16 ms·

So you've made something cool and it's time to release it. These seem to be the options at hand: 1. Release under a permissive license (MIT, BSD) and: - Hav

• drran 6y ago
  5. Do nothing. - Die poor
  • makerofthings 6y ago
    6. Get a job that pays the bills, write code in your spare time for the joy of writing code, publish code as PD to help others learn. Maybe blog about it. Die happy.
    • D2187645 6y ago
      7. Get a job that pays the bills, write code in your spare time for the joy of writing code, or not write any code in your spare time at all. Die happy.
    • skrtskrt 6y ago
      Yeah - I write open source code to learn things that I won't get to or be forced to learn from a day job (currently a data platform in Python) - implementing authn/authz, network programming, creating a small framework. I enjoy it and I expect it to help me become a more well-rounded and therefore more employable developer.
  • t0astbread 6y ago
    6. Quit IT, buy a farm - Get crushed by the market - Die poor
    • blitblitblit 6y ago
      At least you don't die poor and hungry. Maybe it's a permaculture farm and you also died knowing you contributed to less carbon emissions and more biodiversity.
• AllegedAlec 6y ago
  5: Don't release the code and sell your product. Taking pride in your work also means valueing it properly. - 95% chance you die poor. 4.999% chance you make a decent living out of it. 0.0001% chance Facebook buys it for enough money that you can buy your own island on Mars.
  • tluyben2 6y ago
    6: release parts of your closed product as open source (saying it was sponsored by the company that sells the moneymaker, so not some dual licensing of the entire product) - 5% chance you make a living etc + fame and glory
  • falcolas 6y ago
    The problem here is that selling your closed source project requires a significantly distinct skill set from writing good code. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Venn diagram of a good project and being able to sell the project for a decent living is much smaller than 5%.
    • cbm-vic-20 6y ago
      Sounds like providing that skill set would a good business opportunity.
      • jgilias 6y ago
        Make it a SaaS!
        • vslira 6y ago
          Already done: https://bytepack.io https://bytepack.io By the same team behind Elixir/Phoenix no less
          • mcintyre1994 6y ago
            That looks pretty cool! I'm surprised they only have enterprise level contact us pricing though, it'd be an interesting SAAS self-service product.
• nextlevelwizard 6y ago
  Just because you made something cool doesn't mean you are entitled to make any amount of money from it. The world doesn't owe you anything. Even if you make something useful to people, that doesn't mean you are entitled to live rich. More than likely your solution is just good enough that people don't feel the need to make their own, but not good enough that no one can't compete with you.
  • NeutronStar 6y ago
    Business are not entitled to using your software just because it's cool either. They shouldn't feel entitled to having changes made to the software either. If they'd rather save a buck by not having one of their employee working on the same product, they should feel entitled to become even richer either.
• csomar 6y ago
  > 4. Dual license it as GPL and commercial and: This works if your product can target big corporations. They are unlikely to intentionally misuse the license; and would pay licensing fees for something that can be freely available online. There are several companies doing this already. You just need a few contracts to cover a software engineer salary. So unless you are after maximizing profits, you don't really care about the dudes who are using it commercially for free.
• huhtenberg 6y ago
  5. Use https://commonsclause.com https://commonsclause.com or another commercial use restriction with an open source license. - Get bashed for not being a real open source by fellow nerds - Get licensing fees from larger companies
  • skinkestek 6y ago
    Just say it is commons clause, not ordinary open source. I've even become convinced (based on someone digging out enough references) that the term ipen source was being used before OSI, but for the rest of the HN, just say "commons clause" without saying "open source" and I guess most bashing disappears. There will always be that person annoyed that it isn't AGPL - or MIT for that matter - but for most if us we just want to know what the license actually is.
    • ghaff 6y ago
      >I've even become convinced (based on someone digging out enough references) that the term ipen source was being used before OSI Basically at the same time. Christine Peterson seems to have coined it in 1998, the same year the OSI was founded. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source... As far as I'm concerned, people can use whatever license they want. I just think it's borderline deceptive to claim something is an open source license even if it clearly doesn't meet the OSI (or FSF) definition.
  • josephcsible 6y ago
    This is just a special case of option 3. Why would this get you licensing fees when it wouldn't?
  • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > commercial use restriction with an open source license Any licence which explicitly forbids commercial use is by definition not a Free Software licence or an Open Source licence. Or do you mean something like the AGPLv3, which isn't explicitly anti-commercial but which has strong terms that scare off many companies?
• draw_down 6y ago
  I decided recently anything I open source in the future will have a license that grants no use, really the opposite of a license. That way it’s clear I don’t care about people’s issues and requests and so forth. You weren’t supposed to be using it anyway, and probably won’t if it’s not available via a package manager etc
• jiofih 6y ago
  Who has ever been bashed for releasing a commercial product on HN? It is a startup forum after all.
