24 ms·

How to pay your rent with your open source project (2020)

321 points by gregnavis 4y ago

bkq 4y ago
They wrote another article about how they went about building a $1M ARR open-source SaaS [1]. This details some of their approach to building the product in public as a form of marketing. The building in public approach works, if you already have a platform to stand on in my opinion. As someone who also has an open-source SaaS they're trying to market, I sometimes think if I should have also taken this approach, despite not having any reach at all. [1] - https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas
- tpetry 4y ago
  The building in public didn‘t work either. The solo-founder (developer) wasn‘t getting any traction with what he did. The the co-founder (marketer) joined and only then they started to get customer and a lot of traction. It‘s not the build in public approach, it is someone doing marketing.
  - mxuribe 4y ago
    Or maybe both, in that, the marketing brings good attention (presumably from real buyers), but you still need a solid product/service to offer.
  - austinjp 4y ago
    To be fair, I think it's both. If the "sausage making" is grotesque, even an exceptional marketer would struggle :) A coder who understands what public signals are valuable can give a marketer something to work with. That might include "code quality" but it's probably more than that. Visible activity, responsive processes, valuable features, etc. Just guessing, though.
- nicbou 4y ago
  To be fair, Plausible is a good product with effective marketing, and the paid version is just very convenient for most people. This approach might not work so well for libraries and tools mainly used by developers.
hlandau 4y ago
One method this article doesn't mention is a "sell the binaries" model, usually combined with some level of support (consumer software) or a support contract (more complex/enterprise things). This model personally appeals to me. For example, I believe the Ardour DAW uses this model. But more importantly it's basically the business model of Redhat, which is presumably the most successful FOSS company there is. Another option is to combine the "sell the binaries" model with a trademark model, where only the official binaries can bear the name of the project. Third parties can offer their own binaries but just have to change the name. Again this is also obviously part of Redhat's strategy (and for the off-label versions, see CentOS, etc.) Another option is a variant on selling support contracts, but specifically about maintaining old versions of your software you maybe wouldn't ideally want to support anymore; it is possible to sell private maintained branches of older versions which are out of public support. However the viability of this depends on having some old versions, and depends on how often you break compatibility, which is after all what creates demand for the older branches. The "premium version"/"open core" option mentioned in the article has some serious downsides. The most obvious is that you create a systemic incentive to handicap the FOSS project. You end up competing with your own project, so you have to ensure the FOSS project doesn't become as good as your premium version. Imagine if feature X is implemented in the premium version only. Now an external contributor writes an independent implementation of feature X and raises a PR with the FOSS project. Is it going to get merged? Probably not. The conflict of interest compromises the operation of the FOSS project. Essentially, you create something that undermines the ability for the project to be as good as it can be. You create a situation where the organisation's stewardship of the FOSS project is detrimental to its potential. (Pertinently, today nginx just announced they're going to ease off on at least some of this...) [1] Fundamentally open core isn't a very satisfying answer to the question of "How do you make an income from FOSS?" because it is basically the answer "Make some software which isn't FOSS." It's not a true answer to the question. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32572153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32572153
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  A non commercial, no distribution source available license can work. Users can build it/hack around locally, and make changes/pull requests. Maintainers are the only ones who can monetize it. Throw in a clause that if the community makes more than 50% of the code changes it will be converted to FOSS (prevent maintainer neglect).
teddyh 4y ago
An open source project does not, and cannot, in itself, make money (EDIT: Except if your project is very well-known; then you can solicit donations.). Something which makes money must, at most, be an affiliated activity. If I sell guided hiking tours, can I claim that the mountain makes money?
- markild 4y ago
  That sounds like semantics. They are not saying "prohibit free access" here.
  - teddyh 4y ago
    I think it’s an important distinction. Many people want to work on free software, but also have bills. So they think “How can I make money from doing this?”, which leads them down to a very limited set of options¹: • https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html.en • https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html But these are not the only means to make money! To return to my mountain analogy, you could easily imagine many ways to profit from the mere existence of a mountain. You could, as I wrote, give guided tours, but you could also build water slides, build an observatory at the highest peak, or mine the mountain for precious minerals. All these have some risk, of course, of damaging the mountain itself, but they are all money-making schemes which would not occur to anyone wanting to somehow profit off the mountain exactly as it is. Therefore, calling it “making money from FOSS” is simplistic and limits your own thinking. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30293290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30293290
- ElCheapo 4y ago
  If I sell courses about Windows, can I claim that Windows makes money? Your comparison is incorrect because you wrote a program whereas the guide didn't set up the trail or build infrastructure to hike on the mountains
- smeyer 4y ago
  >can I claim that the mountain makes money? Sure? I feel like it wouldn't be unusual semantically to see a sentence like "the Foobar mountain brings in eleventy zillion dollars in tourism per year".
phgn 4y ago
Please add (2020) to the title! I thought this was yet another plausible.io post about how much money they're making, but turns out it's the original one.
- asicsp 4y ago
  HN discussion from 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23963202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23963202 (168 comments)
endorphine 4y ago
