New business model for future OSS development
Some months ago I realized that developing Open Sound System is no longer my profession. Nobody is paying to me so all OSS hacking has become just a hobby (just for fun). I make my living by doing contract development for Sun and very few other paying customers. However that doesn’t cover the work I have planned to do to develop OSS as an independent product for everybody. This means that my focus will be in keeping customers like Sun happy (by developing features they need) and in developing features what I like to do for my personal needs.
At the same time users of OSS are struggling with problems related with their (hdaudio) laptops. Fixing them will require hours or days of work for each system. In addition to do the work I would need to buy each laptop and pay it from my own pocket. Why should I do that when nobody is paying anything for OSS. Users of OSS seem to be just wanting free support from me without paying anything for that.
Recently I bought a decent iMac system because I decided to move from Windows to Mac (I’m a amateur photographer and use Photosshop a lot). I can use this machine to fix some OSS problems related with Mac machines but this is justified because I have other use for the machine. In addition I would like to use OSS under Solaris in this system myself.
However there are many OSS users with many different kind of laptops (Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, etc). What should I do with them? Do I just go and buy all the laptops from my own pocket? No. I don’t need any more laptops for myself and in addition my salary is will not be enough to buy any more of them.
So what to do with users of such laptops. I don’t care. I don’t have any use for such laptops. Developing hacks for more hdaudio systems is even not fun (it’s lamest of all lame jobs). Should I just say fuck off to all these users? After all being nice to them will not improve my life in any way. I just have to waste my spare time in doing something I don’t want to do. By not doing that the competiveness of OSS will degrade. However does it really matter because I will have to find some other job anyway? Is this the only choice? I hope not.
What I have been thinking about is a new business model for OSS. If 100+ owners of some laptop (say Thinkpad T61) would like to donate something like $10 for the project then I can pay a T61 laptop and cover the required work by that money. In this way it will be profitable and I don’t need to cover the work from my just-for-fun time budget (which will never ever cover the price of a T61 laptop I don’t need). I just need to spend some additional time in developing an auction web site for this purpose (which is actually fun).
What do you think guys/galls? Comments are welcome.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
You seem to be a OSS slave
That’s a problem about your bussiness model again!
Perhaps you should change from quantity to quality. OSS as a paradigm of “pro” and high quality drivers. ALSA for common hardware but OSS as high-end polished configs. ALSA for Ubuntu, OSS for Ubuntu-Studio. Work for studio editing, gamers and those who need low latency systems.
Not being at the main common Linux configs/distros should not be a problem, remember the first compiz & XGL versions, ppl were fighting hours against their PC just to get a cube on their desktop. You offer better audio drivers, make them for ppl who really want them, try to be known by X-Fi Platinum/Xonar owners, not by cheapest laptop owners.
That’s the way to do “not another Linux audio driver” or the “old deprecated driver”. Settle your work in a different field of audio users.
You should enjoy your work, do what you want OSS to be, not what people say OSS should be (like me :P).
May 26th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I second what Schyz says.
In your previous blog post, lots of people have given a variety of ideas on what you can do.
Maybe I should not post this in public, but I think you’re stuck in a rut about how your revenue model is non-existent because you’ve gone GPL + CDDL.
There are people like me who’d pay for support. I want to run Solaris on my Mac Book Pro (I’m a Belenix developer as well as a musician). I’d be willing to pay a small fee if you could get high quality sound to work on a Mac Book Pro. (Or perhaps Sun is already paying you this amount for the Solaris work, I don’t know).
Similarly, there are enough high end software and audio cards out there who’d love to have high quality sound for their software/hardware.
We all want you to survive and for OSS to survive. I have met Dev Majumdar in person and feel his (and 4Front Tech) are genuine people.
In any case you’re not going anywhere with the OSS that you have right now. So go try out all these diferent things, you’ve nothing to lose after all !
