I'm a huge advocate for free ('free' as in Perl), but also work on commercial software at work.
Instead of having the code half/half license, another option may be to open source (ie. CPAN) the code, and then sell integration/deployment/support services.
That way, you provide yourself/crew with an income, while reaping the potential benefits of having users of your code provide you with patches, PRs etc
I mean, if it's open source, on a services engagement, you can learn about how your software is being deployed and used, and if the client can code, you could help them (another service: custom coding), then request you add their code back to the base product.
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Always tricky to find the right place for a given codebase but in general I think the completely free software + consulting + pay for new features and enhancements works out well if the software is something others will use. You can even build it up into conferences and training. Make sure you have public bug tracking so you can rope others in to ”work for you.”
Good luck!
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