I've started a hobby/passion project a few months ago, and I'm constantly dreaming of quitting my day job to start working on it full-time (as opposed to doing it at midnight and getting sleep-deprived). Hard to give up a well-paying job when you have a family and financial goals ahead, but perhaps it's doable with donations? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
- rozenmd 4y ago
  Do it in the two hours you have before work.
  - amelius 4y ago
    Or in the X hours you read HN.
    - simongray 4y ago
      ... at work?
  - yarky 4y ago
    I agree, I rather wake up earlier to work on side projects/study than working late at night. This way it's the job that feels like an extra and not the other way around.
    - salmo 4y ago
      After 40 years of wanting to sleep in as long as I can, I flipped and wake up early and go to bed early. It’s amazing. My free time is now when I can think and play with hobbies. Those can be code, music, sewing, fishing, etc etc. After work, I’m usually zonked. “Too tired for having fun” (Devo cover playing in my head). I now just focus on kids after school, dinner, zone out, and sleep by 10pm. I listen to history podcasts and don’t watch much TV, except college football and Star Wars series. But I don’t pressure myself to “finish” hobbies anymore. Work is work, hobbies are for pleasure. If hobbies are generating anxiety, I pivot. That took me a while to come to terms with, given my ADHD. I have no dreams of making a passion project my job. I enjoy my work and “finish” there, but like having a separate life. My dad owned a business, and I don’t want to live that “never off” lifestyle. I’m a very boring family man and love that.
rozenmd 4y ago
The revenue growth (https://twitter.com/MarkoSaric/status/1532284305086586880 https://twitter.com/MarkoSaric/status/1532284305086586880) makes me smile - as a developer, 0 to $400 MRR in 12 months from only "building in public" seems about right, it's something I experienced with my https://onlineornot.com https://onlineornot.com project. Spending months just building and occasionally posting a Show HN or a producthunt launch is not nearly enough marketing. People need to know you understand them, and the problem, and you need to convince them you've got something that'll make the problem go away. It's not until you're really shouting from the rooftops (and putting out spicy articles about Google analytics being illegal in Europe) that people start to notice you.
tomerbd 4y ago
luck
- mehphp 4y ago
  If you are just building random passion projects, then yes. If you actually spend the time to find a real problem people have and build a solution for that, I'm not sure if I'd call that luck.
erdos4d 4y ago
I swear this sort of thing strikes me as 10X the trouble as just getting a job. Even if you write something that others want (highly unlikely, let's be honest), trying to monetize it adds so much hassle to the whole thing, it isn't worth it. Easier to get a remote gig and just fund the project that way.
aret 4y ago
The root cause problem here is having to pay rent in the first place. It's appalling to think of just how much of our hard work and economic output is being skimmed off by landlords who just lazily sit around doing nothing productive while receiving all the rent money that so many of us have to pay as tribute, just to avoid being homeless. All this hard work I do so my landlord can pay off his mortgage. Makes me wonder, what's the point?
- ekianjo 4y ago
  So you want stuff for free? You think buildings spring out from the ground by themselves?
  - freemint 4y ago
    No but the state can be much more effective at providing housing then individuals.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      State sucks at doing anything because of sheer and rampant incompetence
- Otek 4y ago
  - aret 4y ago
    Maybe then I should be paying rent to the construction workers who built the apartment I live in and the laborers who made the raw materials, as a thank you for all their hard work.
    - Otek 4y ago
      They got their salary for their time. Is that unfair anyhow?
- 4y ago
O__________O 4y ago
Related post by Plausible Analytics: - How we built a $1M ARR open source SaaS https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas
orliesaurus 4y ago
Funnily enough I wrote my own version of this exact topic, based on the fact that I am too trying to make money from open source work [1] From experience, I find it that it's always better to start with a paid offering and an open core solution. For example: you rather host it, configure it and upkeep it yourself? it's free Everyone else: pay me a little money which will go towards the upkeep of the project. I do find that there's another viable option: Bigger companies writing open source software. In fact there should be MORE companies like that. They should be motivated in writing open source software. Why? They have more money and are very unlikely to just "fold" - as opposed to a developer vs the world. I dream of a world where all companies have salaried open source teams of maintainers , building technology in the open that they themselves use and find useful but that they will maintain throughout the years. If things go well one day we can get there.... [1] https://dev.to/orliesaurus/how-do-you-monetize-open-source-4g4c https://dev.to/orliesaurus/how-do-you-monetize-open-source-4...
- zild3d 4y ago
  > Bigger companies writing open source software... They should be motivated in writing open source software. Why? They have more money That's not really a compelling reason for companies to write open source software. Developer branding, recruiting, engagement, "free work" from the community are probably more of the "why"
  - orliesaurus 4y ago
    I don't know... My thinking is that as a user, if a company puts money behind an open source project, I can at least trust them to keep it running to a certain level of quality for a little more than when a random single person writes a library and publishes it on npm - catches a blip of traction and suddenly I depend on that library for the foreseeable future. Maybe I am wrong though...
- klabb3 4y ago
  > From experience, I find it that it's always better to start with a paid offering and an open core solution. +1, today this is the best compromise, but unfortunately only really works well for SaaS, and less well for pure software, because of DRM. On the most extreme end, we don't use any DRM and the app is OSS, but then charging users becomes an honor system because how easy it would be to circumvent. On the other extreme, you have a closed source "paid portion" with DRM phoning home before you can access the full feature set. But if you can't build your own client, you can't eg audit for security. It's complex, but in short: it's difficult to combine an open source core with monetization without losing many of the benefits of open source.
scombridae 4y ago
tl;dr a 2020 rehash of same ineffective saws (pro version, donations, support). Every ten year old realizes the easiest way to sustain the lemonade stand is not giving away the lemonade.
