[old person rant]<p>There is nothing wrong with developing software and selling it.
It used to be the norm and it is still quite common.<p>These days "open source" is virtue signaling and expected "to be cool".
That people then grump about not being paid shows that they
are not particularly interested in the concept of open source.<p>However, the term open source has been used for so many different things
that is has lost most shared coherent meaning.
I guess that is why "Libre Software" is now being used by some.<p>What is plain hypocrisy to me are the people who developed "for profit"
open source projects, and are angry when they dont get paid enough,
when the projects they have created rely on GNU tools, the Linux kernel
(Perhaps Debian), a libre software database on so on.<p>Their product is built on the shoulders and sacrifice of other open-source folks that often is not getting paid or not paid enough.<p>For profit open source should have clause of donating X% of profits
downstream to the open-source projects they rely on.
(Since they would have no product without them)<p>There are some core and vital open-source projects that have enormous
importance for millions.
I think supporting them should be a priority.<p>A lot of modern software is "open source" until it become inconvenient
and they introduce "Pro", or "see source", or shift license entirely.<p>A lot of companies should just be "for profit".
There is nothing wrong with it
and nothing wrong with making money,
or making money off of open source.
I do nitpick on people who see open source as a way to get
paid and they are angry if they dont get it.
I recently ran across the the license for Dragonfly [1] which has some restrictions (rights reserved), but 5 years after the license date the license switches to Apache 2.0. Basically a time-limited rights reservation. I don't hate it. I might even contribute to such a project for free.<p>I propose something like this: When I release code, it's rights-reserved for 5 years, then open-source (and this particular clause would be irrevocable). Anyone may use the software for non-commercial purposes. Anyone may contribute, those who contribute will be granted permission for commercial use if I deem their contributions significant enough. Anyone may distribute the software under these terms.<p>If such a model became popular, I have a hard time imagining it could make things any worse. It might even accelerate open-source development by shifting societies resources to those who are actually producing this valuable software.<p>You might say, "but it's not open-source", fair enough, but we can view it as open-source contribution with a delay. For example, if this model became widely popular this year, and we saw great progress with this model, then come 2028 we would be flooded with new open-source software and ultimately might be better off than we would have been without this model.<p>Ultimately people choose to make their software open-source for moral reasons, and because they hope that by giving they might receive in turn--I contribute, you contribute, and we share freely (and we're both poor). This model I've talked about still achieves similar goals. People might still be willing to contribute, even for free, because I have given them an irrevocable legal promise that their contributions will be made available to all at a specific time.<p>(This whole thing makes me rethink copyright and patents and how much they really contribute to society. Perhaps their terms should be shortened?)<p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly/blob/main/LICENSE.md">https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly/blob/main/LICENSE.m...</a>
Charging for a commercial license is virtual closed-source. You have reinvented selling software, except with a “try before you buy” model that enables engineers to vet its utility first before paying, with free usage for non-profits (i.e. other non-profit devs).<p>I’m not making any comment about the merits of this model. I strictly make and sell closed-source software (SaaS). But it’s funny to me that this is essentially the same business model, but you use the threat of legal action rather than API keys to enforce your rights. “Open Source” is in the name only.
Great article! I started <a href="https://polar.sh" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://polar.sh</a> to help maintainers get more funding + insights about their customers & their needs. Long-term building tooling for managing all up sold services and customer management.<p>I definitely agree that 1) we need to convert companies more, but 2) it won’t happen with the traditional sponsorship/donations model. They need to be able to quantify the value of their investments.<p>With the first version of Polar, we aim to provide that while giving maintainers better insight on needs & funding to develop efforts that align with their vision.
While we're here, does anyone know if a sole proprietorship donating to OS projects for "sponsorship" (aka listing the donor company's name in the project's github) is deductible as Advertising expenses? Specifically wondering about Canada personally, but I'm sure people in the U.S. would benefit from this knowledge as well.<p>Our tax law (in Canada) is so opaque, and I feel like finding ways for these monetary contributions to be deductible as business expenses would make it so much easier for businesses to justify the expense.<p>If donations can't be written off, OS projects would then do well to add a paid tier with some useless exclusive functionality, just so donors can make it a software expense.
I've always looked at charging for open source as a support service. What is the developer's time worth? If one wants new features pay a fee/salary/bounty for the development.
The question of whether source code is accessible (open vs. closed) and whether you need to pay someone to do something with that source code (free vs. paid) are two different questions.
I'd say it's also important to remember the types of projects that are easier to monetize. About a decade ago I wrote an OSS library that gained some nice traction, and it wasn't really monetizable (granted I didn't want that anyway).<p>Then there's companies that write open-source software and are not only successful in charging for it, but also have funding. I run Fossfox [0] that indexes companies that have either open-sourced their main products (eg ClickHouse) or that heavily contribute to open-source (eg OpenAI). The ones that open-source their main products: some of them do use copyleft licenses, but most surprisingly go with Apache 2.0 (and of course use some dual licenses; with "ee/" directories). The one thing a lot of them have in common is providing hosted versions of their software. A lot of customers don't want the hassle of running it themselves, and do pay for hosting and support.<p>[0] <a href="https://fossfox.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://fossfox.com/</a>
The FOSSjobs wiki has a bunch of other resources for getting paid to work on open source:<p><a href="https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources">https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources</a>
<a href="https://www.fossjobs.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.fossjobs.net/</a>
> Isotope is open source<p>But it hasn't been updated in years:
<a href="https://github.com/metafizzy/isotope">https://github.com/metafizzy/isotope</a><p>Does the commercial license use a different repo?
