The Game Is Afoot, My Dear Watson
I'm having a bit of a celebration.
After spending 5 years, nights and weekends, to write a great piece of web software that is like a CRM-lite application in my own particular vision, I have finally finished the first beta and stopped coding so that I can release it and get feedback. I then also forked the code, stripped it out a great deal to something far simpler, and created a handy bug tracker that I will use. Both will be GPL software. I wrote a great, fairly-thick developer manual for the main application and created the website to distribute it (but not host it yet on the Internet). I even paid the $120 to the FSF.org for various reasons.
So now I'm getting the logistics ironed out for the license, the formation of the LLC, and then will use the LLC to copyright the source, purchase the website, and do all the steps to get the site hosted hopefully within the next two months. The site and the company name still have to go through trademark steps, so I cannot announce these yet. But I will, soon.
In those 5 years, I made the transition from fearing the GPL (for fear I might not make a profit) into fully supporting it, thanks to great people like I have met in the Libervis Network.
Some may question why I spent 5 years building this, and why did I do it alone? A few good reasons. I wrote a similar piece of software (conceptually, not programmatically) for my day job and got 5 years of feedback on it, which I then developed into my moonlight project software version. (The two projects do not share even one line of code, and look somewhat different in many ways.) I then rewrote my code because the original project had too much spaghetti code and I wanted something so polished that developers would ooh and aah over it. I also had an original vision for how I wanted it done and I didn't want it corrupted by a community process just yet. I mean, it's like trying to make a point on a complicated subject, so you have to spend a few days researching it, then deliver it in a lecture hall and with a slideshow, before you take feedback. That's the sort of thing I needed to do. Last, I had to do it all myself initially because it was for my own sanity -- too often in my day jobs I have only been permitted to partially write apps, or had to corrupt my vision way too early and too often on how a project should be composed.
So this is a big relief! It's a load off my shoulders. I've had to do all this and juggle with my wife and children, my difficult day job, and other civic meetings. I'll be able use the free time soon to continue marketing the product and to start other projects to hedge my bets. I've also got a project where I'm keeing a journal as I go about what's been done or what I was thinking on a given day. This journal can then be used to create a book that I can sell since so few books show how this sort of thing can be done.
In those five years, AJAX happened. So my next release will have to include not only feedback taken in from customers, but some small bit of AJAX.
*crosses fingers* good luck!
The suspense of getting closer to finding out what your project really is is killing me.
Congratulations and good luck!
Good luck
Nice idea of keeping a journal about this.
idontknowctmwhatsthepointofcapitallettersorspacesorpunctuation
It's something that I tried to have a good amount of polish but yet get it out the door so that I can collect more feedback. I wanted a CRM-lite/helpdesk/work order tool that could be made into so many different things, was almost a snap to install with very few dependencies, and had very readable source code that developers would love as well. It may lack some features such as file attachments, email hookup, etc., but that's the point -- developers get frustrated when they have all these dependencies to have to integrate, and developers get frustrated when they already have a certain feature implemented in an existing system and must rip out your stuff so that they can glue it to their stuff. Most CRMs are built to have every feature under the sun in them, and they suffer in many ways by being bloated, slow things, having lots of confusing code, and seem to ignore the fact that in many companies they already have certain infrastructure for things and may want to replace certain features of CRMs.
Meanwhile, I wanted something that even lazy programmers or IT managers could implement, out of box, to be almost 90% "good enough" to handle the operations of any kind of business such as the work that floats around law firms, medical offices, etc.
In fact, after 5 years of work, it took me just 6 days to use the tool as an SDK, to thin it down, and rewrite parts of it into a fairly functional bug tracker.
Last, I wanted it to be zippy fast, even if it's using PHP and not compiled code.
I would release it sooner, but have these dependencies that are vitally important, such as copyrighting the code under an LLC instead of my name so that the patent trolls have one more hoop to get through. And take for instance that I had some difficult questions about the GPL even after reading it multiple times, so I emailed the licensing service at FSF, and am a paid FSF member, but am still waiting on them to review these questions and get back to me. I need it from the FSF so that I can say it came from the designers of the GPL, rather than someone's opinion about it. I mean, opinions are great and can steer us, but sometimes when something is important to the point of being a legal matter, we need to hear it straight from the source.
Best of luck with this