Another model (was RE: Desperate plea to FP Tech)

[Bob Rasmussen]

It seems clear to me that not enough development resources ($$$) are
available from the company to address the needs of filePro
users/developers.  And yet there are a number of generous and creative
people involved in this list. Maybe what is needed is to rethink the
development model.

My suggestion would be to borrow some, but not all, of the open source
model. The company could release some subset of the source code, possibly
requiring non-disclosure agreements, and interested parties could fiddle
with it and enhance it in discrete, finite feature sets. These feature
sets could be sumbitted to the general community for comment and possible
inclusion by the company. Or, perhaps certain original modules, released
by the company, could be recompiled by users who might opt to compile in
certain feature sets available from the community. The company could
retain rights and source to certain key modules, such as licensing,
database access, etc. (I don't know the product well enough to say how
this should break down, only to suggtest the idea.)

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

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