Thank you for all your responce on my previous thread. There were very
valuable to me. Most of all I do like you all respected my conditions.
There was even a responce to warn me I should not make my propriety
software Open Source because then I could not earn any money
from my extension. That kind of responce within a Open Source community
is really altruism.
*Summery of my question* :
My conditions are :
*I decide if I make Wikibox Blue Open source
*I decide when Wikibox Blue will be Open source
*I decide on which conditions Wikibox Blue will be open source.
We have build many extensions to improve the functionality of MediaWiki.
It is for Enterprise use as Knowledge management infrastructure. The
name of the
extensions and additional functionality is Wikibox Blue. The software is
propriety.
It can be hosted as SAAS My question is here : Please convince me I have
to make my propriety software open source.
*Summery of responce :*
Business model.
In the responce there was a suggestion to make my software Open Source
and earn money on support. This is a standard business model in Open
Source community. First I do not want this. Second it is not possible
for me because I am an software architect not a developer.
Create a barrier. If I want people use my extensions as SAAS and they
have to pay for that service AND is it is also Open Source, then there
should be a kind of a barrier. Otherwise nobody will use my SAAS
solution any more. Or a competitor can create the same kind of
SAAS solution but more cheap because I have the costs, and the
competitor the profit.
Advertising on Wiki hosting as SAAS. Not mentioned, but I hate
advertising, especially on a wiki, so for me that is no solution.
I am an entrepreneur, it is my responsibilty to find a good business
model. But thanks for thinking with me.
Credits
If I make my software Open Source I get the credits for that. That is
very important to me. If enterprises want to use a wiki internally they
can do so with the Open Source version. But the real knowledge is within
Wikiation, my company.
Credits are very strong related to the license. Do I really get the
credits? I know in theory it should be. But how this can be achieved in
real life?
So its boils down to me :
*Is a Open Source license solid, reliable.
*Do I really get the credits.
If you can convince me for these two items then I am totally convinced.
With regards Bernard