pabs3 4y ago
Some more resources on paid open source work: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
benreesman 4y ago
I like open source / free software that has the financial imperatives in plain view: that enables me to make informed decisions. The best case when heavy lifting is taking place with a murky payroll is that there’s an Enterprise version you’ll eventually need. The worst case is, uh worse.
hospitalJail 4y ago
My 2 pieces of advice: >Don't expect it to pay rent for the first 7 years, after 7 years, expect to pay 1-2 months of rent. >Use your fame to push a similar product to pay for the other 10 months of rent I have learned that the first years are slow to gain popularity, but once you have it, you know what works and what doesnt work. Pivot to things that people really care about on a different project, maintaining the original product for popularity/advertising. 99% of what I give away is free, then 1% at a cost.
- tppiotrowski 4y ago
  >Don't expect it to pay rent for the first 7 years, after 7 years, expect to pay 1-2 months of rent. This. Work on several projects simultaneously. Success often doesn't come once you deploy, it's a gradual buildup over the years. Ten extra users this month, 12 extra users next month. It's a snowball. If you ship and sunset your project after 3 months because you didn't get 100,000 signups, you are stopping too early IMO. Instead, automate everything, try to run at zero cost and leave it alone for a year or even better 3 years and go work on something else or get a full time job. I had a project make $100 for the first 2 years and $30000 in year number 3 without making any substantial changes.
  - LoyCgg 4y ago
    What would happen if you spent a couple of bucks on cheap facebook ads on first year?
    - tppiotrowski 4y ago
      I used Adsense. Only spent $200 or so but could only get a single signup or two. TBH I haven't used ads since and prefer word of mouth.
    - ogarten 4y ago
      Not much. You are probably better of investing a couple of days into writing tutorials and creating show cases. A low barrier to entry is the single most important thing for any library. Almost forgot, a clear statement of what the library does and what kind of problem it solves is also something that doesn't seem too common when creating a readme.
aothms 4y ago
What I didn't see discussed is VCs focussing on open source (quick search returns e.g https://oss.capital/ https://oss.capital/). Does anybody experience with or thoughts on this? I read a lot of comments on the intrinsic difficulty of earning money with foss, so advising against it or to treat it as a secondary side project. It's pragmatic, sure, but sometimes foss is a central to the value proposition, like in situations that require high amounts of trust or adaptability. A couple of hours a week is not always sufficient to retain momentum. So imho there is really a need for true foss business models.
nwilkens 4y ago
Triton DataCenter[1] is open source[2], and has commercial revenue in excess of $1M ARR. We were fortunate to acquire this product from Joyent earlier this year[3], and are now well on our way to the next revenue target. Triton was built on the backs of giants -- so a slightly different scenario than most.. But it is clear that customers will pay for open source products, and you can more than pay your rent one day! [1]: https://www.tritondatacenter.com https://www.tritondatacenter.com [2]: https://github.com/tritondatacenter https://github.com/tritondatacenter [3]: https://www.mnxsolutions.com/triton-faq https://www.mnxsolutions.com/triton-faq
rthomas6 4y ago
There is one important monetization strategy that is overlooked by this article: dual licensing. License the source explicitly for non commercial use only, then offer a commercial use licensed product (plus support, usually) for a fee. If there is a big community of hobbyists in the relevant field who do the same thing in their dayjob, I think this works well. Edit: A more open source version of this is to GPL the source and offer a more commercial friendly licensed product for a fee. I don't know if this technically goes against GPL but I have seen people do this. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing
- glitchc 4y ago
  Maintaining feature parity in a dual licensing model is the challenge. Incentives are such that over time the paid for version invariably incorporates features that are lacking in the open source version, simply because there’s limited incentive to port them over.
- vs4vijay 4y ago
  Isn't it the Open Core model?
  - rthomas6 4y ago
    It's related, but the Open Core model described in the article mentions extra paid features surrounding an open core anyone can use. What I am describing is the same set of features priced differently for different use cases.
    - thanksgiving 4y ago
      I anal but why do we need to restrict commercial activity? I say allow people commercial use but use AGPLv3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_Lice... > The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there. > The purpose of the GNU Affero GPL is to prevent a problem that affects developers of free programs that are often used on servers. This allows people to run your code as is but as soon as they edit the source code, they must make it available to their users. My understanding is if they only use it for their employees on their own corporate network, they only need to share the changes with their own employees? I think that is a fair compromise, no?
soheil 4y ago
Only if landlords accepted code as payment, ideally countable code, maybe by number of lines.
didgetmaster 4y ago
I too have a 'hobby project' that I have worked on for several years. I must say that my motivations have varied quite a bit over that time. I mainly do it because it is a passion of mine and I love to write great code that does amazing things. But I would also love for the project to actually make some money. I don't really need the money, but money is a great indicator of how other people value your work. Money would also let me buy the extra help that the project needs. It is a data management system called Didgets https://didgets.com/ https://didgets.com/ and is currently in open beta. The ideas came from decades of experience working with other data management systems that I thought needed drastic improvement. I dug deep into file systems while writing network file system drivers and disk utilities (PartitionMagic and Drive Image). I spent years working with Postgres databases. I love writing code that does big things faster and uses less resources than traditional systems. I wanted to be able to find a group of files among 100s of millions of files in seconds instead of using long directory traversal methods or the arduous task of creating separate indexes that could become out of sync with the file system. I wanted to query huge DB tables in record time without needing separate indexing structures that can slow down transactions. So I will stay up until 2am tweaking an algorithm or parallelizing some code so that it runs through a large data set in 2 seconds instead of 20. This keeps me going, but I also wouldn't mind at all if a bunch of other people also found this valuable and decided to pay me something for my hard work.
