Hi Aral, We have not met yet, although I have seen you in a couple of events (I am rather shy, so I will probably introduce myself after one hundred meetings).
Overall, I am a quite reclusive developer and, therefore, I am afraid that my ideas may well sound silly when exposed publicly. However, I believe that your request is worth the risk and, therefore, here is my opinion. OSFlash is already very good, meaning that it should not be afraid of the competition of similar websites/projects (there has been a lot of talking in this list about RIAForge that, as good as it can be, will need time - and/or a lot of money spent in marketing - to reach the OSFlash level). The negative side of OSFlash being already very good is that significant improvements are difficult and may be very costly if involving infrastructural changes. Now the "bomb"... You mentioned the possibility of producing another website for commercial projects. It's a few years now that I am wondering if there can be a model in-between the "Open Source" and "Commercial" characterizations of software artifacts. The name I gave to it is: "Managed Source". With "Managed Source" I do not believe to be inventing anything new but just refining concepts that have always been in the software development industry, although not frequently exploited. The main idea is to provide services (mostly knowledge/development services) associated with a software product that is, if not exactly open source, "semi-open" source, where the "semi" indicates that the source code is fully available for any kind of use, although such use is restricted to the customers who buys the services only. That, very shortly, is "my opinion". Antonio > -----Original Message----- > From: Aral Balkan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 20 October 2006 12:34 > To: Open Source Flash Mailing List > Subject: [osflash] OSFlash Roadmap: asking for your opinion > > > Hi Bob, > > > I think a more important question is what does Aral plan to do with > > donations. While I think OSFlash is a useful service, it shouldn't > > cost all that much to run. The trac/svn hosting appears to be donated > > by cvsdude... I hope so anyway, it'd be a shame if Aral was paying for > > it himself. > > The current costs are hosting for the site and wiki (which is being > run well on the VPS plan that its on) and the cost of the CVSDude > account. Neither of those will bankrupt me anytime soon! > > The real costs, however are time. I want to develop OSFlash further > but I have been held back because I've been working myself (outside > of time I essentially donate to talking about Flash and open source > at various conferences -- of which I'm doing 8 this year) doing > consulting/training to pay the pesky rent! > > So I've been thinking about how I can make it so that I can both > develop on OSFlash *and* pay the rent and I believe I've come up with > a solution. So here it is: > > As of now, I am going to be devoting myself to developing an engine > to power an open source web site similar to SourceForge but much > simpler to use. It has automated project signups, etc., and the core > functionality from the current solution. OSFlash will become one > category (the Flash category) under the projects that are hosted > there (alongside other Adobe and non-Adobe projects.) In order to > make it possible for me to work on this and pay the rent, I am going > to create a separate site that uses this engine which will host > commercial projects for a fee. Finally, if companies want to use this > engine, they'll be able to buy licenses for it and/or buy it as an > appliance. This should make it financially feasible for me to work on > OSFlash full time. > > What does everyone think of this? > > I want you to understand what this means in terms of the things I > *won't* be doing to work on this: I won't have the time to put my > training courses online as I wanted to and I won't be able to work on > the mobile games that I had started working on as well as the couple > of other web app projects I had in mind to work on. Also, it will > mean that I have less time to contribute to certain betas, etc. Is > this community worth it? Hell yes! :) > > Again, before I commit to this, I want to hear your opinions as this > is going to be something that I will be completely devoting myself to > and I want to know whether or not I have your support in this before > I do. > > Aral > > _______________________________________________ > osflash mailing list > [email protected] > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org > > _______________________________________________ osflash mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
