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by tristramg 950 days ago
Oh, that’s sad. Placemark was a very nice as it was for collecting geographical objects where the associated data is well structured. This is always a hurdle when integrating the generated data into other systems.

My coop has been working with something resembling to placemark: https://cocarto.com but our business model is not to sell it as a SaaS (which is always very difficult, and requires a lot of capital to reach enough customers) but sell a service to companies and administration around it. That’s why it’s FOSS from the beginning.
1 comments
type0 950 days ago
> but sell a service to companies and administration around it. That’s why it’s FOSS from the beginning.

This doesn't work for everyone, some startups can't afford to put two thirds of the resources on providing support. I think it's sad that there usually no middle way to structure your business with FOSS in mind.

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tristramg 950 days ago
I agree. That’s our choice, mostly because of our background as service provider (we usually charge by time) it’s in our comfort zone while we are uncomfortable in marketing and trying to get 1000 recurring paying customers. Everyone is different.

And yes, I’m frustrated that living from doing FOSS is hard. And it is also hard to spend only 1 day/week to do smaller contributions…

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