You asked me how to do something I didn't say you should and I answered anyway. Of course it's very easy to kill of all of my little ideas, especially when you've decided beforehand you won't even consider going open source.
That's where most people end up in this discussion. So far there's been no concrete way to support a business presented here. Just a few ideas and it gets left up to "What's best depends on you".
That's what you get when you remain vague about what your actual product is. If you'd tell me exactly what you sell, I might be able to be more specific. I might even tell you to forget about open sourcing altogether.
If you would be truly interested, there are ideas to be explored here. T-shirts sound funny, but I'm sure Mozilla made a lot of money that way. Is Red Hat making money? Is Google? Is Slashdot? Mark Shuttleworth? Michael Widenius? Sun? Linus himself? If they are, does that guarantee success for you too? Of course not. But it isn't impossible either (again, depending on what you do). Also, having a closed source app isn't a guarantee for success either.
Care to tell me how I can make money by spending months developing a program and then giving it away for free?
I didn't say you could. Still, I'll bite.
The same argument has been made over and over by writers and musicians, and yet there are some of those out there that make money while giving away their work. If you'd seriously consider going open source, the 'while' is important. It's different from 'by'. Nobody makes money by giving away their work.
Some options to make money are to sell support, advice, custumization, books, t-shirts, talks or (most probably) get hired for something new as you've proven to be a competent programmer.
What's best depends on you, your skills, what you want and, of course, your product. I want to stress again that I don't say you SHOULD do this or that it would be a good idea in your particular case.
A programmer who claims he can only earn money by keeping the source closed is like a plumber who only wants to fix your sink when nobody's home and the door is locked.
'Only' is the key word here, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. As you point out, there are lots of good, valid reasons for developing closed source software, but hiding your source can't be the only basis for your income.
By the way, if I built a Gulfstream replica and sold it, I probably would get sued.
Spoken like someone who doesn't develop software for a living.
My company (among other things) develops software. The sale of that software pays for our homes, electricity, computers, and the ability to continue developing programs that people need.
A programmer who claims he can only earn money by keeping the source closed is like a plumber who only wants to fix your sink when nobody's home and the door is locked.
Although I sympathize with your desire to keep your business running, I think that there should be more to it than just the black box you're selling your customers right now. I'm not saying that everything should be open source (I don't know how that would work out), just that your arguments sound a bit RIAA-like: locking everything down is better, because it forces people to keep buying from us.
Tell you what, go find a Linux distro circa XP's release (late 2001, I believe?) and install that on the same beige box. Report back how well it does.
A few others have made that point and I remember how installing Debian, Gentoo and Suse was around then. It wasn't pretty, but XP, with all of it's manufacturer's support, wasn't doing a great job.
My point, however, is that I still wonder how many users switch, how they do it and what their reasons are. If you say that average users don't install OS'es, then either somenone else does it for them or they don't switch. The latter would imply that the percentage netbooks sold with Linux on it would be a fair indicator of de facto market share.
Thanks for calling me a troll and the people who modded me uninformed. I think what caused the 'insightful' was:
I wonder how many 'average' users would get XP, Vista or 7 working on a desktop, let alone a netbook.
I didn't say that installing Linux was easy. It's painful as well, and when something doesn't work, you usually have a BIG problem that's not solved by installing a few drivers. I know that. Still, I'd expect the commercial OS'es to have better install routines. Commenters above you tell me Windows has improved in that regard since XP and I believe them. On the other hand, I'm very impressed with e.g. Ubuntu. I've installed it on a couple of very different systems and It Just Works (R, TM etc.) most of the time. That wouldn't impress me if it was a Redmond OS, but it does when it's a community effort. The same feeling causes me to be a bit more forgiving when it comes to installing a Linux distro. By the way, saying "tweaking and recompiling everything" sound like trolling to me.
I am fairly technical, but not seeming it sounds like a compliment to me. Since you don't seem to be able to read, I'll repeat that the error occurred during installing, not launching. Thanks for the tip, though.
Presumably 7 would be more manageable for common users to install on recent hardware than an OS that's eight years old.
