thelinuxlink.net

Is it only me or does chris of demorecorder sounds a bit desperate in trying to sell demorecorder ? I am fine with that ... just that it gets me thinking a bit about the viability of creating commercial software products to be sold on linux. Probably it would be good for him to create a version for windows, since the folks there are so used to buying stuff ?

I don't know about desperate. More like wanting a little monetary return for something he put a lot of time and energy into. Plus he's not some giant company, he's just a regular guy. Currently it's better than any of the F/OSS alternatives out there. No one is forcing you to go buy a copy. If the Free alternatives are good enough for you then use them. If not, use the TLLTS coupon code and get it for $35. The choice is ultimately yours.

There is a fair amount of commercially successful software products on Linux, just not much in the consumer software space. I think "Open Source software company" is very much an oxymoron. Ximian was an exception--at least until Novell is dead--as well as any other with a similar exit strategy (acquisition). I am very surprised to see Fluendo stiil in business, but I congratulate them and wish them continued success. I have a colleague at Jahshaka, which has been funded for over a year now, and that one is a curiosity as well.

I was paid to develop some open source software and that supported my household for over a year, but that was not technically a software company. Rather, it was contract development for a company wanting to use the software and have a greater chance at shared code maintenance.

Most commercial successes on Linux are not software companies. When someone asks me how you can make money on Linux/FOSS, I tell them, "you use it!"

oh yeah, with all that said, I will be buying demorecorder to try to make Kino demos/tutorials for its 1.0 release.

All said and written, I wish the demorecorder's chris well. He sounds genuinely like a great guy just trying to make a living from his software. I just don't know why the author of such a great software in the opensource sphere have to sounding on the border of begging people to buy his software. Just hope that he is successful and not walk away from this a bitter programmer.

Hi all,

Here is chris, the author of DemoRecorder.

Thanks for all your positive and encouraging words.

I agree with you that selling commercial software for Linux is different from selling commercial software for Windows. But I also think it is not necessarily harder. Either way, you have to come up with a great offer and do the best marketing in order to explain the offer to as many interested people as possible.

I personally like Linux and the people involved with Linux and that's the major reason why I make a software for Linux and not Windows. I really want to have fun with running my business: And I can tell you that I enjoyed the interaction with every single customer and I learned a lot personally in many interactions. I don't think that I could get this kind of experience by selling software for Windows.

Also, compared to Windows, the Linux market still has some advantages of a niche market, which plays in favor of small startup companies like mine.

And the DemoRecorder project got me my first radio interview in my life. I think that's really cool.

I consider the DemoRecorder project a success.

Starting up a company and getting sales volume up just needs time,
patience and primarily a lot of persistence... I know that.

So, I continuously work on improving product, services and marketing of DemoRecorder. This got me my first customers and when I continue with that strategy, I'll be able to get to the point where I can switch the DemoRecorder project to full time.
I just don't know when this will happen, but I am persistent, so it will happen.

When I sound like begging people for buying my software it's probably the unconscious expression of the wish for everything to develop faster.

But really, I don't want to beg. I just want to make a great offer such that people get so much value from doing business with me, that they want to buy a license by their own motivation and hopefully tell others about their experience.

***

I also agree with you that making money with Linux is easier by using Linux than by providing software for Linux.

The easiest way to make money with Linux is probably to do Linux seminars.
When you google for "linux seminar" and choose some random offer, you'll see that they charge fees of well over $1000 per person for a 3 day seminar.

If they do the same seminar over and over again, there is almost no preparation needed, so the only expenses are the rent of the seminar room and cost of equipment and 3 days of their time.

In addition to that they may record the seminar and sell it as a set of DVDs for a third of the seminar fee. This is the usual pricing for such recordings in the seminar business.

So if they do it in a clever way, they may earn several thousands of dollars for each day of work involved...

But seminars is not the kind of business I currently like to be in. Business is more than just money. It's about having fun with what you do.

Chris