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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

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.
  - chii 6y ago
    There's a lot of the mentality of OSS where the project creator releases it permissively, and is fine with many little guys (who otherwise wouldn't have paid for an equivalent library) using it. Then as they get traction, a big company who _could_ afford to pay also benefits from said project, and the creator is whinging that they don't get paid by the big company - with the reason that the company _could_ pay, that's why they should.
    - pksebben 6y ago
      yet, that's an entirely fair stance. The little guys, not having created the mechanism for value capture that the company has, are likely contributing to the ecosystem (or at least are active components of the ecosystem). the corporation, on the other hand, has ensured that they capture and process value such that they enjoy exclusive benefit from their output. it's not unreasonable for an individual to decide that contributions to other open source developers are good, and contributions to a black hole are bad. if you decide you don't want me to benefit from your work without profiting you, then you have to pay me for mine. if you want to play nice, then I'm willing to play nice, too.
      - chii 6y ago
        Which is exactly what dual licensing with (A)GPL and commercial license is. And yet, this is more rare than common.
        ganafagol 6y ago
        Exactly. It's astonishing how little people understand this and just go post a rant about the big evil corporation not paying the little open source coder for their work. It's all in the license(s). Make one that's fine for trials and other open source hackers, but draconian for proprietary commercialization, and another one for productization so that big corp pays you. That's it. And if you don't care about the money aspect since open sourcing was never a way for you to make money anyway, then go with a single permissive license and be happy that your code gets widely used and hopefully contributed to.
drummer 6y ago
> Most software libraries aren't products. They target other software developers who are not responsible for allocating funds. Perhaps devs and engineers should manage the funds. Like AMD's current CEO.
networkimprov 6y ago
> Most software libraries aren't products This is the rationale for https://tidelift.com https://tidelift.com
laughinghan 6y ago
You are explaining how a person can deal with the world as it is. But if you think of yourself as a builder, then you really ought to know better than to accept the world as it is. Are there probably choices available to a skilled software developer where they could make more money than just working on something that they love and that provides value to the world? Sure. But why is that an acceptable world to live in? If a work adds value to the world, shouldn't the worker rightly feel entitled to just compensation? Sure, not everything in the world is as it should be, and as a responsible adult the worker may have to deal with that, they can't just sit around whining about not getting their fair share and expect everyone else to solve their problems for them. But are YOU someone who sees problems in the world and says "yep, that's how it is, deal with it, not my problem"? Or are you someone who sees problems in the world as something to be fixed?
- john_moscow 6y ago
  I am a pragmatist that is accustomed to the physical, mathematical and social constraints of the world. One big constraint is the average attention span of your target audience. Do you have time to care whether a guy designing/manufacturing that USB cable on your desk got compensated well? Or the one making your clothes? Or cleaning the corporate toilet? You know, unless you have sewed your shirt yourself, it was probably made a by a person in a less developed country earning about $1 per hour [0]. The thing is, we physically don't have time to look at every situation from every stakeholder's perspective. There are just not enough hours in the day. Like it or not, that's a pretty hard constraint and there's no better way around it than understanding marketing and product management. So ultimately, it boils down to: * Strategy A that gives you a 10% chance of outperforming your corporate salary and 90% chance of getting bored and getting back to your 9-to-5. * Strategy B that gives you a 0.2% chance of changing the world, 49.9% chance of giving up and another 49.9% chance of seriously burning out and getting into depression. The actual world-changing chance is likely even lower. You can guesstimate it by dividing the number of Linus Tordvaldses by the number of Github users with 1 or more repository. Mind you, strategy A requires a lot of trial-and-error while learning how to do business (and getting burned multiple times), while the strategy B is about just doing what you like do and hoping that it will somehow bring the desired outcome. So please, please, please, be honest with yourself about wanting to change the world vs. just wanting to keep is as a stress-free hobby vs getting face-in-the-mud while learning an orthogonal skillset. [0] https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/sewing-machine-operator/india https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/sewing-machine-opera...
mgsn 6y ago
You're right, of course. But I am so, so tired of having to "sell" over and over just to have the value of my contributions recognized. And I think gp would agree. The poster, marak, is a founder [0]. They definitely understand product-ization. Yet two weeks ago they suffered an apartment fire and have been struggling to keep a roof over their head [1]. I can definitely understand the kind of bitterness that comes out of going through something like that only to realize how little the fellow humans around you really value you. Realizing that for all the positive signals (such as "popularity") you received before, precious few are willing to actually put resources on the line for you. So, I think gp and marak aren't coming from a place of misunderstanding the world as it is, but rather a depressing understanding of our world. Imagine, if you can, a much different world. A world where helping or recognizing the efforts of others meaningfully didn't put you worse off. A world where your quality of life wasn't determined by your ability to take more than you give (or to have started off with enough resources that you can afford to give more than you take). Once you really see what could be, I think it's difficult to suffer what is. [0] https://twitter.com/marak https://twitter.com/marak [1] "I lost all my stuff in an apartment fire and am barely staying unhomeless." https://twitter.com/marak/status/1320465599319990272 https://twitter.com/marak/status/1320465599319990272
- andrewpolidori 6y ago
  I wonder if this is advoidable by realizing what the popularity is actually for? It's not like it's for them personally it's for the fact that it's free and available. I feel like these values will always tend to conflict. I.e open source / free software and making money. They are opposed ideas in many ways.
- benc666 6y ago
  Surely home insurance is going to make it whole?
  - olyjohn 6y ago
    That's assuming he could pay for a plan that covered his assets. I'm guessing that since he said "apartment" that he is renting, and the owners probably only cover the structure with their insurance and not the contents of said apartment.
mrskitch 6y ago
This is how we framed it at browserless.io. Libraries generally aren't a product, and even though some of them do a lot, it's hard to charge folks for an `npm i`-style product. I tried a lot to look into this and it just didn't pan out. I think there's an opportunity for a library marketplace that does all of the curation, security checks, and other validation as it would provide a lot of value to organizations so they don't have to build all this themselves. Seems like all of this already exists, just not in a concise package. On that, I feel like docker could provide a much much better storefront, and charge folks for their packages, but just hasn't. Did you even know they had a store? That's what their hub is supposed to be, but they don't charge for anything! How great would it be if they built out a marketplace?! This has even more potential, IMO, since images are generally a whole service and not just a library. The opportunity and value definitely are there, and the need is there, it's just not something that anyone has tackled in a way that makes sense with software.
- chii 6y ago
  > Libraries generally aren't a product That's not true - look at the games industry, the vfx/cinematic rendering industry and all that ; their middleware libraries are all paid products.
  - kls 6y ago
    You are correct but so is the parent of your post, the key term they used is "generally" and I would say that is a correct observation. General problem libraries tend to not sell. There are specialty markets where one can make money from licencing libraries or frameworks as you highlighted game/cinematic there is also some areas in medical and legal but for the most part if one is building a general purpose library or one that appeals to a broad market, they tend to not be commercially viable. Those that provide specific solutions for a vertical tend to have more success in commercial licencing.

