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I have a viable open-source solo business, so I'd dispute this. I've written about this in more detail in the past (https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/free-as-in-be

I have a viable open-source solo business, so I'd dispute this. I've written about this in more detail in the past (https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/free-as-in-beer/ https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/free-as-in-beer/) in short: * It's a freemium desktop app, with advanced features behind a paid subscription. * It's 100% open-source - including all the paid parts. * Although the paid parts are open-source, the code does include the implementation of the subscription checks. You are fully entitled to fork the project and remove all those to get everything for free, but if you do then you now have to maintain a fork of the project yourself. The product is not that expensive - for anybody with a salary, even having a meeting to discuss doing this is not worthwhile. * All the core product code is AGPL, to avoid proprietary forks cloning the whole thing and breaking this model (many of the smaller internal libraries that are generic & generally useful are Apache 2 though). * All open-source contributors get free subscriptions, so if you're willing to get involved in the project it acts like any traditional free open-source project for you. So far it's working well - there's a few hundred paying customers, including a good few team subscriptions, and it's been making good steady growth for over a year now. This model wouldn't work for everything (you need something product-shaped, rather than a standalone library) and I have no idea how it would scale out as a larger business, but it's been a very functional model for me to make an open-source project that's financially self-sufficient as a solo developer.

choeger 6y ago
For libraries people like you are the customer. So here's the question: How much could and how much would you pay for well-maintained libraries?
- onecommentman 6y ago
  More properly, how much do you pay, as a taxpayer, for libraries? Apropos of nothing, the Jacksonville FL budget seems to have 1.5% of its city budget assigned to library services, if I’m reading it right. (33M out of 2.7B) https://www.coj.net/departments/finance/budget.aspx https://www.coj.net/departments/finance/budget.aspx Assuming it’s representative, take your local taxes, multiply by .015, and that’s what you, or your family, pays per year. Looks like a good, scratch that, a great deal to me...
Etheryte 6y ago
Thank you for your input, and for the link to your insights. I'm working on bootstrapping an open-source project that solves a very common problem in a certain development niche, and finding a functional model for getting paid for the time I put in has been a thorn in my side. A similar approach to yours sounds very appealing.
hyperpallium2 6y ago
> product-shaped Helpful in other ways too: 1. no royalties under international tax treaties 2. "desktop tools" seems more viable as a business than libraries e.g. JetBrains Intellij IDEA (maybe because a library is at the dev's level, but an app is one step removed?) > free subscriptions Great for a paid product (reminds me a little of Dropbox's referral program, in that it rewards with the product itself), but it seems an exaggeration to describe getting one month (or one year) free subscriptions as "like any traditional free open-source project". Though, I suppose if one was dedicated enough to contribute every month, it would be... (and of course, motivate that dedication) But let me repeat to be clear: this is great for a paid product. You're way ahead of me, but let me share this anyway: if you are kind of open-source, and step too far away, it can generate a pure open-source rival. Or looked at another way: being sufficiently open-source is a barrier-to-entry (denies oxygen) to a fully open-source rival ("why would anyonw use it, when there is already your mature project?") Though "product-shaped" probably the greater help here. A subscription model for a non-hosted desktop app twists my mind a little, but I think it makes a lot of business sense, both for you and for customers (two examples: it's an expense, not an asset; monthly (or yearly) is more affordable than an outright purchase). Anyway, it's great to be able to devote yourself to open-source, without being taken advantage of.

choeger 6y ago

For libraries people like you are the customer. So here's the question: How much could and how much would you pay for well-maintained libraries?

onecommentman 6y ago
More properly, how much do you pay, as a taxpayer, for libraries? Apropos of nothing, the Jacksonville FL budget seems to have 1.5% of its city budget assigned to library services, if I’m reading it right. (33M out of 2.7B) https://www.coj.net/departments/finance/budget.aspx https://www.coj.net/departments/finance/budget.aspx Assuming it’s representative, take your local taxes, multiply by .015, and that’s what you, or your family, pays per year. Looks like a good, scratch that, a great deal to me...

Etheryte 6y ago

Thank you for your input, and for the link to your insights. I'm working on bootstrapping an open-source project that solves a very common problem in a certain development niche, and finding a functional model for getting paid for the time I put in has been a thorn in my side. A similar approach to yours sounds very appealing.

hyperpallium2 6y ago

> product-shaped Helpful in other ways too: 1. no royalties under international tax treaties 2. "desktop tools" seems more viable as a business than libraries e.g. JetBrains Intellij IDEA (maybe because a library is at the dev's level, but an app is one step removed?) > free subscriptions Great for a paid product (reminds me a little of Dropbox's referral program, in that it rewards with the product itself), but it seems an exaggeration to describe getting one month (or one year) free subscriptions as "like any traditional free open-source project". Though, I suppose if one was dedicated enough to contribute every month, it would be... (and of course, motivate that dedication) But let me repeat to be clear: this is great for a paid product. You're way ahead of me, but let me share this anyway: if you are kind of open-source, and step too far away, it can generate a pure open-source rival. Or looked at another way: being sufficiently open-source is a barrier-to-entry (denies oxygen) to a fully open-source rival ("why would anyonw use it, when there is already your mature project?") Though "product-shaped" probably the greater help here. A subscription model for a non-hosted desktop app twists my mind a little, but I think it makes a lot of business sense, both for you and for customers (two examples: it's an expense, not an asset; monthly (or yearly) is more affordable than an outright purchase). Anyway, it's great to be able to devote yourself to open-source, without being taken advantage of.