Anyone have current thoughts on Racket-related consulting, especially
for businesses who need a somewhat general-purpose Racket module for
their own app, and are open to contributing that module as open source?
I've been consulting on clients' Racket projects since PLT Scheme 2xx or
1xx. The majority of the work is analytic or otherwise
application-specific. However, a good percentage of the work involves
the client needing a general-purpose Racket module to do Foo, and me
making the module. It would be good for the Racket community if some of
those modules were released as open source packages. The main barrier
to open-sourcing such modules is that it wasn't arranged from the
beginning with the business people and in interdependent contracts with
other parties, and so often very hard to change after the fact.
Going forward, I now have tools and process guidance that make releasing
Racket packages this way low-to-negligible cost (depending on whether an
organization wants API documentation for its own use). So I think the
main question then is whether an organization is willing to commit to
open-sourcing the modules from the start.
(Another issue is that people do a sanity check if they're looking at
paying to develop a general-purpose module for Racket, but it seems like
'the same thing' already exists for Java or Python. I've been blessed
with clients who consider having to roll their own general-purpose
module occasionally to be an acceptable cost in return for the
advantages of Racket. It helps that they've also needed me to do things
like make a general-purpose jQuery widget, when the open source ones
were not adequate, and to do similar even with some Python and Java
libraries, so they appreciate that roll-your-own is not entirely a
Racket-specific phenomenon.)
Anyway, I'm thinking of starting a side business of developing
general-purpose Racket packages on demand -- modules that satisfy all
clients' requirements and are incidentally open-sourced. Perhaps with
some discount over normal rates in consideration of the package being
open-sourced. Of course, separate from that, I'll continue to
open-source modules that I develop for my personal projects
("http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket/";). Anyone have input?
Neil V.
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