  • reader_mode 6y ago
    This place seems like venting outlet for random people working in tech - the startup tone was drowned out years ago.
  • jlokier 6y ago
    I remember Stripe getting bashed on HN for releasing a commercial feature that took months to develop, by someone saying they could do it "in a weekend"...
  • rtuulik 6y ago
    Even Dropbox got bashed here for asking money just for linking some hard drives together.
  • paulmd 6y ago
    Apple and NVIDIA are excruciatingly unpopular amount the "techie" crowd precisely for choosing proprietary licenses and closed, proprietary environments. Every single time they are brought up you can be guaranteed a screed about how Linus gave NVIDIA the finger that one time, or people don't like the extent to which NVIDIA supports Wayland (which is not zero!). People absolutely do not accept the explanation that these companies are businesses that spend R&D money developing novel hardware and software and won't immediately race to interoperate with copycat standards from competitors who want to leech off that R&D once it's proven commercially viable. Nor do they have to expand the scope of their work to implement that one feature 0.1% of users want, nor are they obligated to open things up to allow you to implement the things they won't. And nor are you obligated to use their product if you don't find it satisfactory. I guess it really goes to show how much Copyleft has won the war that people are immediately hostile to proprietary licenses today, particularly in consumer-facing technology. Oddly this does not seem to apply to more industrial or embedded use-cases, you don't see anyone ranting about the awful proprietary Xilinx toolchain or Broadcom's awful binary SOC blobs any time those products are brought up. But then again it does apply to software APIs and such? It's probably not unfair to say that "anything I use should be free and open but also enough people should pay me that I should be able to make a living" is not an unfair characterization here. Everyone wants nice things, they don't want to pay for them. That's why gmail and Windows 10 and other spyware-funded services are so popular.
• runawaybottle 6y ago
  This is a interesting topic because it exposes one of the great sins developers commit - we don’t pay each other. I’m not talking about nickel and dimeing your fraternity, but there is certainly a reasonable price for a lot of these packages and plug-ins we install that can create financial autonomy for a lot of people via modest efforts.
  • fierarul 6y ago
    Developers are the toughest customers because we all think: "that's just a small script and a cron job" done in a weekend and basically worth $0. All the while staying each day in a meeting costing a cumulative $xx(x) just to announce what the job for today is.
    • Veserv 6y ago
      I agree that is part of the problem, but I think the real problem is that even if you accept the premise that it would take just a weekend it is still the wrong analysis for the company. Even a job that you can complete in an hour is easily $100-200 worth of direct engineering costs. I think the real problem is that most developers naturally plug in the value of their time on a hobby project/in school (which is ~$0/hr) when deciding if a time-cost tradeoff is worthwhile. Since the answer is almost always no if you incorrectly value time at $0/hr and management usually can not do the analysis themselves, management pattern matches and determines that spending money on developer tooling is essentially never worthwhile and that sums like $5k (which few people would spend on personal projects) are outrageous. If the correct time-value analysis was done, you would get outcomes more like electrical engineers (who generally make less than high-end software developers) where companies will spend literally $50k/yr/engineer on tooling to make them 50% more productive since that actually makes perfect business sense based on the amount they are being paid. In contrast, if you went to management in a software company pushing for a $50k/yr/developer expense they would probably laugh you out of the room or require some totally outrageous improvement like 10x for everybody.
      • fierarul 6y ago
• tcgv 6y ago
  5. Refactor your SW, release a basic functional FOSS version and license ($$$) the full-featured version
• _greim_ 6y ago
  If you release software under a commercial license, you're essentially forming a software company. It's hard work and not guaranteed to succeed, but isn't that legit and well-traveled path to wealth? Also not mentioned is using your coding skills to land a decent tech job, which seems like a much better shot at financial stability than what many have.
• AntiImperialist 6y ago
  OR, - release it under a permissive license - wait until it reaches reaches a significant level of popularity for your purposes (see below) - flex it to get a good job at a good company - abandon the original project altogether or find new maintainers - focus on your new job, build skills and connections - invest most of your income in bonds and experiment with profitable side ventures which don't require much economic contribution from your side - most probably die relatively well-off
  • pradn 6y ago
    So the plan is to abandon the project? It will work some individuals, but we need something more sustainable for the industry.
    • shadowgovt 6y ago
      If the project is valuable, someone will step in to maintain it. If nobody does, its value didn't justify the cost of maintenance.
      • jlokier 6y ago
        Perhaps all the people using it value it enough that they might pay (if they had no other choice to keep it), but might not be able to maintain it. In that situation, it's valued but it only gets maintained if someone offers to do the maintenance for pay. If the current maintainer is stepping down from the project if they aren't paid, but willing to continue for pay, it makes sense for them to let everyone else know they are willing to continue if paid, doesn't it?