- pbronez 4y ago
  Neat project, thanks for sharing. Is it only available on Windows for now? Seems like neat thing to throw on a NAS.
  - didgetmaster 4y ago
    The code is cross-platform (C++ code with almost zero dependencies) including the windowing framework (Qt) that the browser application uses. I have built Linux versions in the past to test it and I would also like to build a MacOS version, but bandwidth makes it hard to support multiple versions for every build. If it starts to get some traction, I can work on that.
franciscop 4y ago
I really like that this is one of the first Open Source Funding articles that I read that strongly acknowledges that devs create open source for many varied reasons. I have grown tired, as an OSS dev myself, to be bagged into a single category in most other articles and someone speaking for me saying things I might or might not want at all. Heck, what I want as an OSS dev myself, as well as my personal situation/context, has changed dramatically over the years and I expect will change again in the future, so thank you Plausible for not throwing me into a single-bag and for not speaking for me. Example: 4 years ago you'd tell me to write OSS part-time for 20k/year and I'd love it, today I'd strongly reject it, in 5 years I expect to do it part time for free again (or maybe not).
pksebben 4y ago
I have a concept sitting in <that folder with all the ideas> that is pretty high on my list of "man, I want to make this happen" but would need a team to execute on. The idea is to integrate the kickstarter model with github's issues (specifically, feature requests). You run an open-source project and people can submit feature requests that come with a fundraising campaign. When someone wants the software to do something new (support a new platform, implement an interface, etc) they draft a campaign a la kickstarter, someone who can contribute to the project negotiates with the drafter pricing, targets, and stretch goals. Past this point, it's the drafter's responsibility to do the marketing for the campaign and raise funds. Once the target $ amount is hit, it's on the person who picked up the contract to get the work done. There are, of course, a ton of details to work out, and executing on this is going to be resource-intense on a number of vectors that aren't necessarily technical (legal, finance, hosting costs). Also, I suck at UI. The business itself would naturally be a non-profit. addendum: I also have a day job that I have no intention of leaving, so factor that in to time-to-completion.
- OtomotO 4y ago
  Just a sidenote: One such detail is the timeframe... I am my own boss and I love to do contract work, but I cannot say "Yes, I will do this", commit to it and then after months the money is raised and I am drowning in projects.
  - eljimmy 4y ago
    Perhaps the money can be pledged and held in escrow either until someone accepts the work for scheduling or it gets withdrawn by the pledgee due to inaction.
    - pksebben 4y ago
      Truly a tricky spot. Who keeps an eye on the features for things like code quality / deliverables? I don't know how I would solve this, yet.
- techdragon 4y ago
ahaucnx 4y ago
If you run an open source hardware project like we do with our DIY air quality monitors [1] you can also monetize it via selling hardware kits or work with affiliate links to e.g. Amazon or AliExpress. However selling hardware has some additional challenges e.g. warranty, lost shippings, component shortages etc that you need to factor in. [1] https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/
milkoolong 4y ago
> In general, it is useful for many projects to be aligned with something people or businesses believe in so much or find value in that they are willing to pay for. The end of the day it comes down to audience regardless of your code being open source. I chose an alternative analytics based on the founders' business acumen, morals and ethics before I even considered open source. Similarily, Discord Nitro over Matrix and Circle/Mighty Network over Discourse. The author shared good examples but for majority of projects, it doesn't make sense to open source it as a path to financial security. I'd argue it actually hurts many niches. I assume Plausible has a healthy dose of startup clients who are techie that see open source first as the holy grail for trust, transparency, and security. That's a solid audience! Otherwise, think again.
paydevs 4y ago
For a curated list of monetization approaches have a look at https://github.com/PayDevs/awesome-oss-monetization https://github.com/PayDevs/awesome-oss-monetization
debarshri 4y ago
May be I'm naive but would love learn why if the end goal is to monetize your software why does it have to be opensourced. From my naive perspective it feels like when you mix the accessing the source and business, conceptually it becomes very complex. From an end users perspective, all these different types of licenses makes the actual user experience of buying the software complex.
- lioeters 4y ago
  > why does it have to be opensourced I'd suggest reading up on the origins of "open source" and "free software". > The philosophy of the movement is that the use of computers should not lead to people being prevented from cooperating with each other. In practice, this means rejecting proprietary software, which imposes such restrictions, and promoting free software, with the ultimate goal of liberating everyone in cyberspace – that is, every computer user. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#The_Four_Essential_Freedoms_of_Free_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#T... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source-software_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source-software_movement This is a significant backbone of computer culture. Many of the old-school hackers (and hopefully the new-school ones) have philosophical and political principles, such as the human right to have access to general-purpose computing, encryption, privacy, and the right to read and change the source code, to know and have personal control over what you're running on your computer. There are also business motivations for companies to participate in the open-source community, such as marketing and benefitting from the free labor of volunteers.
mfts0 4y ago
That’s interesting threat. I strongly believe in sustainable monetization in open source software. There’s a project called Tea (tea.xyz), a package manager as the evolution of Homebrew. I honestly believe that understanding the entire dependency graph of open source project will help redistribute money to all packages democratically. I’m curious to hear what other devs think

