[Seaside] call for testimonials

[Avi Bryant]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 11:02:50 -0500, Bob Houston <bobh at agents.com> wrote:

> I'm fairly new to Seaside, and really like it so far (I've also not
> used continuations before; great stuff).  As more newbies start using
> Seaside, I'm sure they will have many of the same questions I have.
> Specially, questions regarding licensing and support.

Hi Bob,

Hopefully the new website we're working on will make these things more
clear.  For now, they're certainly frequently asked questions. 
Answers below:

> Could someone point me to a description of the Seaside license?  Can I
> use it to build commercial apps if I wish? If I happen to make some
> money, are there any royalty or fees?

As of the Seaside 2.5 release (which is currently in beta), Seaside
will be under the MIT license.  This means you can use it to build
commercial apps, royalty free, with no restrictions.  We did consider
a model where using Seaside on commercial Smalltalks (like
VisualWorks) would involve royalties and using it on Squeak would not,
but ultimately I think the simplicity of a fully open license will
provide the most benefit in the long run.

Donations are, of course, always welcome.

> Regarding support, if a newbie runs into a problem while building an
> app, they might be tempted to stop using Seaside and switch to
> something else (.net perhaps) if they are unable to resolve their
> problem quickly enough.  The Seaside list is very responsive right now,
> but if there were a significant increase in new Seaside users, all
> asking basic questions, the signal to noise ratio on the list would
> drop.   Also, how many people are doing Seaside consulting (for a fee)?
>   I believe for the typical corporate developer, building a intranet
> based app, they will need the option of "paying for help" if they are
> unable to get their app to work.  Comments?

I currently have support contracts with a couple of companies that are
using Seaside in-house as you describe.  I also do development work on
several client projects that are using Seaside.  If anyone could
benefit from similar services, please do contact me.  There's a loose
group of around 5 experienced Seaside developers that I've shared such
work with in the past, so there's some capacity for scaling up, though
if the work started coming in faster we'd want to set up something
more formal.  I'm sure there are several others on this list that
would be willing and able to do Seaside consulting as well - here's
your chance to pipe up ;).

HTH,
Avi