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.
- chii 6y ago
  There's a lot of the mentality of OSS where the project creator releases it permissively, and is fine with many little guys (who otherwise wouldn't have paid for an equivalent library) using it. Then as they get traction, a big company who _could_ afford to pay also benefits from said project, and the creator is whinging that they don't get paid by the big company - with the reason that the company _could_ pay, that's why they should.
  - pksebben 6y ago
    yet, that's an entirely fair stance. The little guys, not having created the mechanism for value capture that the company has, are likely contributing to the ecosystem (or at least are active components of the ecosystem). the corporation, on the other hand, has ensured that they capture and process value such that they enjoy exclusive benefit from their output. it's not unreasonable for an individual to decide that contributions to other open source developers are good, and contributions to a black hole are bad. if you decide you don't want me to benefit from your work without profiting you, then you have to pay me for mine. if you want to play nice, then I'm willing to play nice, too.
    - chii 6y ago
      Which is exactly what dual licensing with (A)GPL and commercial license is. And yet, this is more rare than common.
      - ganafagol 6y ago
        Exactly. It's astonishing how little people understand this and just go post a rant about the big evil corporation not paying the little open source coder for their work. It's all in the license(s). Make one that's fine for trials and other open source hackers, but draconian for proprietary commercialization, and another one for productization so that big corp pays you. That's it. And if you don't care about the money aspect since open sourcing was never a way for you to make money anyway, then go with a single permissive license and be happy that your code gets widely used and hopefully contributed to.

drummer 6y ago

> Most software libraries aren't products. They target other software developers who are not responsible for allocating funds. Perhaps devs and engineers should manage the funds. Like AMD's current CEO.

networkimprov 6y ago

> Most software libraries aren't products This is the rationale for https://tidelift.com https://tidelift.com

laughinghan 6y ago

You are explaining how a person can deal with the world as it is. But if you think of yourself as a builder, then you really ought to know better than to accept the world as it is. Are there probably choices available to a skilled software developer where they could make more money than just working on something that they love and that provides value to the world? Sure. But why is that an acceptable world to live in? If a work adds value to the world, shouldn't the worker rightly feel entitled to just compensation? Sure, not everything in the world is as it should be, and as a responsible adult the worker may have to deal with that, they can't just sit around whining about not getting their fair share and expect everyone else to solve their problems for them. But are YOU someone who sees problems in the world and says "yep, that's how it is, deal with it, not my problem"? Or are you someone who sees problems in the world as something to be fixed?

