[StarLab]

Greetings all.

Last night I got home to find something disturbing. A .NET developer who I have known for several years, has fallen upon hard times. His situation has left him with no Internet access. :(

To protect his good name, I will not mention his One-Man company nor his name. I simply bring this up as a question, "Can a solitary programmer make it in this world of high-end code development?"

Over the years, this individual has developed many freeware and donationware distributions. All of which have been well received. He even got a blurb in a couple magazine publications on a couple of them.

Recently, he poured his resources into developing a WinXP (and was leaning toward Vista) system tweaking/information utility, which again, will remain nameless for the reasons mentioned above. After so many years of providing things for free, he decided to go with a personal/pro version of his work, and offered it at a reasonable prices. He even provides (or did until now) one-on-one support via IRC and newsgroups, but that still didn't seem to be enough.

His application was eventually cracked by one of the high profile cracking groups. He even contacted the cracking team, and told them, "People know right away if they intend to purchase a piece of software. Due to the fact that the tweaking end of utility goes deeply into a users OS, all I ask of you is that it is a CLEAN crack that will not mess up people's computers from using this version of my work."
Whether this was the right approach or not, I cannot say. He was simply trying to protect his project from getting a bad name due to an improper crack.

I expect to see him back in the coming weeks, but for now, his project, and his customers, are in limbo.

So, what do you think? I get the feeling there are similar stories lurking in these forums, so I thought I would run this by everyone to get some opinions, and possibly some solutions.

Sorry for droning on, but this is a good guy who does good work. I would hate to see him throw in the towel as I have discussed the future with him, and his plans are impressive.

Can a one-man development team work? Are independent developers better off joining larger projects to make their ends meet?

[imehesz]

That is a very interesting question. I tried both. I tried to work with developers/designers in many companies. I tried to work by myself too. (honestly, I was never a BIG programmer, but I had my good days ;) )

anyway. after a while I just gave up and turned to something else. (i mean totally something else not computer related.) I think you just get tired of it. And I can say truly from my hearth that I am happier than in the past 10 years ever been. Good luck to you friend.

( i can't say, never give up :) )

[Francisjr]

For me, it will work. It simply depends on the person handling the projects. Its all about personal management. I was employed in a software house company before I decided to go a one-man developing team. Im accepting projects and so far Im earning almost 3x more than my salary when I was only employed in a software development company.

[Jamie]

Well at the moment I am inbetween learning centers, I am starting a computer science degree in October and so havent had much to do this summer. My main area is in web development but recently due to a weird set of circumstances I found myself developing POS software for a shop my family runs. Well this was quite successful and I am already working on a simular system for another local store. Apart from that I also do alot of other freelance work for various comapnies so yeah, if you market yourself right and are willing to work hard then yeah, there is certainly a place for a one man show.

[3cellhosting]

The biggest problem I have seen with the one-man show is that they have the wrong skill sets to survive :(

As programmers, coders they may be great but as marketeers and accountants most of them either lack the skills or are oblivious to what is required. They certainly don't want to pay others either ;)

Too many self-employed people forget to get professional indemnity insurance, and they sure don't allow enough for tax and national insurance. I have seen too many sole traders fall foul of the Inland Revenue or H.M. Customs & Excise.

As usual - horses for courses - or - if the cap fits , wear it :)

[mann3r]

I dont know if I understand this correctly but to the point of view of cracking and the concern on the existing customer and besides he is a programmer, why not make an algorithm that will make this cracking little bit hard or something like software cracker will have to produce the sweat and blood to crack the software, i mean a tight algorithm of the software for security.

Next on customer side, release a patch for the application for this crack version. and explain to the customer what is going on.

As to the subject one man team, this is possible of course but not on marketing though he can do that but for large aspect and large concept and business it is not possible. Anyway, marketing is just a "word of mouth".

[ScottHughes]

"People know right away if they intend to purchase a piece of software. Due to the fact that the tweaking end of utility goes deeply into a users OS, all I ask of you is that it is a CLEAN crack that will not mess up people's computers from using this version of my work."
That was an extremely mature and wise thing to say. I wasn't expecting to read that. I am impressed by his calm rational demeanor.