Long thread coming about how a small FOSS company wants to work with their clients
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Long thread coming about how a small FOSS company wants to work with their clients
I received an email which made me realize that we need to be more clear about how we work, how we do not work, the value we provide to our clients and what we ask our clients in return.
I am posting this here in the hope that this text may motivate and help others who are also serious about honest open source business models.
Published under CC BY-SA 4.0 Nils Goroll
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Long thread coming about how a small FOSS company wants to work with their clients
I received an email which made me realize that we need to be more clear about how we work, how we do not work, the value we provide to our clients and what we ask our clients in return.
I am posting this here in the hope that this text may motivate and help others who are also serious about honest open source business models.
Published under CC BY-SA 4.0 Nils Goroll
What is our value proposition and how do we want to work?
We, the team at UPLEX and our freelance partners, strive to provide for our customers and clients, who we regard as partners, excellent technical implementations of superior quality with no strings attached: We publish the most valuable and innovative results of our work under open source licenses, which give you, our customer and client, full power and control over software provided by us.
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What is our value proposition and how do we want to work?
We, the team at UPLEX and our freelance partners, strive to provide for our customers and clients, who we regard as partners, excellent technical implementations of superior quality with no strings attached: We publish the most valuable and innovative results of our work under open source licenses, which give you, our customer and client, full power and control over software provided by us.
This means zero vendor lock in, no usage related cost, no hidden cost. The freedom to continue to work with our software even if you decide to work with other companies for support and development. The freedom to fork.
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This means zero vendor lock in, no usage related cost, no hidden cost. The freedom to continue to work with our software even if you decide to work with other companies for support and development. The freedom to fork.
We believe that this value proposition is hard to find matched in the industry. There are many companies 'foss-washing' or 'open-washing' their products by talking an open source narrative, when in fact their entire business model is either upselling closed source components (open core etc), or capturing a market to then close down the license and escalate costs. Red flags for both are contributor license agreements and not accepting outside contributions with relevant value to enterprise users.
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We believe that this value proposition is hard to find matched in the industry. There are many companies 'foss-washing' or 'open-washing' their products by talking an open source narrative, when in fact their entire business model is either upselling closed source components (open core etc), or capturing a market to then close down the license and escalate costs. Red flags for both are contributor license agreements and not accepting outside contributions with relevant value to enterprise users.
Our promise is an honest open source business model: You pay us, we publish all our work as open source and help you use it in a way which benefits your business the most.
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Our promise is an honest open source business model: You pay us, we publish all our work as open source and help you use it in a way which benefits your business the most.
What we ask from you in return
First and foremost, we charge for hours worked only. We can repackage hours worked if a project requires it, but ultimately, the deal is simple: We work for an hour, you pay us for an hour. We are a service company, even if we (also) write software.
We do not sell a product. We do not sell licenses.
Besides asking for your money in return for our work, we ask you to treat us like who we want to be: A partner who acts in your best interest.
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What we ask from you in return
First and foremost, we charge for hours worked only. We can repackage hours worked if a project requires it, but ultimately, the deal is simple: We work for an hour, you pay us for an hour. We are a service company, even if we (also) write software.
We do not sell a product. We do not sell licenses.
Besides asking for your money in return for our work, we ask you to treat us like who we want to be: A partner who acts in your best interest.
Do not bullshit us with predatory legal text. Do not ask us to guarantee things which no company in the world can guarantee - if you want that, buy insurance instead (and even that won't solve the problem, but we can pretend for a moment that it would). Do not try to sneak into legal text transfer of copyright or ownership. You get the same license as anyone else, "despite" having paid us to do the work, but you also get all the good stuff that some other company paid for. No strings attached.
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Do not bullshit us with predatory legal text. Do not ask us to guarantee things which no company in the world can guarantee - if you want that, buy insurance instead (and even that won't solve the problem, but we can pretend for a moment that it would). Do not try to sneak into legal text transfer of copyright or ownership. You get the same license as anyone else, "despite" having paid us to do the work, but you also get all the good stuff that some other company paid for. No strings attached.
That's the deal. Take it or leave it.