If true (and I think it is), great! Still, why isn't there any research on this? If I were a netbook manufacturer, Microsoft, Apple or Mark Shuttleworth I would be VERY interested to learn how many of those who purchased my computer or OS are sticking with the default setup. Win7 might be easier to install, but I still don't see my dad buying or pirating a Windows disk and installing it himself. Do netbook buyers give Ubuntu a try before changing to Windows? What makes them decide to keep or ditch it?
I'm a Linux user myself, but I just installed XP on a common desktop box tonight and it was painful. Wifi, sound didn't work out of the box, you have to wait ages for all of the updates and SP's to download and install, reboot far too many times and then you have a empty OS almost without useful apps. Some things were hard to get working (Radeon driver installer throwing errors, Wifi driver refusing to work).
I wonder how many 'average' users would get XP, Vista or 7 working on a desktop, let alone a netbook.
I agree, of course. However, I was pointing out that the claim the title makes is false. A spam botnet has been taken down when it is permanently disabled. (And the spammers themselves at the least publicly taunted by John Cleese, but that is my personal opinion).
Only two command server were found to be located outside the USA. So does it mean that shutting these servers down would result in a complete botnet shut down? Keeping in view Ozdok's multi layered fallback mechanism the answer here is 'no'.
and
After seeing all these fallback mechanisms, it doesn't look very easy to kill Ozdok in one go but hurting this beast might not be that difficult.
[...] this eWeek article has some interesting evidence, including suspicious user registrations by Google employees and an attempt by Google to hire off ReframeIt's lead engineer.
The article doesn't have any evidence. Low-res screenshots with a few arrows aren't convincing, even if they did look alike. If you're writing an online annotation solution, it's quite probable it will look something like your competitor's product (and like a few other things in sidebars). As for the user registrations: if none of the Reframe It employees have registered with Google to check out Sidewiki, they're stupid. Trying to hire off a lead engineer? I'd consider that a compliment, for the engineer as well as for the company. And he refused, didn't he? Furthermore, the article states clearly that the Reframe It CEO "doesn't want to sue Google," but rather, "By going public, Fishkin is hoping to get his story out there and see what happens next." The whining, cowardly 'see what sticks' - approach to competitiveness.
I'm saying that if the EU does anything, they should try to force MS to open up those formats, yes. You say that will never happen. Fair enough and I think you're right. But this ballot screen is completely pointless, as was Windows XP Edition N.
Almost nobody cares about browser choice on Windows. Sure, it's hard to really get rid of IE, but installing another browser has never been a problem. Same goes for media players, mail clients and IM clients. I think the EU should go after closed formats that have become de facto standards..doc,.xls, MAPI. These are cases of true monopoly that truly hinder competetitors from entering the market. Freeing these formats would actually mean something. Going for a browser ballot is nothing more than a symbolic gesture to show that we're willing to stand up to big companies. I bet Microsoft loves this, they get some practise in this kind of legal battle, learn how far they can go and perhaps even gain some credit if they comply. And complying is easy because a ballot box doesn't hurt them at all.
I already have the means to export all my Google data. Contacts and calendar can be easily exported thru the web interface. For mail I use IMAP: Evolution syncs everything. For the docs I use a Python script called GDD. It's getting easier though, and I like this move by Google. They're committing themselves to keeping their services on a level where you don't want to leave, even if you easily can.
Open sourcing this is not a bad idea. Why?
First of all: you've made at least a few mistakes. The most important is that you apparently quit your day job before you had your first serious customer. Having a brilliant product doesn't mean you can live off it. You need people who buy it. The second mistake is related: once you decide to earn a living off your invention, you should spend at least half of your time selling it, not developing. Third mistake: you're "not an electrical or RF guy", but you're doing this solo?
The best way of selling this would be to have a working demo. Create something with your invention that isn't possible with other solutions, be it technically or budget-wise. Since you seem to have been working on this for a few years and haven't come up with something, you probably need others to do this (or anything else that might spur sales).
Open sourcing your product might do this for you. You will lose the property of the software and/or mechanisms, but you'll still be recognised as the inventor and the expert. This might get you places.
Slashdot Mirror
A non-physical gadget is a widget. So XP and OSX are widgets. Wait, I'm confused.
