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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 fi

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.

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.