[consulting] Selling Drupal to consultants

[Larry Garfield]

On Monday 13 February 2006 01:03, Dan Robinson wrote:

> > 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.

We're in the business of building sites for clients.  The CMS is a means to an 
end. :-)

> > 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 :).

Well, the current license agreement for our clients is, as I understand it, 
essentially "you can do anything with the code except redistribute it".  With 
GPLed code that last "except" couldn't be there, but really, I don't see our 
clients having the knowledge TO redistribute anything we write anyway. :-)

And yeah, the company is doing quite well right now business-wise, which is 
why it's doubled in size in the last year. :-)  It's long-term technical 
health, and my own sanity, that I'm more concerned about.

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, 
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to 
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession 
of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."  -- Thomas 
Jefferson