321 points by gregnavis 4y ago

bkq 4y ago

They wrote another article about how they went about building a $1M ARR open-source SaaS [1]. This details some of their approach to building the product in public as a form of marketing. The building in public approach works, if you already have a platform to stand on in my opinion. As someone who also has an open-source SaaS they're trying to market, I sometimes think if I should have also taken this approach, despite not having any reach at all. [1] - https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas

tpetry 4y ago
The building in public didn‘t work either. The solo-founder (developer) wasn‘t getting any traction with what he did. The the co-founder (marketer) joined and only then they started to get customer and a lot of traction. It‘s not the build in public approach, it is someone doing marketing.
- mxuribe 4y ago
  Or maybe both, in that, the marketing brings good attention (presumably from real buyers), but you still need a solid product/service to offer.
- austinjp 4y ago
  To be fair, I think it's both. If the "sausage making" is grotesque, even an exceptional marketer would struggle :) A coder who understands what public signals are valuable can give a marketer something to work with. That might include "code quality" but it's probably more than that. Visible activity, responsive processes, valuable features, etc. Just guessing, though.
nicbou 4y ago
To be fair, Plausible is a good product with effective marketing, and the paid version is just very convenient for most people. This approach might not work so well for libraries and tools mainly used by developers.

hlandau 4y ago

One method this article doesn't mention is a "sell the binaries" model, usually combined with some level of support (consumer software) or a support contract (more complex/enterprise things). This model personally appeals to me. For example, I believe the Ardour DAW uses this model. But more importantly it's basically the business model of Redhat, which is presumably the most successful FOSS company there is. Another option is to combine the "sell the binaries" model with a trademark model, where only the official binaries can bear the name of the project. Third parties can offer their own binaries but just have to change the name. Again this is also obviously part of Redhat's strategy (and for the off-label versions, see CentOS, etc.) Another option is a variant on selling support contracts, but specifically about maintaining old versions of your software you maybe wouldn't ideally want to support anymore; it is possible to sell private maintained branches of older versions which are out of public support. However the viability of this depends on having some old versions, and depends on how often you break compatibility, which is after all what creates demand for the older branches. The "premium version"/"open core" option mentioned in the article has some serious downsides. The most obvious is that you create a systemic incentive to handicap the FOSS project. You end up competing with your own project, so you have to ensure the FOSS project doesn't become as good as your premium version. Imagine if feature X is implemented in the premium version only. Now an external contributor writes an independent implementation of feature X and raises a PR with the FOSS project. Is it going to get merged? Probably not. The conflict of interest compromises the operation of the FOSS project. Essentially, you create something that undermines the ability for the project to be as good as it can be. You create a situation where the organisation's stewardship of the FOSS project is detrimental to its potential. (Pertinently, today nginx just announced they're going to ease off on at least some of this...) [1] Fundamentally open core isn't a very satisfying answer to the question of "How do you make an income from FOSS?" because it is basically the answer "Make some software which isn't FOSS." It's not a true answer to the question. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32572153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32572153

candiddevmike 4y ago
A non commercial, no distribution source available license can work. Users can build it/hack around locally, and make changes/pull requests. Maintainers are the only ones who can monetize it. Throw in a clause that if the community makes more than 50% of the code changes it will be converted to FOSS (prevent maintainer neglect).

teddyh 4y ago

An open source project does not, and cannot, in itself, make money (EDIT: Except if your project is very well-known; then you can solicit donations.). Something which makes money must, at most, be an affiliated activity. If I sell guided hiking tours, can I claim that the mountain makes money?

markild 4y ago
That sounds like semantics. They are not saying "prohibit free access" here.
- teddyh 4y ago
  I think it’s an important distinction. Many people want to work on free software, but also have bills. So they think “How can I make money from doing this?”, which leads them down to a very limited set of options¹: • https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html.en • https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html But these are not the only means to make money! To return to my mountain analogy, you could easily imagine many ways to profit from the mere existence of a mountain. You could, as I wrote, give guided tours, but you could also build water slides, build an observatory at the highest peak, or mine the mountain for precious minerals. All these have some risk, of course, of damaging the mountain itself, but they are all money-making schemes which would not occur to anyone wanting to somehow profit off the mountain exactly as it is. Therefore, calling it “making money from FOSS” is simplistic and limits your own thinking. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30293290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30293290
ElCheapo 4y ago
If I sell courses about Windows, can I claim that Windows makes money? Your comparison is incorrect because you wrote a program whereas the guide didn't set up the trail or build infrastructure to hike on the mountains
smeyer 4y ago
>can I claim that the mountain makes money? Sure? I feel like it wouldn't be unusual semantically to see a sentence like "the Foobar mountain brings in eleventy zillion dollars in tourism per year".

phgn 4y ago

Please add (2020) to the title! I thought this was yet another plausible.io post about how much money they're making, but turns out it's the original one.

