Ok I'm thinking now. SalStat has not been
touched for a long time and probably won't be.
But I've been developing a new statistics package with a
wicked interface (IMHO, way better than the top commercial
competition), lots of tests (e.g., 12 types of quantiles -
believe me, they are out there!), an archiving plain-text
file format (to facilitate auditing of analysis), and lots
of other nifty features.
I originally intended to release it under a proprietary
license. Yeah, my bad etc. I just want to create a
commercially viable company with which I can make a lot of cash.
But the recent stories in places like Slashdot have got me
thinking. If I released this software under an OS license,
would I still be able to make money? The thing to do is to
identify sources of income.
This would largely be through support, but sadly folks, I do
not feel that this will be enough to keep even just myself
in pizzas, never mind a thriving business.
But there is the possibility of a dual-licensed version. One
would be under an open source license (and zero cost too)
that offers the basic tests, useful (but not the most
useful) features, and a community who use it.
The other would be under a proprietary license which has the
advanced stuff (syntax, connections with databases, more
advanced tests, the best of the UI, etc).
Obviously, having two different programs would be difficult.
Other people's contributions may make the pro version
obselete and their code could not be incorporated (btw - all
the new code is written from scratch) without their agreement.
I guess the way forward is to provide a skeleton with some
basic tests, and have proprietary modules that offer really
cool stuff to those who wish to pay for them.
But I'm not sure. I've spent a lot of time on this, and
there is evidence that people will appreciate this work a
lot when they need to analyse data in a friendly environment.
Any opinions?