That's where most people end up in this discussion. So far there's been no concrete way to support a business presented here. Just a few ideas and it gets left up to "What's best depends on you".
That's what you get when you remain vague about what your actual product is. If you'd tell me exactly what you sell, I might be able to be more specific. I might even tell you to forget about open sourcing altogether.
If you would be truly interested, there are ideas to be explored here. T-shirts sound funny, but I'm sure Mozilla made a lot of money that way. Is Red Hat making money? Is Google? Is Slashdot? Mark Shuttleworth? Michael Widenius? Sun? Linus himself? If they are, does that guarantee success for you too? Of course not. But it isn't impossible either (again, depending on what you do). Also, having a closed source app isn't a guarantee for success either.
Care to tell me how I can make money by spending months developing a program and then giving it away for free?
I didn't say you could. Still, I'll bite.
The same argument has been made over and over by writers and musicians, and yet there are some of those out there that make money while giving away their work. If you'd seriously consider going open source, the 'while' is important. It's different from 'by'. Nobody makes money by giving away their work.
Some options to make money are to sell support, advice, custumization, books, t-shirts, talks or (most probably) get hired for something new as you've proven to be a competent programmer.
What's best depends on you, your skills, what you want and, of course, your product. I want to stress again that I don't say you SHOULD do this or that it would be a good idea in your particular case.
A programmer who claims he can only earn money by keeping the source closed is like a plumber who only wants to fix your sink when nobody's home and the door is locked.
'Only' is the key word here, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. As you point out, there are lots of good, valid reasons for developing closed source software, but hiding your source can't be the only basis for your income.
By the way, if I built a Gulfstream replica and sold it, I probably would get sued.
Spoken like someone who doesn't develop software for a living. My company (among other things) develops software. The sale of that software pays for our homes, electricity, computers, and the ability to continue developing programs that people need.
A programmer who claims he can only earn money by keeping the source closed is like a plumber who only wants to fix your sink when nobody's home and the door is locked.
Although I sympathize with your desire to keep your business running, I think that there should be more to it than just the black box you're selling your customers right now. I'm not saying that everything should be open source (I don't know how that would work out), just that your arguments sound a bit RIAA-like: locking everything down is better, because it forces people to keep buying from us.
Tell you what, go find a Linux distro circa XP's release (late 2001, I believe?) and install that on the same beige box. Report back how well it does.
A few others have made that point and I remember how installing Debian, Gentoo and Suse was around then. It wasn't pretty, but XP, with all of it's manufacturer's support, wasn't doing a great job.
My point, however, is that I still wonder how many users switch, how they do it and what their reasons are. If you say that average users don't install OS'es, then either somenone else does it for them or they don't switch. The latter would imply that the percentage netbooks sold with Linux on it would be a fair indicator of de facto market share.
Anyways, I don't think your story reflects the average user
Neither does yours, I think:
and there are plenty more stories of people getting a bad taste of Linux and switching back to Windows/Mac.
I wonder how many 'average users' switch (either way) and why.
Also I like how you compare Linux distros from now to an eight year old Windows OS
I did not.
Thanks for the insight. I'll not be installing Win7, unless for friends, but I'm glad MS's got this ironed out.
I wonder how many 'average' users would get XP, Vista or 7 working on a desktop, let alone a netbook.
I didn't say that installing Linux was easy. It's painful as well, and when something doesn't work, you usually have a BIG problem that's not solved by installing a few drivers. I know that. Still, I'd expect the commercial OS'es to have better install routines. Commenters above you tell me Windows has improved in that regard since XP and I believe them. On the other hand, I'm very impressed with e.g. Ubuntu. I've installed it on a couple of very different systems and It Just Works (R, TM etc.) most of the time. That wouldn't impress me if it was a Redmond OS, but it does when it's a community effort. The same feeling causes me to be a bit more forgiving when it comes to installing a Linux distro.
By the way, saying "tweaking and recompiling everything" sound like trolling to me.
Since you don't seem very technical,
I am fairly technical, but not seeming it sounds like a compliment to me. Since you don't seem to be able to read, I'll repeat that the error occurred during installing, not launching. Thanks for the tip, though.
