Am Freitag, 28. April 2006 10:37 schrieb Ashok Hariharan:
> -the company is small - about 30 people, 4 main developers.  if all
> 4 got in to the same car, and got killed in an
> accident - that would be the end of it.

Or, which is much more likely, take a big company, let them buy this 
small one, and decide to either dump the software in favour of their 
own or to not develop it any further (for the same reason), but also 
not to make it open source, so that you are forced to go for their 
product (or the open source alternative, in which case you would be 
right there where you are now). Or let the company develop the 
software further, not open source, of course, into a direction you 
don't want it to go... and they just don't care.

If you plan a long term contract in this issue, I'd go for the open 
source alternative. Calculate the time you need to develop the 
missing features, and consider how long this company might be able to 
stand up against takeover offers. Are they all idealists? Or would a 
healthy pension be enough for the executives to hand the business 
over to another company?

> -their balance sheet is pretty healthy

one of the reasons why the above could happen.

> -the few existing clients, are big long term customers....

one more reason (particularly the "big") ...

Martin
-- 
Martin Senftleben, Doctor of Philosophy, S.V. University, using Linux
http://www.drmartinus.de/
http://www.daskirchenjahr.de/

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