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It's a component of your income stream, not a complete solution. If you're doing open-source software as a living it's essential you have: 1. Books: You shoul
by astrodust 10y ago
It's a component of your income stream, not a complete solution.
If you're doing open-source software as a living it's essential you have:
1. Books: You should at the very least write the canonical book on using a package, tool or application you've written. Amazon residuals might not be high, but they're non-zero. The effort involved in writing a book is considerable but they can pay dividends for a long time. It's also something you can chip away at over time.
2. Patreon: You need some way of measuring community enthusiasm for your project and what better way than to see how much they're willing to pay for it. Reward tiers can also help by allowing more generous patrons to help with advice, like feature requests, early code review and so on. This builds engagement.
3. Support Contracts: These might be super obnoxious, customers can be very difficult, but if you're in it to win it you absolutely need to cover this off. At the very least offer incident-level consulting to get people out of a jam. Figure out what the hassle's worth and price accordingly. $200/hr? $500/hr?
4. Corporate Sponsorship: I like it when companies step up and help fund open-source software directly, like how Redis has been supported by various companies along its lifepan (https://redis.io/topics/sponsors https://redis.io/topics/sponsors). If you find a good partner it's not "selling out", it's validation that your project is meaningful. They'll respect your decisions and not interfere.
5. Talks: Get out there and talk about your project. At the very least make videos, or get people to make them for you, that introduce how your tools work, how they can be used, and where you're going with the project. Being a speaker at an event might be daunting for some, but it's a great way to make connections and find opportunities.
Too many developers want to focus on nothing but the code. That's not how the world works.
- nstj 10y agoNice pragmatic summary. Bravo.
- ggame 10y agoNot getting paid for open source is how the world works. If you do any of the above you invite yourself to so much criticism that it's not worth it. I have first hand experience of this. I hope to retire next year to do open source full time with money made from closed source. My audience will not be developers though; I'm soured on them. I'll be targeting a niche group who are actually grateful for free tools and don't feel like it's their life duty to criticize every small thing.
- dyarosla 10y agoThere's a ton of cynicism here with very little substance. Perhaps over generalizing developers; many of whom do appreciate open source?
- toomuchtodo 10y agoYou can't buy groceries or pay your mortgage with appreciation.
- astrodust 10y agoAppreciation comes in many forms, like how many people have developed a new-found "appreciation" for the New York Times or the ACLU of late.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoI think you're discounting donations to the ACLU that have only happened as of late because of an orange catalyst.
- astrodust 10y ago> Not getting paid for open source is how the world works. That's how it used to work. That's 1990s thinking back when people would do these things purely out of love, and when those using it were hackers or ramen-noodel eating entrepreneurs. Now huge corporations are using open-source tools, and some huge corporations have been built with open-source tools. Where would Google be without Python? Where would Facebook be without PHP? Where would Twitter have gone without Ruby? That's why having an official method for giving back is important. Node has shown tremendous leadership here in setting up an NPM corporation (https://www.npmjs.com/about https://www.npmjs.com/about) that makes it easy for corporate concerns to donate without accounting concerns: Writing personal cheques to people to "donate" is out of the question. Giving to a foundation is noble. Paying for a support contract is reasonable. The difference might seem superficial, but it's important. > I'll be targeting a niche group who are actually grateful for free tools... There's nothing wrong with finding your own niche and doing it out of love and passion. That you're able to do this is great, but some need to concern themselves with how to make a stable, sustainable living that's not predicated on having a large amount of money saved up.