Distributing Programs

[MarkPendergraft]

So, i've been writing programs for AutoCAD, and LDD using .NET and VBA for over a year now. I feel pretty confident in my abilities, and the people at my office feel my programs are invaluable.

So, heres the question.... Does anyone have any experience selling their programs. Are their routes that i would need to go through to legally sell my programs? Do i need to be a part of the ADN?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

See below:

wrote in message news:5473775@discussion.autodesk.com...
So, i've been writing programs for AutoCAD, and LDD using .NET and VBA for
over a year now. I feel pretty confident in my abilities, and the people at
my office feel my programs are invaluable.

So, heres the question.... Does anyone have any experience selling their
programs. YES

Are their routes that i would need to go through to legally sell my
programs? NO. Other than obeying your country's normal commercial laws.

Do i need to be a part of the ADN? NO, but it helps.

I have posted (a few years ago) several posts discussing the issues in
detail. You should be able to find them with a Google search of the
Autodesk NGs.

My guess is that customisation for LDD will sell a copy to anyone you can
get at the point of a gun.

The chances of actually making money from sales of software are
extra-ordinarily low for the average person. If you do make money it will
be because you have:

Found a good marketing organisation
Have customisation which increases the efficiency of a large part of the
software by a factor or at least 10
Have searched the web for free software which does most of what yours does
and genuinely not been ale to find it

--

Regards,


Laurie Comerford
CADApps Australia
www.cadapps.com.au
www.civil3Dtools.com

[MarkPendergraft]

Thank you for the response Laurie.

I have no plans of selling massive amounts of software, i would just like to make a few bucks here and there. I have a lot of family and friends in the Survey Drafting industry, and they have all been interested in obtaining my programs, however i would hate to 'help' the competition without getting a few dollars for it.

[Human.Man.Name=Jose]

Listen,
My advice would be as follows:
Since you probably know a lot of talented people like yourself, I'm sure you can put together an autocad.net opensource website. All you would have to do is run ads on it and not have to worry about licensing your software. All you have to do is attract talent and people looking for talent to make money.

I would love to be involved by the way.

[dgorsman]

1. Get a lawyer. Advice from user forums is *not* an acceptable substitute. They can help you avoid stepping on toes of the big boys like Microsoft and AutoDesk.

2. Check the tax laws. The lawyer may be able to help with this.

3. Triple check for ethics violations. They may not seem like much, but if this "takes off" they will grow large teeth and take a big chunk of meat out of you. Examples of this are developing code on a companies computer and then turning around and selling it to the competition, even if its several years later.

4. Research the competition. See what they are doing right, doing wrong, and how much they want for doing it either way.

5. Get a lawyer. Yes, I know its the same as (1). Its that important, its worth mentioning again.

6. If you got your code from somewhere else, include credits for it in the documentation, no matter how small the contribution.

[MarkPendergraft]

i have a feeling that the price of a lawyer would exceed my profits on this venture.

[Human.Man.Name=Jose]

The bottom line is that we need a real community of autocad.net users where our efforts are recognized by more than just our bosses and the rewards are more than tangible(cash).

[Human.Man.Name=Jose]

Am I right or am I right?

[MarkPendergraft]

You are right, and i like your idea.... However the logistics of putting together a site, which would get enough traffic to make money, would be a pretty big undertaking...

Besides, what would be the benefit to the people posting, if the code was all open source? Everyone would have to get a piece to make it worthwhile.

I really feel that some of my programs could make me some money, and i don't care about getting rich, etc. I really just want to make a couple bucks on the side to make all of my work and effort worthwhile. Plus, getting my name out to people in the area, makes me a more valuable resource too.

[Human.Man.Name=Jose]

Never be discouraged. Surely you've not gotten this far without ambition. Every single person that posts here is a valuable resource. The only problem is that it's taken me a long time to figure out who is who. I went about four months without posting a single thing because I did not know that people with ambition like mine were here. Finding talent here is like looking for a needle in a haystack. With all the technology we dwell in you'd think we would have solved this already.

[Anonymous]

[quote]Plus, getting my name out to people in the area, makes me a more
valuable resource too.[/quote]

Using your real name to post in public forums may go a long way towards
that, providing ........

///kwb


wrote in message news:5475525@discussion.autodesk.com...
You are right, and i like your idea.... However the logistics of putting
together a site, which would get enough traffic to make money, would be a
pretty big undertaking...

Besides, what would be the benefit to the people posting, if the code was
all open source? Everyone would have to get a piece to make it worthwhile.

I really feel that some of my programs could make me some money, and i don't
care about getting rich, etc. I really just want to make a couple bucks on
the side to make all of my work and effort worthwhile. Plus, getting my
name out to people in the area, makes me a more valuable resource too.

[MarkPendergraft]

I'm not discouraged, and though i post under the alias of Cadkid, my real name can be found throughout these forums.

I guess at this point i should see if i can 'pitch' my program to some of the local companies that are interested currently.

If you are really serious about starting an open source web site. I'm more than willing to hear out your ideas.

Feel free to email me at markp@meadgilman.com

Sincerely,
-Mark Pendergraft.