[asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"

Wed Mar 28 13:24:00 CDT 2012

They would rather pay you $1500 to fix the a2billing install that fellow X charged them $500 for.   It isn’t “right”, that’s just the way it is.

From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of C. Savinovich
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 1:17 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"

>>>The "Way to make money" is to help folks use the "open source" items in the most efficient manner

Nobody wants to pay me $2,000 to install and configure A2billing, which in my view, is a fairly low  price for my time.  There are people who do that for less than $500.  I do know the tricks and formulas of how to make money in calling cards, but go tell the customer, they don't care.  I don't care either, I am very busy in my consulting business, but it is unfortunate that the better income source for developers just doesn't exist anymore.  I would make much more money if A2billing weren't open source and I would selling copies of my own version of A2billing, probably even developing a better product, definitely with the request that initiated this thread included ;)

Christian Savinovich

VoIP & Telephony Consultant

646-982-3572

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"
From: "Danny Nicholas" < <mailto:danny at debsinc.com> danny at debsinc.com>
Date: Wed, March 28, 2012 1:41 pm
To: "'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion'"
< <mailto:asterisk-users at lists.digium.com> asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>

The “Way to make money” is to help folks use the “open source” items in the most efficient manner and to provide “extra value” along the way.  Just because you can download Asterisk for “free” doesn’t make it worthless or valuable; it’s what you can do to it (or can’t) that makes it that way.

From:  <mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com> asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [ <mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com> mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Don Kelly
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 12:25 PM
To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion'
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"

Christian, your signature says you’re a “VoIP and Telephony Consultant.” That implies that your clients pay you for the value you add personally providing services to them. Open source software doesn’t download itself and configure itself appropriately all by itself—there are lots of people needing your assistance.

--Don

From:  <mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com> asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com  <mailto:[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com]> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of C. Savinovich
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 12:13 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"

>>>If I can't make money off it, I might as well give it for free.

That's the problem! You can not make money off anything you write because there is an open source version for anything you might want to come up with!

Do we all have to have Mark Zuckerberg's genious to make it in this market?... what about an opportunity for the rest of us, normal developers?

Christian Savinovich

VoIP & Telephony Consultant

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Rate sheet "normalization"
From: Tzafrir Cohen < <mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com> tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com>
Date: Wed, March 28, 2012 12:57 pm
To:  <mailto:asterisk-users at lists.digium.com> asterisk-users at lists.digium.com

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 07:27:03AM -0700, C. Savinovich wrote:
> I really don't think it is fair for anyone to give out such work for
> free. Unfortunately, many people are used to asking for free software
> solutions for all their problems. Whatever happened to paying for
> someone else's time and effort?

If I can't make money off it, I might as well give it for free. Limiting
access to the information has its costs as well. If the information is
publiclly available, I may actually get some good publicity and some
improvements from others. Not much. But then again it's better than the
0 money I would have gotten in the hypothetical case.

If you can make money off of it, then sure, go ahead.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755 jabber: <mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com> tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406  <mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com> mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
 <http://www.xorcom.com> http://www.xorcom.com iax: <mailto:guest at local.xorcom.com> guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir

--
_____________________________________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by  <http://www.api-digital.com> http://www.api-digital.com --
New to Asterisk? Join us for a live introductory webinar every Thurs:
 <http://www.asterisk.org/hello> http://www.asterisk.org/hello

asterisk-users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
 <http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users

  _____  

--
_____________________________________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by  <http://www.api-digital.com> http://www.api-digital.com --
New to Asterisk? Join us for a live introductory webinar every Thurs:
 <http://www.asterisk.org/hello> http://www.asterisk.org/hello

asterisk-users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
 <http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20120328/49e7abdf/attachment.htm>