[CS-FSLUG] Just got hit with a cluestick

[Tim Young]

Norbert Bollow wrote:

> (snip)
> I don't think that it's healthy to build up a business with the goal
> of eventually selling it, but we all know that our knowledge about
> the future is very limited.  Even for a business which is firmly built
> upon Christian principles, it is conceivable that at some stage many
> of the key people who work in the business might decide to quit and
> do something else, so that the business loses its ability to meet its
> customers' needs.  In such a situation I think selling the business to
> a secular company capable of meeting the customers' needs may well be
> preferable to any of the alternatives.

And there are times when selling a business to another Christian also makes
sense.  It may be that you will end up starting multiple Free Software
Businesses, and then turn them over to others to start yet another.  I believe
that focusing on something that has a chance of success is good, but focusing on
something that is really needed is even better.  There are a lot of high
importance projects out there.

> > So the big thing I could use from you would be a digital photo of
> > the family.
>
> I don't have such a thing right now, but I'll look into borrowing
> a digital camera so that we can create such a photograph.

Well, I survived this long not knowing you existed, I am sure I can wait a few
months or so to get a photo of the family.  :)  I have started praying for you a
bit when I think of it.  I found a photo (that I assume is of you) at
norbert.ch.  I will use that for the time being, but I believe the whole family
is a part of the person, and to properly pray for you I need to pray for them
also.  I will try to remind you about the photo every once in a while...


>
> > But if it turns out that we keep in contact a bit, I will probably
> > have a small feel for things to pray for anyway.
>
> Sounds like a plan. :-)

Excellent.

>
> Tim Young <Tim.Young at LightSys.org> also wrote, in another email:
>
> > You come with a bit of an idea of what business you are interested
> > in, you have a skillset and focus, but no particular project?
>
> Yes... and I don't think that it would be wise to decide on a
> "particular project" without first doing a significant bit of
> market research, i.e. talking with potential customers.  I haven't
> done nearly enough of that yet.

I think there is a great deal of wisdom in that.  I am sure it is Biblical,
counting the cost before building the tower and all.  :)  Centrallix only has
one place where it is deployed live, and they have only been using a fraction of
it (They use it to format reports.  A year or so ago lightening struck their
office and fried the computer that had been formatting receipts and stuff.
Instead of spending $10,000 to replace the software with a current version, they
installed centrallix.  Just a few weeks ago they asked Greg Beeley if they could
start using other functionality, as they would like a GUI to some of their
databases.  If this one mission starts using it, there is another that will
probably follow.  But for right now, Centrallix is basically still an unknown
product.)

>
> This sounds like partly bad news and partly good news.  It's bad news
> because it'll be harder for me to get started when I'm outside of the
> more obvious business opportunities.  It's good news because it means
> that I'll have a highly unique business -- that is good because it
> makes it much easier to get PR, and also because it makes it easier
> to attract highly talented people to work under conditions which don't
> involve an exorbitant salary

Well, most of the types of things I am most familiar with are very ministry
minded.  Because you have such a good grasp of the difference between business
and ministry, and you know which one the Lord is leading you to, I have not
talked much about the ministry ones.

I am going to contact one chap, Michael Lueck, who is putting together some odd
business, which at times he explains it like it is a ministry, other times like
a business.  For a long time he was going to release his software as free
software, but I am not sure if that is still his plan of attack.  I will
probably end up putting him directly in contact with you, perhaps just as a
consulting opportunity for you, but also because you might be able to dig
through his business plan and understand what he really intends to do.  He has a
great plan that in the end will do great things for missions.  But I do not know
how it will all fit together.  His is a confusing case, which is why I chose
Centrallix, which is cut and dried, as one to talk about.  :)

>
> > Ok, so let me throw out a possibility, and we will see if I read
> > what you were saying, or if I am totally off.
>
> I'm getting the impression that you're understanding me very well! :)

Good.  Now if the Lord allows us to keep good communications this could be a lot
of fun talking to each other!  It sounds like the Lord can really use you in a
number of ways, and it would be awesome to be a small part of that.


