Our goals are to keep this software free of charge, require no user account, collect no data and avoid all forms of ads while obtaining a revenue stream to fund further development.
The idea at present is to release this as a free closed source software and start looking for investors while developing new features to be released in a shareware version should we fail to obtain capital in other ways.
If we released a shareware edition we would then gradually move every feature to the free version with a timeframe of 3-24 months for each feature. This would provide incentive for funding while ensuring all content is available for free over time.
Should we get lucky enough to find a VC or similar we would instead open source it in a heartbeat.
I’m wondering though if this would be an accepted approach by the community. We have the best intentions at heart but it torments me.
Any thoughts on this?