Final words
We believe you should partner with us, a company that wants to be judged by their action and not in their words. We want to make a real difference. We see how utterly broken this whole industry is and we just decided to not play a sick game.
But if this proposition does not appeal to you, fine. No bad feelings, do whatever you think is best for your company and move on. We're good.
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That's the deal. Take it or leave it.
Final words
We believe you should partner with us, a company that wants to be judged by their action and not in their words. We want to make a real difference. We see how utterly broken this whole industry is and we just decided to not play a sick game.
But if this proposition does not appeal to you, fine. No bad feelings, do whatever you think is best for your company and move on. We're good.
@slink Same deal here: https://chirpysoft.be/projects.html
This business model can work well enough provided there are recurring customers with a lasting relationship based on trust.
The main financial disadvantage I see compared to selling conventional software products is that being paid by time spent developing, rather than being paid repeatedly for the same software product, makes it impossible to use the software product as a revenue multiplier.
Which means small companies like ours tend to stay small, while most of the clients will be larger businesses using business models based on some multiplier. I don't tend to get hired by other consultancies who merely charge by the hour. I depend on other business models for revenue, albeit indirectly. -
@slink Same deal here: https://chirpysoft.be/projects.html
This business model can work well enough provided there are recurring customers with a lasting relationship based on trust.
The main financial disadvantage I see compared to selling conventional software products is that being paid by time spent developing, rather than being paid repeatedly for the same software product, makes it impossible to use the software product as a revenue multiplier.
Which means small companies like ours tend to stay small, while most of the clients will be larger businesses using business models based on some multiplier. I don't tend to get hired by other consultancies who merely charge by the hour. I depend on other business models for revenue, albeit indirectly.@stsp I want our company to stay small.
And FWIW, this model has worked for us for almost 20 years now and I would hope it will continue to. -
Do not bullshit us with predatory legal text. Do not ask us to guarantee things which no company in the world can guarantee - if you want that, buy insurance instead (and even that won't solve the problem, but we can pretend for a moment that it would). Do not try to sneak into legal text transfer of copyright or ownership. You get the same license as anyone else, "despite" having paid us to do the work, but you also get all the good stuff that some other company paid for. No strings attached.
@slink
I think a more important thing to point out here is that the one who pays gets to decide what gets developed and how it works. Sure, the next company gets the software for free, but it's tailored to the company that paid for it. Everyone else will likely need to make customization and converters, depending on how business specific the code is (e.g. a caching webserver will require virtually no customization, compared to let's say logistics software). -
@slink
I think a more important thing to point out here is that the one who pays gets to decide what gets developed and how it works. Sure, the next company gets the software for free, but it's tailored to the company that paid for it. Everyone else will likely need to make customization and converters, depending on how business specific the code is (e.g. a caching webserver will require virtually no customization, compared to let's say logistics software).@leeloo very good point! I
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@slink
I think a more important thing to point out here is that the one who pays gets to decide what gets developed and how it works. Sure, the next company gets the software for free, but it's tailored to the company that paid for it. Everyone else will likely need to make customization and converters, depending on how business specific the code is (e.g. a caching webserver will require virtually no customization, compared to let's say logistics software).@leeloo @slink you touch on one of the biggest challenges in #productmanagement and stakeholder management. The most mature client/sponsor is the one who realised that you are there to understand their needs and pains and to deliver a solution addressing these. Those clients trust the experts and don’t say them what to build and how to build it. If you hire experts just let them do their job.
This way of working increases the likelihood that the product will appeal to a wider market. -
@leeloo @slink you touch on one of the biggest challenges in #productmanagement and stakeholder management. The most mature client/sponsor is the one who realised that you are there to understand their needs and pains and to deliver a solution addressing these. Those clients trust the experts and don’t say them what to build and how to build it. If you hire experts just let them do their job.
This way of working increases the likelihood that the product will appeal to a wider market.@leeloo @slink To me, building a sustainable product means being able to say no to #featurefactory development processes. These “well-crafted” and extremely specific requirements (of course already including detailed solutions) often delivered by #hippo executives with absolutely no tech background will quickly destroy the product. Of course, it’s also challenging to have the freedom of saying no. Not easy with #opensource at all.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
