LTS as a Business: How an Old Project Can Become the Foundation for a New Business Model

I'm experimenting with a business model centered around supporting and maintaining an obsolete open-source project – a concept I believe holds significant potential. My current focus is CRUDBooster.

The Genesis of the Idea

CRUDBooster enjoyed considerable popularity amongst developers around six years ago. I personally utilized it in five projects. However, the release of newer PHP and Laravel versions rendered simple composer update impractical. The shift to PHP 8, in particular, highlighted significant code quality demands.

My initial attempts involved forking CRUDBooster, resolving critical compatibility issues, and restoring functionality to my projects. However, persistent, unexpected bugs in specific use cases consumed considerable time and effort. This led to a realization: if I faced these challenges, other CRUDBooster users likely did as well, lacking the resources or time for complete project rewrites or continuous bug fixing.

My Approach

Modernizing CRUDBooster for PHP 8

I undertook a complete rebuild of CRUDBooster, migrating it to PHP 8 and meticulously testing the entire system. This process, tackled part-time, spanned approximately a month.

Establishing Distribution Channels

I explored various distribution methods:

• Private Composer Repository: While convenient, the cost proved prohibitive.
• Private GitHub Repository: An attractive option, but demanding in terms of manual management.
• Patreon: This emerged as the quickest and most straightforward solution, offering built-in billing and the capacity to publish articles and release artifacts (new versions). Within days, I launched a Patreon page (https://www.php.cn/link/a8fce534946205342d958571e15558df) with publicly accessible descriptions but subscriber-only access to the updated project.

Marketing the Service

The most demanding aspect proved to be outreach to potential clients. I incorporated links to my offering in the footers of several personal projects (an SEO strategy), and created a README.md file within the forked CRUDBooster repository to inform users of the updated version.

Final Thoughts

At present, I haven't secured any active subscribers. Nevertheless, the upgrade was crucial for my own projects, and the entire endeavor has been incredibly insightful. I firmly believe this model offers considerable promise, especially within the underserved niche of Long-Term Support (LTS) for legacy applications – a space clearly in need of dedicated support.

I'd welcome your feedback and advice. Have you pursued similar ventures? Share your experiences and insights in the comments!

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