Can a Software House make its tools using Perl?

1
Can a Software House make its tools using Perl?

• The SANFACE Software experience
• sanface_at_sanface.com

2
Why Perl?

• The initial Perl language selection was casual
• With simple modifies our tools can become cgis
• http//www.sanface.com/createpdf.html
• http//www.sanface.com/flash4/ferrari/
• Probably our tools are the only tools that can
  make PDFs on OS such as OpenVMS, MPE, OS/390,
  EPOC, etc. in the same way on every OS
• Perl Dev Kit by ActiveState (http//www.activestat
  e.com) and perl2exe by IndigoSTAR
  (http//www.indigostar.com)

3
Why perl?The future

• A generic GUI using perl/Tk
• Perl 6 news
• virtual machine
• New ports? we hope a possible support for PDA,
  smartphone, etc.

4
Why shareware?

• Four years ago the idea was innovative
• Not a library, not a PS to PDF converter.
• A server tool that developers and project leaders
  can use like an external tool from every program
  on every OS.
• We thought correct to earn for our work.

5
The market

• Our first customer was Alex project
• We thought the market of txt2pdf was to convert
  Electronic texts into PDFs
• Our real market textual reports to PDFs
• The Halifax Herald Limited projects
• The Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. project
• Other projects

6
Is it possible to sell tools, distributing the
source code?

• Youre crazy! (Italian friends )
• License Agreement
• Some data
• We estimate more than 100,000 downloads
• 600 customers
• 95 located in US

7
A real open Perl comunity

• A software house can use Perl to develop (and
  sell) commercial tools
• A Perl software house cant use Perl comunity to
  announce its products (Perl newsgroup, CPAN,
  etc.)
• We think that Perl comunity to grow up (like
  Linux comunity) needs a freeware core accepting
  commercial tools and parnerships
• Wed like other companies can follow our track
  with the help of Perl comunity

8
A real open Perl comunity

• We hope this paper is just the first
• step!