An idea for commercial support for D

[via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 9 January 2015 at 13:15:55 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> If you have any specific criticism of my business model, I'm 
> glad to listen to it and take into account.  I can't do much 
> with suggestions that I enumerate how businesses work and 
> figure out what you have in mind for myself, or digressions on 
> general business strategy that don't seem to have any relevance 
> to this business model.

Let me put it this way: I rarely write on topics I have no 
interest in and am old enough to stumbled over many topics 
related to computers (being a middle aged geek). I've spent a lot 
of thought over the past year on both designing a better C++ 
(which was what D originally promised) and if there is a way to 
fund the implementation of it. One option is to make a commercial 
version of D with a smaller scope than D2.

Then I ask myself what would it take for me to be willing to pay 
for such a language. The answer is basically:

1. A small company or a consultant which care about the product 
and is giving support so that I can be assured that all problems 
related to it will be fixed.

2. An alternative path if (1) should cease to exist.

3. A ready-made stable compiler supporting a subset of D, with 
parity to C++. With source available, sans "optimizer 
enhancements".

4. Solid implementation on the platform I care about (e.g. Linux 
64-bit).

Why would I prefer a ready-made? Because support is more valuable 
if they can be held accountable.

I would not be interested in buying individual features. I would 
be interested in something that has been polished over time. A 
stable release is the only way to achieve that.

But what I would be paying for is essentially the support of a 
stable foundation with hot-fixes available. The product is more 
like a carrot to purchase the support ahead of time. So you 
basically pay for support you don't receive, if the product 
works, ahead of time. Or to put it in another way: you pay 
"insurance" to ensure that you don't get stuck.

I still think it would be a hard sell without some substantial 
feature…