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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Developer Center > How/Where to sell and hand over product development (source code)

How/Where to sell and hand over product development (source code)
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Brass
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Dec 19, 2004, 06:44 PM
 
I don't intend to use this forum as advertising, but rather am after advice on how to go about advertising or doing this...

I develop a couple of fairly simple freeware/donationware products which make a reasonable amount of money (more than enough to buy a new Mac every year). However, I do not have time to keep up development work on all of them, partly because I'm planning to start working on a much larger and commercial application soon.

I'm very attached to my current products as they are my first attempts at publishing any of my own work, and they have been very well received by users, and have received good reviews in international magazines.

However, I'm considering dropping one or both of them, but do not wish for them to die completely, so perhaps I should sell them so that somebody else can continue development.

Has anyone here ever sold one of their products to another developer?

Any ideas on how to go about it?

What about selling simply the data structure to competitors, so that they can then read/write the file format?

Any other comments or considerations for this situation?
( Last edited by Brass; Dec 19, 2004 at 08:51 PM. )
     
Samad
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Dec 20, 2004, 02:49 AM
 
How about a link to a web page of your programs?
     
Brass  (op)
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Dec 20, 2004, 05:00 PM
 
Originally posted by Samad:
How about a link to a web page of your programs?
I don't want to make this thread a direct advertisement. I was just asking for information on how to go about advertising, and conditions of sale, etc.

If you are interested, however, send me a private message here, and I'll bet back to you.
     
ideasculptor
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Dec 29, 2004, 03:27 AM
 
License your code under one of the available free-speech licenses for source code (GPL, BSD, Apache, take your pick) and then throw your source code up on Source Forge, which is designed for involving others in an open development process. Additionally, rather than being secretive about it, let folks know what apps you are talking about and what they do, and maybe someone will step forward to take over development. At the very leats, by putting your code on source forge, someone could stumble across it in a google search in 6 months, a year, or more, and start developing on it again, and they need never involve you, if that's the way you want it.

Contacting the folks who have paid you for it, and asking one of them to take over would be a good place to start, too, but making your code free (as in speech, not necessarily as in beer) enriches the entire development community with the fruits of your labour, rather than just the guy you hand it off to.

And if, by some accident, you haven't been exposed to open source, free (as in beer) means giving the product away, while free (as in speech) means making the source code available so that others may build upon your work. The speech thing is far more important than the beer thing, in my opinion, and is the best way to keep your project alive, without your direct involvement.

--sam
     
   
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