On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 11:44:49PM +0800, Stas Bekman wrote:
>
> Since mod_perl is an open source, it's a tough quest. Basically what I
> want is get some company that will benefit from me working on open source
> project full time and pay me a salary. Of course it's probably hard to get
> a full time open source position, so probably some compromising offer,
> where we do some 50-75% of the time mod_perl development and the rest
> doing something else, if it makes the company more happy.
Another possibility is to try to gather a bit of a consortium together.
See if there are several interested companies that might fund half a
developer for a year. If you get enough for 4 or 5 developers and some
office support, you might be able to make a go of it.
Existing Apache/mod_perl support companies might pitch some in, and
some that want to make a contribution without committing to permanent
staff or longer term could ante up commitments.
The commitments could be in the form of guru grants, speaker honoraria,
PR grants, feature purchases. Hmmmm, found a YAS (Yet Another Society)
mod_perl wing? See if "the community" might pitch in to fund Stas and
one or two others for 6 months? Not sure if you need to be slightly mad
or from down under to pull that on off. Kevin Lenzo's a hell of a nice
guy and probably would be happy to offer up some advice. In fact, I
think I'll Cc him, and leave the rest of the message attached to
backfill, if he's got time to read it...
As you and others have mentioned here now and in the past, mod_perl
needs PR and working apps (which are both good PR and good reasons for
others to start using it as a means to an end: like the new Slash code,
for instance).
Such an organization could do (aside from the feature development listed
above):
- general advocacy: press releases, reference cards, publish
articles and sell a qr/this (article|research) funded by
(ActiveState|VMWare|Covalent|IBM S/390 Marketing Division|.*)/ credit
- coporate outreach offer a free or cheap on-site intro to mod_perl
technologies to any corporate division
- offer a "take a mod_perl guru to lunch" program
- emergency ssh/telnet/onsite problem SWAT services (that's a bit of a
stretch). This could be done in partnership with existing firms like
Covalent, or (so as not to compete with possible sponors) it could
just advocate the availability of them. Heck, just getting "market
survey" type articles published that research who offers what services
might help promote these services.
- in-depth training
Anyway, this turned out to be longer than I intended, just some fuzzy
thoughts after a long day...
> Definitely I'm aware of the situation in the market. But you know what,
> look at the history, at any recession times there were always those who
> continued to prosper. Therefore I believe that some companies not even
> slowed down, but have accelerated their growth and have enough cash to
> invest into open source and make probably improve their image. Look for
> example at Covalent, I don't know all the details, but this company seem
> to stand strong on its legs. But Covalent has already Doug, so this is out
> of question.
>
> So if your company thinks it can directly or indirectly benefit from
> having one or more mod_perl experts doing cool mod_perl development, let
> us know. There are at least 3 people (including me) that want this job.
> I'm sure that there are many more that will be interested.
>
> I've mentioned in the subject that the request is unusual, so please
> respond only if you think you can stand behind this offer and not promise
> things that will never become true. I've bitten once on such an offer, and
> will try not to do the same mistake a second time in a row.
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> On the related note, does anybody know about the financial status of
> Velocigen? How do they sell their products? We think to try to revive this
> old idea where we create mod_perl company, that will sell mod_perl and
> support. If Velocigen can do this with a closed source product, I believe
> we can do even better, especially with the drooling mod_perl 2.0.
>
> We have discussed this with I think 6 mod_perl guys about a year ago, but
> since all of us were programmers, we didn't get anywhere. May be we can
> come up with some nice business plan, and make a commercial mod_perl
> branch, boost the awareness of the product, get companies to invest into
> people developing it and make mod_perl a standard for webserver products.
> I know that it's a rewishful thinking, but with the right people and right
> companies I'm sure that everything is possible. I'm sure that you realize
> the potential of mod_perl.
>
> IMHO of course... I'm just a programmer, so if you ask about my business
> plan, I tell: you find a good business shark and push it forward, we will
> do the coding. Easy huh, but that's what we are good at -- coding, so we
> better do that.
>
> Anyway, fresh ideas are welcome
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Stas Bekman JAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker
> http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide http://perl.apache.org/guide
> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://apachetoday.com http://logilune.com/
> http://singlesheaven.com http://perl.apache.org http://perlmonth.com/
>
>
