Starter Kit. Idea 306 of 500. Cluster 15
Open-source contributions turned into consultancies, the WSO2 route, for the next hundred engineers
The mechanism, from the book
The proof exists in Malabe. What is missing is a thousand small versions of it.
The first step
Choose one open-source project that companies abroad depend on, fix three real issues on it, and have the fixes accepted. Then find companies that use it through its forum or issue tracker, and offer a paid support hour or an integration job. Accepted fixes are your credential, and one paid engagement is the proof that the consultancy exists.
- Who pays first
- A company abroad that depends on an open-source tool and pays for support from someone who has already fixed its code.
- What leaves today
- Engineers here contribute to open source for free or not at all, while the consultancy fees around those tools are earned abroad.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which company form suits a consultancy selling support to companies abroad.
- Information and Communication Technology Agency. Ask whether any programme helps open-source engineers reach clients abroad.
Check before you spend
The open-source project's licence and trademark rules, whether you may sell support under its name, and what your employer's contract says about outside work.
Find out these three numbers
- What do companies pay today for support on this project?
- How many companies abroad depend heavily on the project?
- How long do accepted fixes take to earn you a name?
A comparison from the book
WSO2, Colombo. Chapter Three
"WSO2 was founded in Colombo in 2005 by Sanjiva Weerawarana, who had spent years at IBM"
Work on the standards the world uses became a global company built here; open work is a public credential.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.