I created <i>Video Hub App</i> which is MIT License<p><a href="https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App">https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App</a><p>I also sell it for $5 and have sold just over 5,000 copies last month (5 years old app). Importantly, $3.50 of every purchase goes to a <i>cost-effective</i> charity, <i>GiveWell</i> recommended <i>Against Malaria Foundation</i> (see website for details).<p><a href="https://videohubapp.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://videohubapp.com/</a><p>I call this <i>charityware</i> and I wrote about it years ago: <a href="https://medium.com/@whyboris/charityware-doing-good-with-proceeds-from-software-purchases-e48e66a5d1a" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://medium.com/@whyboris/charityware-doing-good-with-pro...</a>
[My Opinion] I think this is completely alright as long as there is a contribution to the open source, support to the community from the companies who use OSS to generate income.
There are 2 ways of looking at it.
1. Solve the operationalisation of the different OSS tools
2. Value addition on top of OSS.<p>For instance: Here is one such company (<a href="https://opsverse.io" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://opsverse.io</a>) that specialises on both #1 and #2.<p>Community and OSS are 2 things that are at the center of everything that OpsVerse does. OpsVerse provides "few clicks and you are up and running" sort of suite of devops tools entirely powered by OSS tools, and without the trouble of managing/scaling the tools.
Closed source that thing and charge for it or I will. All open source makers are leaving tons of bread on that table.<p>I see these donation numbers where they’re netting $200/mo for some wildly successful tool. Closed sourcing it + marketing and you’ll be at $2-$3k/mo in 6 months with moderate effort.<p>Open source is cool for a communal app with a lot of different vectors. Openpilot for example is smart for me. For everything else though? It’s an easy way for software to become unmaintained. Good luck finding someone to work for free in perpetuity.
There are some companies out there who want to help devs commercialize their libraries. These are the ones that I know about:<p><a href="https://codecodeship.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://codecodeship.com/</a> (JS, Ruby, .NET, Rust, Elixir)<p><a href="https://anystack.sh/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://anystack.sh/</a> (PHP, Ruby, JS, Python)<p><a href="https://www.privjs.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.privjs.com/</a> (JS)<p>Full disclosure: I built Code Code Ship
It is not a widely held opinion, but I enjoy, or even prefer, using BSL-licensed products like CockroachDB or ElasticSearch. The license grants me the freedom to use them as I wish, with the exception of competing with their cloud services. Additionally, there is a high probability that these products have a sustainable business model and will continue to be developed.
This is a good overview of the options. It's worth pointing out that there are a lot of successful open source projects out there and most of them are maintained by people that are being paid by companies to do so. It's nonsense that you can't make money of open source, it's an industry that employs quite a few people and the companies that employ them get a lot of value back in return. A lot of that spending is strategic and not charitable. E.g. Google has things like Android. They make a lot of money from Android. And its built on top of a lot of OSS. Instead of passively consuming that, they employ people to work on each of the projects that are important to them and have a very active role in driving those forward. They even create open source projects themselves.<p>In fact all of the big name software companies have people on staff that represent them in various mission critical open source projects. There are also a lot of smaller companies that are very successful that are built on top of open source projects that they either pioneered or contribute to heavily. Commercial contributions to open source are the back bone to the open source communities.<p>Any such business is a great place to start if you are looking to make money from open source. They might employ you if you are good enough and having a track record as a top contributor is a great way into such companies. Getting involved with such projects is a great way to bootstrap your professional career in open source development.<p>Where a lot of amateur run projects fail to make money is mis-perception of their value, unprofessional behavior by developers, or just plain poor business and communication skills. That happens a lot. Computer scientists are not great at this stuff. Also they tend to be a bit spoiled because they are constantly being pampered by companies that need their technical skills. So, not necessarily the best entrepreneurs.<p>Built it and they will come is not how things work. It's not a business model. Making money is hard work and you have to be smart about it. Just because you think that your source code is worth a lot doesn't mean it actually is. E.g. a lot of javascript packages are a combination of tiny and a bit of a commodity. What's a commodity: something with a lot of alternate implementations. If you are cost conscious consumer of such things, you are going to be optimizing for cost and convenience and pick the cheapest (i.e. free) good enough thing. Commodities are by definition not worth a lot. And in OSS that typically means 0$.<p>Mistake #1 with OSS companies: most of them provide commodity functionality that just isn't worth a lot to many people. Set your expectations accordingly. There can still be valid reasons to work on them.<p>I maintain some small open source projects and I've set my expectations accordingly. I don't expect or ask for donations. Below a certain threshold the admin work on my side would cost me more than the amount I'd receive. It makes no economical sense to me to bother with low $ amount tips unless I magically can get a lot of them. For the same reason, I don't donate to OSS projects either. I reserve donations for more worthy causes.<p>I make money indirectly via consultancy. The libraries are just there to make my life easier and they are a nice talking point that helps my clients understand that I might know what I'm talking about. Most of my clients don't actually use my OSS even. Mainly they just make my life easier. And I enjoy working on them. Nothing wrong with that.