At GUADEC last days, fun times. One thing I noticed (again) is the growth of the number of small companies, some of them driven by young guys (like, between 25 and 30) doing some really great stuff with Free Software, combining a steady income, whilst still providing valuable contributions to the community.
I’d want to write more about this seen, but here’s a quick idea: how about creating a mailing list for, at one side, these young startups or people interested in starting one, and on the other side people who already got their business running, or already established investors or managers, to discuss issues they encounter, potential business plans, how to get in contact with potential customers, how to combine open communication at one side and dealing with closed environments on the other,…
This could lower the barrier for people to start working full-time on the projects they love, it’d add value to Free Software because larger companies can start using it even more, because more expertise and consultancy is available on the market,…
I guess this is just a shot in the dark, but I think it could be pretty useful. Thoughts?
I think that could be a valuable resource for people. some people who work on software might not be so business oriented so a good place to start would help!
I remember a posting on p.g.o about founding an open source business network (not sure who wrote the post), where companies would participate as partners. Don’t know if this ever took off (I’m guessing no, else ther’d be more noise around it), but something that got me interested. I’d love to see this, and I’m betting that it would serve well for handing over business opportunities.
@knidnap: that were blogs from me and Rob Taylor, and we are working on that business model indeed.
His company is called Codethink and mine is Codeminded.Both are working as a tandem, atm.
There is an older ‘free software business’ mailing list at http://www.crynwr.com/fsb/ Might be a little too open-registration for you, though; might instead want to follow the http://flossfoundations.org/ model and only do invite-only until a list culture is established that you’re comfortable with.
I’ve been thinking about how many small companies are using FLOSS to manage their systems every day.
It would be great if such a list exists.