Is this a good idea?

A programmer writes a bit of software and offers it for sale for $5. When they reach 5,000 sales they release the source code under a GPL-like license and the product becomes free.

The programmer makes $25,000 for their effort, early adopters pay a small premium, everyone benefits from the new free software. The community decides as a group if they want to buy the source code.

Does anything like this already exist?

I’m no expert on the subject, but I was just thinking about the development cycles of cars, and I don’t think it really makes sense. Why do new car models come out every year?  Why are the engineers beholden to the calendar? We only have to have new car models every year because that’s the established way of doing it. I don’t think there’s really any other reason, other than tradition. New models should be released when they are ready.

This idea that a company is expected to release a model of their product each year is almost unique to the car industry. What else do we expect to be refreshed each January?  Other products, like the laptop I’m typing this on, don’t get released on a certain month – they are released when they are done.

I think a 5 year development cycle for cars would result in better, safer, cheaper cars. Just the money saved in retooling factories alone would account for a significant drop in car prices.

Intel follows a two year development cycle at their chip foundries. Maybe the car industry should take a look at the microprocessor industry.

You only need to take a quick look at the simplicity of google.com or the elegance of the gmail inbox to know Google is pretty good at managing user experience. The engineers at Google eat their own dog food (although that backfired with the recent release of Buzz.)

But I’m pretty sure nobody at Google had to order a Nexus One through their site. Right now that’s the only way to get one. If you go to a T-Mo store or the T-Mo website they will pretend they’ve never heard of the Nexus One.

First of all I could only get the order form to work in Google’s own web browser, Chrome.  I tried FireFox and IE from 3 different computers, 3 different networks, 2 different operating systems, on two days a week apart.

That alone is enough to label the ordering process a FAIL. But there were other issues. They didn’t seem to recognize Virginia as a state, even though I selected it from their dropdown box.  Maybe it’s because we’re a Commonwealth. That error blanked out a bunch of fields, so I ended up entering my SSN, driver license number, and a few other things several times before it decided Virginia was in fact a state.

After you complete that form and check out with Google Checkout… well, it’s not clear what happens after that. It says I’ve been accepted, but they mean they are able to port my number.  Why wouldn’t they be able to port my number? Doesn’t T-mobile do a credit check and approve or deny the account? It’s all unclear. There’s only one plan from T-Mobile, and they don’t tell you much about it.  Having completed the order form and agreeing to a couple of pages of Terms and Conditions, I’m done. I guess.

And this wasn’t just a one time thing – this was the process for all THREE Nexus Ones I ordered.

Another quicky on the Nexus One.  I’m rating a few aspects of my initial experience with the N1 on a scale that doesn’t make a great deal of sense:

Ordering Process – D
Order Fulfillment / Shipping – A+
Packaging – A
USB Charger – FAIL
Docking Station – Wow.

Details on each forthcoming…