unbrandy - Slashdot User

Comment Here's what SilverStripe did (Score 1) 279

by unbrandy on Sunday January 13, 2008 @08:17PM (#22029568) Attached to: Earning Money with Open Source Software?

Hi. I'm the CEO of SilverStripe http://silverstripe.com/ . We make an open-source CMS (BSD license) and we've been in business for about eight years as a commercial entity. I agree with the posts here who've said you need to focus on the community of people, you need to scratch your own itch, and you may be able to make money selling a customised version of your app.

In our case, our CMS was closed-source for the first seven years as we built websites for clients. In fact, we never set out to build a CMS, really. We were building sites and needed a way for site owners & content editors to change content on their own sites. A year or so ago, we open-sourced and are very glad we did.

Our company has 16 staff and we make money by customising our open source offering on a case-by-case basis for our clients. We have no shortage of work coming in and our community is growing. We offer a number ways for people to contribute to our project and we provide free support to our community via forums, IRC, and in general, however we can.

Again, scratch your own itch! Make your software useful (profitable) to you first. You may be able to open source it simultaneously, but keep in mind there is the maintenance / upkeep of the community to consider.

Good luck to you. -- Brian Calhoun (b r i a n @ NOSPAM s i l v e r s t r i p e . c o m)

Submission + - Firefox As Your Desktop (hollenback.net)

Submitted by

Phil Hollenback

on Sunday October 14, 2007 @07:08PM

Phil Hollenback writes: "An article I wrote about how to use Firefox to replace many traditional desktop programs. I speculate that this could eventually replace standard desktop apps entirely: http://www.hollenback.net/index.php/FirefoxDesktop"

Submission + - US Government Seeks To Deny Internet To Enemies (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

mytrip

on Friday October 12, 2007 @06:53PM

mytrip writes: "Cyberspace may become a more active battlefield in the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

The new National Strategy for Homeland Security, issued earlier this week by the White House, places a greater emphasis on the "uninterrupted use of the Internet and the communications systems, data, monitoring, and control systems that comprise our cyberinfrastructure."

While such sentiment was clearly evident in the government's 2002 National Strategy for Homeland Security, the new guidelines show more concern for and about the Internet, in keeping with the government's 2006 National Infrastructure Protection Plan.

Exactly how the government expects to deny the Internet to terrorists isn't spelled out. One possible way might be through the United State's de facto control of the Domain Name System, though it's unlikely that card would be played outside of a confrontation with a major world power."

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