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:00 am
Hello, I have read your blog and became convinced that I need to replace ALSA with OSS. I am using opensuse 11. Are there any other suggestions you could give me besides the installation guide on the OSS web-site? do you need to uninstall ALSA before I install OSS?
Thanks
December 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
After reading a few of your recent posts it’s pretty obvious: You sound pretty discouraged… I want to offer some advice that you probably won’t take but it’s free (as in Open Source) so do what you want…
Your project is NOT suffering from the problems with FOSS but from LACK OF INTEREST and poor management. You’re developing everything on your own - for the most part - and that takes time - TOO MUCH TIME! You need your users to connect to each other for support instead of mailing you. You need to pull in power-users to become patch submitters and junior developers in the project. You need the hype of people using your software and telling others how it’s great. This is not going to happen if you continue managing the project like you have. Here’s my $64,000 answer. I’m giving away for free…
1. Get plugged into Ubuntu - Ubuntu is NOT the best Linux out there but it IS the most active. I mean to say that it harnesses the power of everyday folks not just power users and developers. (That is where RedHat focuses: server admins, governments and kernel developers - Ooops!) By using Ubuntu’s forum and wiki you shift the burden of moderation to them and you get to spend time replying and interfacing with the people that really make your software worth developing. YAY!
2. Put the project in Launchpad.net - Launchpad is like SourceForge on steroids! The reason it works is because it’s plugged into Ubuntu and Ubuntu is plugged into people. The project management features of Launchpad really beat anything out there. It’s easy to submit a patch, file a bug or generate packages automatically for early adopters to install without compilation. It avoids the Mosque phenominon that you talked about earlier. (although these people have to be savy enough to know how to add repositories to APT through Synamptic…)
3. Generate buzz - I’d suggest renaming your project . Let’s call it “forking” for the presses. You need to distance the current development from the “obsolete” status that every blog tells you about OSS. When you put the project in Launchpad call it “SASSI Audio Sound System Interface” or something equally quirky/sexy. Publish a blueprint in Launchpad… Start a new IRC channel on freenode.net… Start blogging about everyone cool who is USING your product… Send out press releases to major Linux Journals… Prove that you work better with JACK than ALSA with lower latency… Publish some benchmark results… Make it something to talk about!
4. Take on more help - You need to stop doing this alone as a personal project! There isn’t an easy way to plug into what you’re doing right now. Your website is focused on corporate branding. In internet marketing we’re learning that successful companies focus on product branding instead of corporate branding. Focus on getting people involved in all levels. Stop doing so much of the coding and do more of the merging. (this is why Linus invented git and Ubuntu adopted bzr)
5. make it easy to give money and tell us how much you need. Ardour has done an excellent job at this. The’ve crowdsourced their funding to the point of paying a part-time salary for the lead developers. The’ve also got partial corporate sponsorship as well. Let’s say you’ve got ten people wanting you to get a device working on Linux - start a Pledgie or Chipin Fund drive to buy you a gizmo to test… You can Ebay it a month later if you don’t keep it…
My point is much of your problems are because your business model is stuck in the 80’s internet era. This is a dynamic world we live in now. FOSS has changed focus from being about the code (GPL floppies) >> to being about the developers (SourceForge, FOSS) >> to being about the people (Launchpad, Ubuntu) - As Bob Dylan said, “the times, they are a changing…’
The Bazaar does get big and the Moslem Haj is a completely overwhelming mass of people funneled through a religious cattle shoot. However, if you’ve got the best sweets in the market and you feed them to the king - well, it doesn’t matter whether it’s closed or open source - this is where marketing 101…
These suggestions should get your project out of the dust and back onto Digg.com where it belongs if you can really deliver the best audio drivers on the market. (We want sub-milisecond latency!!!) Alternately, if you decide you want to pass this project to others the above suggestions will make it painless in the passing. In closing, I’d like to thank you for all your hard work on OSS and I wish blessing on you no matter how you decide…
- FRINK