asicsp 4y ago
HN discussion from 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23963202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23963202 (168 comments)

endorphine 4y ago

I've started a hobby/passion project a few months ago, and I'm constantly dreaming of quitting my day job to start working on it full-time (as opposed to doing it at midnight and getting sleep-deprived). Hard to give up a well-paying job when you have a family and financial goals ahead, but perhaps it's doable with donations? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

rozenmd 4y ago
Do it in the two hours you have before work.
- amelius 4y ago
  Or in the X hours you read HN.
  - simongray 4y ago
    ... at work?
- yarky 4y ago
  I agree, I rather wake up earlier to work on side projects/study than working late at night. This way it's the job that feels like an extra and not the other way around.
  - salmo 4y ago
    After 40 years of wanting to sleep in as long as I can, I flipped and wake up early and go to bed early. It’s amazing. My free time is now when I can think and play with hobbies. Those can be code, music, sewing, fishing, etc etc. After work, I’m usually zonked. “Too tired for having fun” (Devo cover playing in my head). I now just focus on kids after school, dinner, zone out, and sleep by 10pm. I listen to history podcasts and don’t watch much TV, except college football and Star Wars series. But I don’t pressure myself to “finish” hobbies anymore. Work is work, hobbies are for pleasure. If hobbies are generating anxiety, I pivot. That took me a while to come to terms with, given my ADHD. I have no dreams of making a passion project my job. I enjoy my work and “finish” there, but like having a separate life. My dad owned a business, and I don’t want to live that “never off” lifestyle. I’m a very boring family man and love that.

rozenmd 4y ago

The revenue growth (https://twitter.com/MarkoSaric/status/1532284305086586880 https://twitter.com/MarkoSaric/status/1532284305086586880) makes me smile - as a developer, 0 to $400 MRR in 12 months from only "building in public" seems about right, it's something I experienced with my https://onlineornot.com https://onlineornot.com project. Spending months just building and occasionally posting a Show HN or a producthunt launch is not nearly enough marketing. People need to know you understand them, and the problem, and you need to convince them you've got something that'll make the problem go away. It's not until you're really shouting from the rooftops (and putting out spicy articles about Google analytics being illegal in Europe) that people start to notice you.

tomerbd 4y ago

luck

mehphp 4y ago
If you are just building random passion projects, then yes. If you actually spend the time to find a real problem people have and build a solution for that, I'm not sure if I'd call that luck.

erdos4d 4y ago

I swear this sort of thing strikes me as 10X the trouble as just getting a job. Even if you write something that others want (highly unlikely, let's be honest), trying to monetize it adds so much hassle to the whole thing, it isn't worth it. Easier to get a remote gig and just fund the project that way.

aret 4y ago

The root cause problem here is having to pay rent in the first place. It's appalling to think of just how much of our hard work and economic output is being skimmed off by landlords who just lazily sit around doing nothing productive while receiving all the rent money that so many of us have to pay as tribute, just to avoid being homeless. All this hard work I do so my landlord can pay off his mortgage. Makes me wonder, what's the point?

ekianjo 4y ago
So you want stuff for free? You think buildings spring out from the ground by themselves?
- freemint 4y ago
  No but the state can be much more effective at providing housing then individuals.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    State sucks at doing anything because of sheer and rampant incompetence
Otek 4y ago
- aret 4y ago
  Maybe then I should be paying rent to the construction workers who built the apartment I live in and the laborers who made the raw materials, as a thank you for all their hard work.
  - Otek 4y ago
    They got their salary for their time. Is that unfair anyhow?
4y ago

O__________O 4y ago

Related post by Plausible Analytics: - How we built a $1M ARR open source SaaS https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas

orliesaurus 4y ago

Funnily enough I wrote my own version of this exact topic, based on the fact that I am too trying to make money from open source work [1] From experience, I find it that it's always better to start with a paid offering and an open core solution. For example: you rather host it, configure it and upkeep it yourself? it's free Everyone else: pay me a little money which will go towards the upkeep of the project. I do find that there's another viable option: Bigger companies writing open source software. In fact there should be MORE companies like that. They should be motivated in writing open source software. Why? They have more money and are very unlikely to just "fold" - as opposed to a developer vs the world. I dream of a world where all companies have salaried open source teams of maintainers , building technology in the open that they themselves use and find useful but that they will maintain throughout the years. If things go well one day we can get there.... [1] https://dev.to/orliesaurus/how-do-you-monetize-open-source-4g4c https://dev.to/orliesaurus/how-do-you-monetize-open-source-4...

zild3d 4y ago
> Bigger companies writing open source software... They should be motivated in writing open source software. Why? They have more money That's not really a compelling reason for companies to write open source software. Developer branding, recruiting, engagement, "free work" from the community are probably more of the "why"
- orliesaurus 4y ago
  I don't know... My thinking is that as a user, if a company puts money behind an open source project, I can at least trust them to keep it running to a certain level of quality for a little more than when a random single person writes a library and publishes it on npm - catches a blip of traction and suddenly I depend on that library for the foreseeable future. Maybe I am wrong though...
klabb3 4y ago
> From experience, I find it that it's always better to start with a paid offering and an open core solution. +1, today this is the best compromise, but unfortunately only really works well for SaaS, and less well for pure software, because of DRM. On the most extreme end, we don't use any DRM and the app is OSS, but then charging users becomes an honor system because how easy it would be to circumvent. On the other extreme, you have a closed source "paid portion" with DRM phoning home before you can access the full feature set. But if you can't build your own client, you can't eg audit for security. It's complex, but in short: it's difficult to combine an open source core with monetization without losing many of the benefits of open source.

scombridae 4y ago

tl;dr a 2020 rehash of same ineffective saws (pro version, donations, support). Every ten year old realizes the easiest way to sustain the lemonade stand is not giving away the lemonade.

