[development] Convince Client to Release Code

[Kieran Lal]

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 1:53 AM, Fred Jones<fredthejonester at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But he hasn't accepted this. Are there any good arguments we can use
> to persuade him? I feel he has nothing to lose in releasing the code,
> but we have to convince him of that.

Fred, show him how other businesses are succeeding with Drupal and how
they choose to contribute back. There are several Drupal case studies
on the front page of Drupal.org and many more listed here
http://drupal.org/success-stories .  That will provide a business
friendly context for sharing code. e.g. Sony Music sponsors major
multilingual improvements in Drupal 6, http://drupal.org/node/383954

Also challenge the business owner on the following issues:
1) Your business is now dependent on Drupal. Do you want your web
platform to succeed or fail? If you want it to succeed, make
contributions of marginal cost to you, now that the module is built,
to make Drupal successful.

2) Do you plan to grow your business?  If so, you will likely need to
hire more Drupal developers in the future. The best recruiting for new
talent is through developers who have an affinity for the features you
are already developing. By putting you code in the public domain, you
are effectively creating an interview process to determine who the
most competent developers are for the features you want to develop.

3) What is your research and development budget?  The users who are
visiting your site are going to expect the business site to keep
improving the user experience, integration with other services on the
Internet, new features.  Do you have the budget to develop everything
your site visitors want, or would it be better to have research and
development ongoing around your modules at little marginal cost to
your business.

Assure him that business execution, and not individual features on a
website are the differentiators for a business.

Kieran

>
> Thanks.
>