    • AntiImperialist 6y ago
      If your finances are not in order, you can't be worrying about sustainability of some library or tool, or the industry for that matter. The industry is made out of people. If there are individuals who have to slave away to maintain an important tool or library, it's not going to be sustainable either.
  • 6y ago
• hokumguru 6y ago
  I think the Tailwind css model seems the most sustainable right now - build an open source project until it reaches a suitable level of success and then build commercial support/other projects around it.
• 0df8dkdf 6y ago
  I'm a big promoter of open source software. However, I do see a fine line between getting open source and charging. In general if something is generic enough like Kernel of an OS or MVC framework for web dev, then yes open sources it. However, it if it becomes specific and company clearly are benefiting and/profiting from it, then yeah charge for it!!
• hinkley 6y ago
  If you release under MIT and you don't have a plan for public speaking, or consulting then you have no way to profit financially from that work. Used to be that you could offer hosted solutions, but if you become too high profile the Cloud providers will have a 'better' offering. Too many of us still fall into this Calvinistic work ethic that if we just put in the work the rewards will appear through some ineffable mechanism we don't (think we) need to understand. I am currently fighting this battle with myself on several fronts. That shit is hard, especially when you don't have a lot of role models.
  • DrAwesomeClaws2 6y ago
    The work is the reward.
    • hinkley 6y ago
      We don't talk about the people who agree with you, because it doesn't come up. Enjoyment of something can be substantially reduced when you find out someone else is taking all the credit for your work, however. And the transition can be a bit shocking. In many cases these are probably the people we are talking about, in other cases it's someone discovering that they don't have the luxury of doing this passion project for free anymore.
  • imhoguy 6y ago
    This. The other fallacy is that a work is not yet good enough to charge for it.
    • ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      How often is that true though?
      • chii 6y ago
        almost always true. The creator tends to be biased when judging value (of their own work). Just because it was used a lot by many people because it's free, doesn't mean there's economic value. Charging for it is the only way to find out the economic value people assign to it.
• 013a 6y ago
  The other option is: Pick any of the above licenses and don't tie your entire financial identity to this thing. I think its a legitimately weird thing specific to software where people release something interesting as open source and free, it gets used, they feel an obligation to make building it their job, and then they feel anger when they don't make money from it. I understand the feeling of being slighted when there are billion dollar corporations using your software, but it was also a situation you opted in-to in the first place, with no expectation of reciprocity until now. I support the idea of asking people to pay for your time. That's totally fair. I think its also a little icky to say "pay me six figures or fork it"; so, is there no intention to actually make this an open source project? One where people contribute code instead of money and its supported by its users in that way? This project has over 100 contributors.
  • bcrosby95 6y ago
    It's an interesting situation. I've often pondered what I would do in this scenario. I have some hobby projects that I do purely for fun. Feeling an obligation to work on them because other people find them useful would really drain me. The point is to get away from work and rediscover the joy of programming, not add more work on top of work. I guess I can just keep them private. But if someone really happens to find them useful, I would be happy if they forked them for themselves. Maybe a giant disclaimer at the top of the readme so I'm clear and upfront how the projects will be managed (they won't be). Regardless, I'm sure it's a problem I'll never have.
  • jopsen 6y ago
    > One where people contribute code instead of money and its supported by its users in that way? I suspect this is really hard to do. You can get contributions now and then, but to get someone to take long term ownership is hard.
• orthecreedence 6y ago
  5. Abolish capitalism - Create whatever you want, license it public domain - Everyone who needs it uses it freely - Value all products based on their labor/resource content, with floating pricing at edge of productive network (delta between cost and price is not realized by seller) - Receive living wage UBI derived outside of taxation (because it's destroyed on spend it can be printed endlessly), survival is not dependent on ability to sell yourself to a hostile market - Die well fed (see UBI) Seriously, how much longer are we going to run on this ridiculous treadmill?
  • xen2xen1 6y ago
    The ridiculous treadmill of people saying UBI is going to work despite all evidence to the contrary, apparently a long, long time..
    • orthecreedence 6y ago
      You're right! Let's keep doing what we're doing. It's working great.
      • jokethrowaway 6y ago
        I know you're being sarcastic but I disagree. I think capitalism is fine and we need more of it. We need to get rid of governments and minimise centralisation of power instead. I don't want any more wars, jailing of people committing victimless crimes or people being forced to give up half of their economic output to bureaucrats. Every service offered by the government should be offered by multiple private companies. People in need should get money through voluntary donations, not through taxes forcefully stolen from people.