pabs3 4y ago

Some more resources on paid open source work: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

benreesman 4y ago

I like open source / free software that has the financial imperatives in plain view: that enables me to make informed decisions. The best case when heavy lifting is taking place with a murky payroll is that there’s an Enterprise version you’ll eventually need. The worst case is, uh worse.

hospitalJail 4y ago

My 2 pieces of advice: >Don't expect it to pay rent for the first 7 years, after 7 years, expect to pay 1-2 months of rent. >Use your fame to push a similar product to pay for the other 10 months of rent I have learned that the first years are slow to gain popularity, but once you have it, you know what works and what doesnt work. Pivot to things that people really care about on a different project, maintaining the original product for popularity/advertising. 99% of what I give away is free, then 1% at a cost.

tppiotrowski 4y ago
>Don't expect it to pay rent for the first 7 years, after 7 years, expect to pay 1-2 months of rent. This. Work on several projects simultaneously. Success often doesn't come once you deploy, it's a gradual buildup over the years. Ten extra users this month, 12 extra users next month. It's a snowball. If you ship and sunset your project after 3 months because you didn't get 100,000 signups, you are stopping too early IMO. Instead, automate everything, try to run at zero cost and leave it alone for a year or even better 3 years and go work on something else or get a full time job. I had a project make $100 for the first 2 years and $30000 in year number 3 without making any substantial changes.
- LoyCgg 4y ago
  What would happen if you spent a couple of bucks on cheap facebook ads on first year?
  - tppiotrowski 4y ago
    I used Adsense. Only spent $200 or so but could only get a single signup or two. TBH I haven't used ads since and prefer word of mouth.
  - ogarten 4y ago
    Not much. You are probably better of investing a couple of days into writing tutorials and creating show cases. A low barrier to entry is the single most important thing for any library. Almost forgot, a clear statement of what the library does and what kind of problem it solves is also something that doesn't seem too common when creating a readme.

aothms 4y ago

What I didn't see discussed is VCs focussing on open source (quick search returns e.g https://oss.capital/ https://oss.capital/). Does anybody experience with or thoughts on this? I read a lot of comments on the intrinsic difficulty of earning money with foss, so advising against it or to treat it as a secondary side project. It's pragmatic, sure, but sometimes foss is a central to the value proposition, like in situations that require high amounts of trust or adaptability. A couple of hours a week is not always sufficient to retain momentum. So imho there is really a need for true foss business models.

nwilkens 4y ago

Triton DataCenter[1] is open source[2], and has commercial revenue in excess of $1M ARR. We were fortunate to acquire this product from Joyent earlier this year[3], and are now well on our way to the next revenue target. Triton was built on the backs of giants -- so a slightly different scenario than most.. But it is clear that customers will pay for open source products, and you can more than pay your rent one day! [1]: https://www.tritondatacenter.com https://www.tritondatacenter.com [2]: https://github.com/tritondatacenter https://github.com/tritondatacenter [3]: https://www.mnxsolutions.com/triton-faq https://www.mnxsolutions.com/triton-faq

rthomas6 4y ago

There is one important monetization strategy that is overlooked by this article: dual licensing. License the source explicitly for non commercial use only, then offer a commercial use licensed product (plus support, usually) for a fee. If there is a big community of hobbyists in the relevant field who do the same thing in their dayjob, I think this works well. Edit: A more open source version of this is to GPL the source and offer a more commercial friendly licensed product for a fee. I don't know if this technically goes against GPL but I have seen people do this. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing

glitchc 4y ago
Maintaining feature parity in a dual licensing model is the challenge. Incentives are such that over time the paid for version invariably incorporates features that are lacking in the open source version, simply because there’s limited incentive to port them over.
vs4vijay 4y ago
Isn't it the Open Core model?
- rthomas6 4y ago
  It's related, but the Open Core model described in the article mentions extra paid features surrounding an open core anyone can use. What I am describing is the same set of features priced differently for different use cases.
  - thanksgiving 4y ago
    I anal but why do we need to restrict commercial activity? I say allow people commercial use but use AGPLv3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_Lice... > The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there. > The purpose of the GNU Affero GPL is to prevent a problem that affects developers of free programs that are often used on servers. This allows people to run your code as is but as soon as they edit the source code, they must make it available to their users. My understanding is if they only use it for their employees on their own corporate network, they only need to share the changes with their own employees? I think that is a fair compromise, no?

soheil 4y ago

Only if landlords accepted code as payment, ideally countable code, maybe by number of lines.

didgetmaster 4y ago

I too have a 'hobby project' that I have worked on for several years. I must say that my motivations have varied quite a bit over that time. I mainly do it because it is a passion of mine and I love to write great code that does amazing things. But I would also love for the project to actually make some money. I don't really need the money, but money is a great indicator of how other people value your work. Money would also let me buy the extra help that the project needs. It is a data management system called Didgets https://didgets.com/ https://didgets.com/ and is currently in open beta. The ideas came from decades of experience working with other data management systems that I thought needed drastic improvement. I dug deep into file systems while writing network file system drivers and disk utilities (PartitionMagic and Drive Image). I spent years working with Postgres databases. I love writing code that does big things faster and uses less resources than traditional systems. I wanted to be able to find a group of files among 100s of millions of files in seconds instead of using long directory traversal methods or the arduous task of creating separate indexes that could become out of sync with the file system. I wanted to query huge DB tables in record time without needing separate indexing structures that can slow down transactions. So I will stay up until 2am tweaking an algorithm or parallelizing some code so that it runs through a large data set in 2 seconds instead of 20. This keeps me going, but I also wouldn't mind at all if a bunch of other people also found this valuable and decided to pay me something for my hard work.

