[consulting] Selling Drupal to consultants

[Dan Robinson]

> The "Costs of forking" thread has focused on how to convince clients that OSS 
> software like Drupal is a good thing, and that the benefits are worth it.  
> Good stuff. :-)  I have a slightly different problem, however.
>
> I work at a small web development consulting company that has just doubled in 
> size in the past few months.  The developer (singular) who wrote our old 
> codebase has mostly left, and everyone agrees the old CMS code is 
> unmaintainable.  Lucky me, I get to write the new one. :-)  Fun as it sounds 
> to write a CMS from scratch on a deadline and then turn around and use it on 
> a client site almost immediately, I'd much rather switch the company over to 
> Drupal then write a rushed Drupal-inspired hacked-up CMS.  I've mentioned it 
> a few times, and so far haven't gotten a firm no but mostly have gotten 
> waffling "we'll see".  
>   
well you could always take the drupal code base and fork it :).  I mean
what is their business model?  Are they in the business of creating a
new CMS - doesn't seem very swift to me.
> If I can get an actual discussion on the table somehow, any suggestions on how 
> to sell both my fellow developers and designers and management on Drupal?  
> They made it clear when I was hired that we're not an open source shop, since 
> I'm a big open source fan, although we do current use some LGPLed stuff in 
> various places and we make it a point that we always own the code, not the 
> client.  I want to wedge that door wider, for my own sanity if nothing 
> else. :-)
>   
sounds like they think that their business model depends on their
ability to lock their customers into license agreements.  It is a little
hard to see how this is compatible with a Free software business
strategy.  At any rate my 2 second opinion is that you will get no
traction trying to argue it from a code/engineering angle.  The only way
to get anywhere is probably to convince them that there business model
isn't really that workable - that'll be fun :). 

Good Luck,

Dan
> Thoughts?
>
>