    • inglor_cz 6y ago
      Citizens of rich oil sheikhdoms in the Gulf have had de-facto UBI, and a high one, for a long time, even though the formalities were a bit muddled. In practice, if you were lucky enough to be born as a Saudi or Qatari citizen, your needs would be covered. It did not lead to any explosion of creativity, arts and science there. People are morbidly obese and spend their money on gambling, drugs and sex. I am not very optimistic about human nature when exposed to easy life.
• john_moscow 6y ago
  That's because you need to understand the difference between a project and a product. If you want your product to succeed, it must target decision-makers with a budget to buy your license, and it must make enough difference to them to justify the costs. Most software libraries aren't products. They target other software developers who are not responsible for allocating funds. Furthermore, if there wasn't a library, most devs would absolutely love writing one ad hoc. Their salary would remain the same, had they been solving the problem from scratch (which most of us love doing) or adopting an existing one. It's the business people that would feel the difference, but business people don't understand the specifics of libraries. And they hate integrating closed-source parts into their codebase because it comes with tremendous risks should the vendor go belly up. What could sell is a higher-level product that would automate boring/repetitive tasks that everyone hates. Like a GUI designer for some boilerplate stuff that everyone codes by hand (mind you many people like coding by hand, but some hate it and they will buy your GUI). Your product can also be your consulting business. Don't add stuff based on everybody's requests for free. Make it open-source, welcome contributions, but if someone wants some specific stuff, give them a quote. From time to time, add commonly requested parts and write articles explaining how they work to gain visibility. You will have to deal with lots of entitled assholes, but you will also find people willing to pay you.
  • d33lio 6y ago
    This comment is golden! Most qualms on indie hackers and similar sites could be quickly settled with this line of reasoning. Not growing fast enough? -> buy ads -> "but I don't make enough money to spend on ads" -> is it really a product then? -> etc... It's always blown me away (as a person of average intelligence relative to many on HN) that brilliant people who can actually conjure up entire libraries, frameworks etc fall short when it comes to understanding how to convert code into $$$ or anticipating how users will see the same concepts.
    • WalterBright 6y ago
      Creating a software program is only 10% of the work. The rest is marketing, promotion, sales, support, accounting, paying taxes, attending conferences, creating manuals and videos, etc. Most developers fail because they stop after getting the program to work. "Build it and they will come" is a stupid Hollywood myth.
• harlanji 6y ago
  I see some open source authors having success with Patreon. I’ve been trying off and on since 2017, I think what I’ve lacked is production quality and consistent updates. Getting crowd funding is a job ontop of just developping, no doubt.
• paloaltokid 6y ago
  Your insight and the comments in the Github thread all back up the same point - the current economic model is not set up to empower or distribute wealth to the little guy. I think it was phk who many years ago pointed out that Free Software is really anti-capitalist at heart; it makes sense that it would come from America (and MIT!) because of how the economic system works there. The licenses are a distraction. The bigger issues are structural in terms of how the economy is set up. Our current free market system is predicated on folks at the bottom of the pyramid getting squeezed for their labor. It is only when it starts happening to us and not folks somewhere else that we begin to do something about it.
• smithza 6y ago
  Think of Red Hat employees. Most of them are paid to contribute continually to Open Source (linux kernel, numerous libraries, etc), then they sell product and support licenses. The problem is that few developers are helping to maintain Open Source libraries. In what universe is it feasible for an large Open Source project maintainer to make a living without patrons?? For-profit orgs should be the driver for maintaining Open Source.
• 01100011 6y ago
  Isn't the situation somewhat akin to what modern musicians face? i.e. very little money from selling music, but a lot of money from performances, merch, etc? If I were hoping to make money off my OSS work, I would try to sell services related to the product. Consulting services, hosted instances, commercial forks, feature bounties, etc. Complaining about compensation for OSS work is like musicians pining for the days where you could create an album and sit back while the money rolled in. You can vent your frustrations, but the world is what it is and complaining is only going to make you and your work less popular.
• tomcam 6y ago
  i could be wrong here but I'm sensing a theme
• cryptica 6y ago
  And let's not forget corporations actively suppressing open source developers by going out of their way to not award them support contract.
• goodGood00 6y ago
  Human existence is Venn diagrams of desperate efforts for attention.
• alexdowad 6y ago
  My personal preference would be more like: 5. Make something cool and release it under any license which I feel like. Ruthlessly limit the project scope so I can finish it while still having fun and learning interesting things. (This means completely finished; documented, optimized for performance, and exhaustively tested with close to zero bugs remaining.) Then: - Be very clear on the project page about what people can expect in terms of support and timely bugfixes. Let people make their decision to use the project or not, with knowledge of how much time and energy I am ready to give. Politely refuse to go beyond what has been stated. - Make whatever amount of money I need through other means. - Use the knowledge I gained from making said "cool thing" to make other cool things (whether for fun or for money). - With a glint in my eye, reminisce about the great times spent hacking on computer code and all the fascinating discoveries made.