pbronez 4y ago
Neat project, thanks for sharing. Is it only available on Windows for now? Seems like neat thing to throw on a NAS.
- didgetmaster 4y ago
  The code is cross-platform (C++ code with almost zero dependencies) including the windowing framework (Qt) that the browser application uses. I have built Linux versions in the past to test it and I would also like to build a MacOS version, but bandwidth makes it hard to support multiple versions for every build. If it starts to get some traction, I can work on that.

franciscop 4y ago

I really like that this is one of the first Open Source Funding articles that I read that strongly acknowledges that devs create open source for many varied reasons. I have grown tired, as an OSS dev myself, to be bagged into a single category in most other articles and someone speaking for me saying things I might or might not want at all. Heck, what I want as an OSS dev myself, as well as my personal situation/context, has changed dramatically over the years and I expect will change again in the future, so thank you Plausible for not throwing me into a single-bag and for not speaking for me. Example: 4 years ago you'd tell me to write OSS part-time for 20k/year and I'd love it, today I'd strongly reject it, in 5 years I expect to do it part time for free again (or maybe not).

pksebben 4y ago

I have a concept sitting in <that folder with all the ideas> that is pretty high on my list of "man, I want to make this happen" but would need a team to execute on. The idea is to integrate the kickstarter model with github's issues (specifically, feature requests). You run an open-source project and people can submit feature requests that come with a fundraising campaign. When someone wants the software to do something new (support a new platform, implement an interface, etc) they draft a campaign a la kickstarter, someone who can contribute to the project negotiates with the drafter pricing, targets, and stretch goals. Past this point, it's the drafter's responsibility to do the marketing for the campaign and raise funds. Once the target $ amount is hit, it's on the person who picked up the contract to get the work done. There are, of course, a ton of details to work out, and executing on this is going to be resource-intense on a number of vectors that aren't necessarily technical (legal, finance, hosting costs). Also, I suck at UI. The business itself would naturally be a non-profit. addendum: I also have a day job that I have no intention of leaving, so factor that in to time-to-completion.

OtomotO 4y ago
Just a sidenote: One such detail is the timeframe... I am my own boss and I love to do contract work, but I cannot say "Yes, I will do this", commit to it and then after months the money is raised and I am drowning in projects.
- eljimmy 4y ago
  Perhaps the money can be pledged and held in escrow either until someone accepts the work for scheduling or it gets withdrawn by the pledgee due to inaction.
  - pksebben 4y ago
    Truly a tricky spot. Who keeps an eye on the features for things like code quality / deliverables? I don't know how I would solve this, yet.
techdragon 4y ago

ahaucnx 4y ago

If you run an open source hardware project like we do with our DIY air quality monitors [1] you can also monetize it via selling hardware kits or work with affiliate links to e.g. Amazon or AliExpress. However selling hardware has some additional challenges e.g. warranty, lost shippings, component shortages etc that you need to factor in. [1] https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/

milkoolong 4y ago

> In general, it is useful for many projects to be aligned with something people or businesses believe in so much or find value in that they are willing to pay for. The end of the day it comes down to audience regardless of your code being open source. I chose an alternative analytics based on the founders' business acumen, morals and ethics before I even considered open source. Similarily, Discord Nitro over Matrix and Circle/Mighty Network over Discourse. The author shared good examples but for majority of projects, it doesn't make sense to open source it as a path to financial security. I'd argue it actually hurts many niches. I assume Plausible has a healthy dose of startup clients who are techie that see open source first as the holy grail for trust, transparency, and security. That's a solid audience! Otherwise, think again.

paydevs 4y ago

For a curated list of monetization approaches have a look at https://github.com/PayDevs/awesome-oss-monetization https://github.com/PayDevs/awesome-oss-monetization

debarshri 4y ago

May be I'm naive but would love learn why if the end goal is to monetize your software why does it have to be opensourced. From my naive perspective it feels like when you mix the accessing the source and business, conceptually it becomes very complex. From an end users perspective, all these different types of licenses makes the actual user experience of buying the software complex.

lioeters 4y ago
> why does it have to be opensourced I'd suggest reading up on the origins of "open source" and "free software". > The philosophy of the movement is that the use of computers should not lead to people being prevented from cooperating with each other. In practice, this means rejecting proprietary software, which imposes such restrictions, and promoting free software, with the ultimate goal of liberating everyone in cyberspace – that is, every computer user. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#The_Four_Essential_Freedoms_of_Free_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#T... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source-software_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source-software_movement This is a significant backbone of computer culture. Many of the old-school hackers (and hopefully the new-school ones) have philosophical and political principles, such as the human right to have access to general-purpose computing, encryption, privacy, and the right to read and change the source code, to know and have personal control over what you're running on your computer. There are also business motivations for companies to participate in the open-source community, such as marketing and benefitting from the free labor of volunteers.

mfts0 4y ago

That’s interesting threat. I strongly believe in sustainable monetization in open source software. There’s a project called Tea (tea.xyz), a package manager as the evolution of Homebrew. I honestly believe that understanding the entire dependency graph of open source project will help redistribute money to all packages democratically. I’m curious to hear what other devs think