>
> > There is a project out there, centrallix.org, that was developed by
> > mission organizations but the long-term goal is that someone else
> > will take centrallix and turn it into a Free Software business.
> [..]
> > It has the potential to revolutionize the way small business work.  But
> > missions really are not interested in keeping it up.
>
> This sounds all very good and interesting.  I've subscribed to the lists,
> and I'll try it out for a bit when I find some time.

Well, we will see how that turns out.  Centrallix is not fully ready for
development, but it is nearly there.  I know they have an older release that was
more stable, but there is a ton of functionality that is missing.  The
Centrallix dev group will have to tell you which one to grab.  :)


>
> > I am not expecting you to jump at Centrallix.
>
> Well this is certainly interesting, but of course jumping onto any
> supposed opportunity without first doing proper "due diligence" is poor
> business practice.

Well, I was not totally sure it was quite what you wanted yet.  It was the first
one to pop into my head that seemed to be close to what you seemed to be
describing.  :)


>
> > Rather I am throwing it out as a real opportunity that will probably get a
> > response that will help me understand more about your thoughts as to what
> > your Free Software business will entail.
>
> I don't want to limit it to just one project.  However I'll have to
> start with a focus on one project, and then gradually extend the
> realm of competence.

oooohhhh...  You might do more than one project?  Now that certainly could be
interesting.  I will have to go back through my notes.  Greg Beeley and I once
wrote up a list of things that Linux was lacking before it could be used as a
replacement for Windows.  There were two or three major components that were
high-profile needs that were not being met properly.  :)  Some of them needed a
big organization or at least a lot of backing before they would work, but with a
few things in place a number of the "weaknesses" of Linux could be worked
around.  (The main thing is that so much of Linux requires a good understanding
of the OS).  Anyway.  I will need to think a bit and talk to Greg about it...  I
am sure we could come up with some ideas.


>
> How far are we away from version 0.7.4?  (Is there a release date yet?)

(grin) Most of the people working on Centrallix are students, and release dates
keep getting bumped back due to "killer homework" assigned by faculty.  The main
thing is that, because they do not have a real reason to push for the release,
they have not set something that they are really pushing for.  Now, the fact
that you are asking questions about Centrallix might actually provide the
inspiration to set a date and keep it.

As a brief history of Centrallix, they have been working towards the 0.7.4
release for quite some time.  Usually they get sidetracked by "cool
technological advances."  For example, one year they added NFS support to
centrallix.  Suddenly  you could mount the database like a filesystem.  If you
had images in the database, you would be able to browse to it over samba, view
thumbnails, and drag information out onto your desktop.  You could also drag a
spreadsheet into the database.  Strange stuff.  Cool stuff, but totally
unnecessary for the 0.7.4 release.

In January they are talking about getting a different team together to hack
together a link between IBMs "eclipse" IDE and centrallix.  That would make
developing Centrallix applications much easier.  That would be cool.  But it is
also not directly in the 0.7.4 release line.  Until they have a big reason to
get to that point, they wander a bit.  So, if you made a bit of noise that said
you were thinking about starting a Free Software Business and were looking at
Centrallix as perhaps something to start with, and you would like to see the
0.7.4 release.  Suddenly they would probably make a LOT of progress towards
that.  :)

>
> What kinds of commercial use are possible right now at a "professional"
> level of quality, with the current codebase?  (I don't want to start the
> business in a way that requires significant up-front investments; rather
> I want to start in a way that allows to start selling something right
> away.)

Today Centrallix does a good job of formatting reports.  You can build good
custom reports (like Crystal Reports for Linux), getting data from a number of
sources.  Most of the other functions, I believe, are nearly there but are not
"solid."  Again, with a little pushing you could convince them to focus on one
or two areas and get them solid enough for production by April or May.  But the
Centrallix-devel list would be best to answer that.  They mainly have not had
any reason to sort things out, so they have simply focused on what was "cool" at
the time.  Centrallix has an amazing amount of cool features!  ;)

    - Tim Young
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