for my self, release my code for those who may want it, and in true I only implement those "sugestions" that keep the project on the path I thought to it, as part of the project. But I'm also a paid devel. I need to pay my bills, so I have to get paid for something, and that happens with most OS devels. So, most time I'm paid for eight (8) hours a day coding, most time added by two (2) more hours in public transports (metro, train, whatever), from home to the client, and back home, and yet one (1) more for lunch. That makes eleven (11) hours a day. And this assuming everything work fine in the paid projects. At times that don't happen. The point is: after eleven hours I'm tired. I'm as human as most, and even if by definition a coder is someone who turns caffeine into code, and even if every single day I drink 2+ liters of "Coca-Cola", the time I have to concentrate in the opensource projects is limited. And that happens with most OS devels, I assume. As a freelancer/self-employed coder (SEC), sometimes I have idle days, that I use as much as possible to my OS projects. But as a SEC, I also need to prospect new clients, I also need to manage my business, I also need to meet my consultants (Accounting, Lawyer, etc), and again, my idle days are not that idle. So, yes, I limit the change I make in my OS projects to those I think will improve the project the way I need it improved or in a way I think will really be an improvement to the project. Obviously there are other ways to make me think on a change as an improvement... money. If someone ask me "I need this change in an OS project, and I don't mind if that change is open sourced", then I will make the change lowerpriced that If it was a closed source application. If someone come to me and say "I liked your project XX, but I need some special future", I will happly make the change below my regular rate. I can do this, but I can't write every single change someone think could be useful in my OS projects for free imediatly on request. That would be a fulltime job, that I would happly take, but that don't pay my bills. If I had some incoming stream that paid my bills, I would take more time with my OS projects, would implement more features, and would try to make everyone happy. For now, for free, the most I can do is make what I code for myself available, and consider the sugestions that are made to me. If someone want something I don't have time to implement, will have to buy me time. Cheapper, but yet enought to pay my bills. I think the same happens with most OS devels. Hugs and Kisses, themage -- Merlin, the Mage http://www.sites-favoritos.com/user/merlin http://www.cultodavida.com http://www.code.online.pt Carpe Vitam
