01-02-2013, 10:44 AM
Oh, don't get me wrong, I've done a lot (20+) of such projects and have also sold them commercially. And yes, it did give me a lot of experience, which proved to be very useful in later projects I did. One important difference is that in most projects other people were involved who would have been able to take them over if I ever dropped out, albeit only to offer continued support. That's exactly what you need if you'd like to sell a proprietary project commercially: dedicated people who are able to drive it, and independently solve issues. This creates an unwritten, but very heavy contract between you and the project.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it at all. You probably should, but unless you plan on spending most of your time mentoring those with (significantly) less experience it may not be the right kind of experience you're giving them
. And set their expectations straight from the start, also about the commercial viability of a system like this one, because selling a script comes with an incredibly big amount of responsibility in ownership, maintenance, quality and security.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it at all. You probably should, but unless you plan on spending most of your time mentoring those with (significantly) less experience it may not be the right kind of experience you're giving them
. And set their expectations straight from the start, also about the commercial viability of a system like this one, because selling a script comes with an incredibly big amount of responsibility in ownership, maintenance, quality and security.