Update: As per my follow-up to orcmid,
Oh, I think the marketplace is a *GREAT* idea, and in fact is *WELL* overdue. They should have been doing this all along! I was just laughing at Oleg’s follow-up phrasing of one (of many!) ways you could utilize OSS to your financial benefit. In fact, I almost titled the post “On SourceForge and Open Source Obfuscation”, (and probably should have now that I think of it), but chose not to for some odd reason.
I was in a hurry, and didn’t extend things as I normally will, so my apologies to those of you left with the impression that I thought the SourceForge Marketplace was in any way a bad thing.
[Original Post]
Signs on the Sand: SourceForge Marketplace
Sounds interesting. Another way to get rich - create great open source product, make your code unreadable, provide no documentation and then sell support :)
Geez David, don't be so cynical.
I'm about to take an open-source project out of embargo and get it up onto SourceForge. This project, of the many I have identified to work on, was under-written by a commercial firm that needed it for a particular business purpose. I arranged that it be all open source. They are getting it because they need it, and their under-writing my effort (done cheap, in this case) is helping to bring the software into existence and possibly-wider use.
Now, my experience in terms of support is answering questions and helping people trouble-shoot. It mostly has nothing to do with the quality of the source code but use of the running version. There may be questions on getting it to build and others that I will answer freely in the same way I always have for other software that I support (http://ODMA.info).
I think one value of the Marketplace, and we have seen no details so far, is arranging sponsorship for elements and features and additions that have immediate value for someone, and anything that requires more extensive support and is not on behalf of a contributor to the project, but someone who wants its fruits to enjoy themselves and is willing to fund it. That's my intention if it ever comes around to being able to use the proposed Marketplace as a support-funding mechanism.
PS: Oh, I get it. You're quoting Oleg. Still ...
@orcmid,
Oh, I think the marketplace is a *GREAT* idea, and in fact is *WELL* overdue. They should have been doing this all along! I was just laughing at Oleg's follow-up phrasing of one (of many!) ways you could utilize OSS to your financial benefit. In fact, I almost titled the post "On SourceForge and Open Source Obfuscation", (and probably should have now that I think of it), but chose not to for some odd reason.
I'll clarify things a bit up top. Thanks for the follow-up!
Getting rich schemes never work, except for the fraud who's pulling the strings