Presumably 7 would be more manageable for common users to install on recent hardware than an OS that's eight years old.
If true (and I think it is), great! Still, why isn't there any research on this? If I were a netbook manufacturer, Microsoft, Apple or Mark Shuttleworth I would be VERY interested to learn how many of those who purchased my computer or OS are sticking with the default setup. Win7 might be easier to install, but I still don't see my dad buying or pirating a Windows disk and installing it himself. Do netbook buyers give Ubuntu a try before changing to Windows? What makes them decide to keep or ditch it?
I'm a Linux user myself, but I just installed XP on a common desktop box tonight and it was painful. Wifi, sound didn't work out of the box, you have to wait ages for all of the updates and SP's to download and install, reboot far too many times and then you have a empty OS almost without useful apps. Some things were hard to get working (Radeon driver installer throwing errors, Wifi driver refusing to work).
I wonder how many 'average' users would get XP, Vista or 7 working on a desktop, let alone a netbook.
I agree, of course. However, I was pointing out that the claim the title makes is false. A spam botnet has been taken down when it is permanently disabled. (And the spammers themselves at the least publicly taunted by John Cleese, but that is my personal opinion).
and
The article doesn't have any evidence. Low-res screenshots with a few arrows aren't convincing, even if they did look alike. If you're writing an online annotation solution, it's quite probable it will look something like your competitor's product (and like a few other things in sidebars).
As for the user registrations: if none of the Reframe It employees have registered with Google to check out Sidewiki, they're stupid.
Trying to hire off a lead engineer? I'd consider that a compliment, for the engineer as well as for the company. And he refused, didn't he?
Furthermore, the article states clearly that the Reframe It CEO "doesn't want to sue Google," but rather, "By going public, Fishkin is hoping to get his story out there and see what happens next." The whining, cowardly 'see what sticks' - approach to competitiveness.
What if you throttle your own connection for 5 seconds every 14 minutes? (No, I don't agree with the policy. At all.)
Exactly. I can do this with Ubuntu, too.
I'm saying that if the EU does anything, they should try to force MS to open up those formats, yes. You say that will never happen. Fair enough and I think you're right. But this ballot screen is completely pointless, as was Windows XP Edition N.
Almost nobody cares about browser choice on Windows. Sure, it's hard to really get rid of IE, but installing another browser has never been a problem. Same goes for media players, mail clients and IM clients. .doc, .xls, MAPI. These are cases of true monopoly that truly hinder competetitors from entering the market.
I think the EU should go after closed formats that have become de facto standards.
Freeing these formats would actually mean something. Going for a browser ballot is nothing more than a symbolic gesture to show that we're willing to stand up to big companies. I bet Microsoft loves this, they get some practise in this kind of legal battle, learn how far they can go and perhaps even gain some credit if they comply. And complying is easy because a ballot box doesn't hurt them at all.
I already have the means to export all my Google data. Contacts and calendar can be easily exported thru the web interface. For mail I use IMAP: Evolution syncs everything. For the docs I use a Python script called GDD. It's getting easier though, and I like this move by Google. They're committing themselves to keeping their services on a level where you don't want to leave, even if you easily can.
Open sourcing this is not a bad idea. Why?
First of all: you've made at least a few mistakes. The most important is that you apparently quit your day job before you had your first serious customer. Having a brilliant product doesn't mean you can live off it. You need people who buy it. The second mistake is related: once you decide to earn a living off your invention, you should spend at least half of your time selling it, not developing. Third mistake: you're "not an electrical or RF guy", but you're doing this solo?
The best way of selling this would be to have a working demo. Create something with your invention that isn't possible with other solutions, be it technically or budget-wise. Since you seem to have been working on this for a few years and haven't come up with something, you probably need others to do this (or anything else that might spur sales).
Open sourcing your product might do this for you. You will lose the property of the software and/or mechanisms, but you'll still be recognised as the inventor and the expert. This might get you places.
Because it's a joke?
You mean that the sound made by a pigeon's wings is affected by fleeing pigeons in the vicinity?
Exactly.