One of my clients has suggested I write pharmacy software. He has a home-grown Clipper app that does everything from Dispensing to Cash Register. I give him a hand with it from time to time. He reckons there's a market for a low-cost package which would fit the Western Australian situation better than the off-the-shelf ones now available.
So comes then the ever-present question: Closed Source, or Open Source.
No knowing a lot about how Open Source works as an income generator, I fear that there is the risk that my non-Open Source competitors may steal my ideas and woo my customers away because they have the resources to bring them (the ideas, not the customers) to the market faster than I can. Is that a valid concern?
Closed Source isn't without its problems either.
And then comes the other questions: programming language / IDE / RAD. I wonder if anyone's come up with a template for software projects in the style of Word / Excel / PowerPoint templates.