In <494260DF.4050809 at lmco.com> michael nemeth <michael.nemeth at lmco.com> writes:
One Sysadmin, expressed the worry that since xymon is basic a one programmer product what would happen if Henrik could no longer support it. I told them about the movement for more than one programer to support it via the Subversion archive on Sourceforge,
Still if Henrik was gone would some one support it?
I think it would, but as with all open-source projects it depends on how much interest the community has in the software. If it's good enough that people want to use it, then I believe that someone will take over the task of maintaining it.
I know for a fact that several rather large companies are using Hobbit/Xymon, so I believe there would be enough people interested that it would survive even without me.
Would Henrik company allow outsider to maintain it.
They have zero influence on that decision. Hobbit/Xymon is my project, the company I work for have no intellectual property (or any other) rights to the software.
As an aside I ran across a free product yesterday (don't remember what) that would sell a commercial license , that was basically a disclaimed for commpany that just HAD to have commercial licenses. Might not be a bad idea Henrik?
If someone asks, I am perfectly willing to sell them a commercial license for Hobbit: It will be identical to the GNU GPL with the added clause that they must pay me. In return they'll get the right to use the software with all warranties disclaimed :-)
Seriously, there are companies that handle support for Open Source projects. I've received an inquiry from a company called Open Logic (www.openlogic.com) which does just that - they're looking for people who would be willing to handle support of Hobbit. If any of you are interested feel free to contact them. They pay you per incident you solve. I don't think I'll join them, but that's because I frankly have more than enough to fill up my 24h/day. Note: I know nothing about the company, so don't take this as an endorsement.
Regards, Henrik