This is another very interesting example of an open-source business. I would be interested to learn more about how the Hwaci company operates (revenue, number of employees, etc.). I find this very interesting:
> We are a 100% engineering company. There is no sales staff. Our goal is to provide outstanding service and honest advice without spin or sales-talk.
They list some "$8K-50K/year" and "$85k" price tags directly on their "Pro Support" webpage. These would usually be behind a "Schedule a Call" or "Get Quote" button. I've been thinking about doing something similar with my own on-premise licenses and support contracts. I'm not very good at sales and I don't really want to hire a sales team, so I'd be interested to know how this worked out for them.
I also liked this sentence, which is very similar to Basecamp's philosophy (and both companies were started around the same time - 1999 vs 2000):
> Hwaci intends to continue operating in its current form, and at roughly its current size until at least the year 2050.
It's interesting to think that SQLite could have raised money and grown into a billion-dollar public company with thousands of employees.
I'm going to listen to this Changelog interview with Richard Hipp now [2], and also this talk on YouTube [3].
[1] https://sqlite.org/prosupport.html