Commercial Open Source Software using PHP
by Evan Leybourn
on
Writing Open Source software as a small business can be very difficult. You can't sell your software in a shrink wrapped box on a store shelf nor can you sell per seat/cpu licenses to use this software. So how do you make a profitable business writing software that you have to give away?
This paper will discuss:
- Support/service contracts and how to develop and market them.
- Service level agreements for large companies and government.
- Combining hardware and software as a package for clients who need a complete solution.
Each point will use examples drawn from the Got_It Image Management Software by DAMIT Australia, which we have been heavily involved in writing for the last 18 months. This paper will also touch on the requirements for writing commercial code, the technologies you need to use and why they are used.