john_moscow 6y ago
I am a pragmatist that is accustomed to the physical, mathematical and social constraints of the world. One big constraint is the average attention span of your target audience. Do you have time to care whether a guy designing/manufacturing that USB cable on your desk got compensated well? Or the one making your clothes? Or cleaning the corporate toilet? You know, unless you have sewed your shirt yourself, it was probably made a by a person in a less developed country earning about $1 per hour [0]. The thing is, we physically don't have time to look at every situation from every stakeholder's perspective. There are just not enough hours in the day. Like it or not, that's a pretty hard constraint and there's no better way around it than understanding marketing and product management. So ultimately, it boils down to: * Strategy A that gives you a 10% chance of outperforming your corporate salary and 90% chance of getting bored and getting back to your 9-to-5. * Strategy B that gives you a 0.2% chance of changing the world, 49.9% chance of giving up and another 49.9% chance of seriously burning out and getting into depression. The actual world-changing chance is likely even lower. You can guesstimate it by dividing the number of Linus Tordvaldses by the number of Github users with 1 or more repository. Mind you, strategy A requires a lot of trial-and-error while learning how to do business (and getting burned multiple times), while the strategy B is about just doing what you like do and hoping that it will somehow bring the desired outcome. So please, please, please, be honest with yourself about wanting to change the world vs. just wanting to keep is as a stress-free hobby vs getting face-in-the-mud while learning an orthogonal skillset. [0] https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/sewing-machine-operator/india https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/sewing-machine-opera...

mgsn 6y ago

You're right, of course. But I am so, so tired of having to "sell" over and over just to have the value of my contributions recognized. And I think gp would agree. The poster, marak, is a founder [0]. They definitely understand product-ization. Yet two weeks ago they suffered an apartment fire and have been struggling to keep a roof over their head [1]. I can definitely understand the kind of bitterness that comes out of going through something like that only to realize how little the fellow humans around you really value you. Realizing that for all the positive signals (such as "popularity") you received before, precious few are willing to actually put resources on the line for you. So, I think gp and marak aren't coming from a place of misunderstanding the world as it is, but rather a depressing understanding of our world. Imagine, if you can, a much different world. A world where helping or recognizing the efforts of others meaningfully didn't put you worse off. A world where your quality of life wasn't determined by your ability to take more than you give (or to have started off with enough resources that you can afford to give more than you take). Once you really see what could be, I think it's difficult to suffer what is. [0] https://twitter.com/marak https://twitter.com/marak [1] "I lost all my stuff in an apartment fire and am barely staying unhomeless." https://twitter.com/marak/status/1320465599319990272 https://twitter.com/marak/status/1320465599319990272

andrewpolidori 6y ago
I wonder if this is advoidable by realizing what the popularity is actually for? It's not like it's for them personally it's for the fact that it's free and available. I feel like these values will always tend to conflict. I.e open source / free software and making money. They are opposed ideas in many ways.
benc666 6y ago
Surely home insurance is going to make it whole?
- olyjohn 6y ago
  That's assuming he could pay for a plan that covered his assets. I'm guessing that since he said "apartment" that he is renting, and the owners probably only cover the structure with their insurance and not the contents of said apartment.

mrskitch 6y ago

This is how we framed it at browserless.io. Libraries generally aren't a product, and even though some of them do a lot, it's hard to charge folks for an `npm i`-style product. I tried a lot to look into this and it just didn't pan out. I think there's an opportunity for a library marketplace that does all of the curation, security checks, and other validation as it would provide a lot of value to organizations so they don't have to build all this themselves. Seems like all of this already exists, just not in a concise package. On that, I feel like docker could provide a much much better storefront, and charge folks for their packages, but just hasn't. Did you even know they had a store? That's what their hub is supposed to be, but they don't charge for anything! How great would it be if they built out a marketplace?! This has even more potential, IMO, since images are generally a whole service and not just a library. The opportunity and value definitely are there, and the need is there, it's just not something that anyone has tackled in a way that makes sense with software.

chii 6y ago
> Libraries generally aren't a product That's not true - look at the games industry, the vfx/cinematic rendering industry and all that ; their middleware libraries are all paid products.
- kls 6y ago
  You are correct but so is the parent of your post, the key term they used is "generally" and I would say that is a correct observation. General problem libraries tend to not sell. There are specialty markets where one can make money from licencing libraries or frameworks as you highlighted game/cinematic there is also some areas in medical and legal but for the most part if one is building a general purpose library or one that appeals to a broad market, they tend to not be commercially viable. Those that provide specific solutions for a vertical tend to have more success in commercial licencing.