[Contractors] FOSS developer marketing benefit?

[Frank Warmerdam]

Robert Hollingsworth wrote:
> For those of you who are active developers in FOSS
> projects, how often have you found that customers
> contact you primarily because they've seen your
> name associated with a product?

Robert,

I have found this a very successful mechanism for generating new
clients as long as the software is actually of broad interest.  My work on
shapelib, libtiff, libgeotiff, proj.4, GDAL/OGR and MapServer have resulted
in a fairly steady stream of sponanteously appearing clients.

That said, I'm not claiming it is a particularly efficient mechanism to
generate potential clients since there is significant overhead to preparing
a package to a suitable level to release as open source and to provide a
reasonable level of support to the community after release.

I would suggest that other factors that might be of value include:

  1) Reassuring clients who buy into your solution that they aren't
     trapped depending on you, since the source will be available for
     them if they choose to bring in someone else in the future.

  2) Releasing as open source can bring in unanticipated and valuable
     contributions from other folks that may be useful to you and your
     clients.  (though there is a cost to integrating improvements)

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent