4 ms·

I think the fundamental issue is that free software and open software are enablers but not products. Free software and open software reducing your costs in mak

I think the fundamental issue is that free software and open software are enablers but not products. Free software and open software reducing your costs in making products that make money. Be they services (a la Google/Facebook), hardware, operating systems (a la Apple and Darwin), or books (a la OReilly), or consulting (a la IBM). Open source itself doesn't make money. So if you can open source and reduce your maintenance costs of something that is required for your product but not really a differentiator it is a win. If you try to make money from open source itself, either you will fail, or else you will end up either de-facto abandoning open source, or else doing shady legal things to get around it (see the example of Red Hat/IBM in the article).

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
News to me. I've been making a living from a GPL'ed project since 2009. It currently generates about $240k/year.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  I am just going to comment that this is so awesome, and i so wish i had something like it going on.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  I bet you are not really selling the product. You are probably selling support and consultancy. Basically, you are consulting for the company to solve an issue, and the open source is an enabler. And $240k/year is what they pay an individual contributor. You are basically being paid for your time and expertise and not really for your product.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    We do not sell support and consultancy. Source code is freely available. We sell ready-to-run binaries, almost entirely to individual end users (desktop application).
  - chrismorgan 3y ago
    I believe https://community.ardour.org/download https://community.ardour.org/download is the thing in question.
    - kiba 3y ago
      Thanks for pointing it out. I clicked on his profile but somehow missed the details of the project he's making a living off.
  - pgeorgi 3y ago
    One look at OP's account would give you "ardour" as a hint to what product this might be. 5 minutes of scanning ardour's webpage would tell you that the "O'Rly? school of Open Source business" blueprint doesn't apply here.
- kiba 3y ago
  I am always looking for example of successful commercial FOSS projects that doesn't compromise the spirit and intent of Free Software. I am curious as to what you're selling, and why wouldn't anybody just download a free copies from somewhere else?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    They certainly can do that (as well as build it themselves). Linux distros all offer builds, for example. I've tried to build a community where supporting the continuous full time development of the software is seen as a social good, and thus worth participating in even if the software itself is available at no charge. Most of our income comes from "subscriptions" which have nothing to do with the licensing-style arrangements seen today, but are merely a recurring payment agreement that gives us a consistent income, allowing us to avoid endless "got to make a new release" mania.
- coffeeaddict1 3y ago
  But would you say that Ardour is an exception and not the norm? From what I can remember, it's not like you didn't struggle with making Ardour (see [1]) a profitable business. In fact I vaguely remember that at one point you were seriously considering abandoning the project for financial reasons right? [1] https://discourse.ardour.org/t/another-month-missing-the-financial-goal/78306 https://discourse.ardour.org/t/another-month-missing-the-fin...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    That was just as the turnaround began, in fact. That particular period was difficult because it was preceded by significant income from commercial sponsors. Dealing with an 80% income reduction wasn't that easy, psychologically, even if the previous situation had barely lasted a year.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  > At this time, the main force behind Ardour is delivered by two people, with less constant contributions from 2 others, and occasional contributions from on the order of a dozen others. Consider that we do support, web site maintenance, documentation, feature enhancements, debugging, as well as development. > There’s more people (perhaps another dozen) pitching in with translation, release engineering (preparing Ardour for users), Mantis triaging (“Mantis” is the bug database used to keep track of known problems, “triaging” the process of prioritizing/verifying bugs) and other necessary tasks. http://ardour.org/support_expectations.html http://ardour.org/support_expectations.html I have a hard time believing that $240k/year is enough to pay an honest market rate to all these people for their time.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    We're not trying to be wealthy, just comfortable. In addition, the freedom from conventional work demands is worth a significant amount to me, and I suspect the same is true for my colleague and friend in Berlin. There is also additional revenue flow via Harrison Consoles' Mixbus, which is a separate commercial product based on Ardour. The amount that flows "directly" to Ardour is small, but the overall amount does add another person at Harrison working on the software in a mostly-full-time capacity. Also, which market should we be aiming for when defining "market rate" ?
    - Kon-Peki 3y ago
      > Also, which market should we be aiming for when defining "market rate" ? That's a very good question :)

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

News to me. I've been making a living from a GPL'ed project since 2009. It currently generates about $240k/year.

gumballindie 3y ago
I am just going to comment that this is so awesome, and i so wish i had something like it going on.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
I bet you are not really selling the product. You are probably selling support and consultancy. Basically, you are consulting for the company to solve an issue, and the open source is an enabler. And $240k/year is what they pay an individual contributor. You are basically being paid for your time and expertise and not really for your product.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  We do not sell support and consultancy. Source code is freely available. We sell ready-to-run binaries, almost entirely to individual end users (desktop application).
- chrismorgan 3y ago
  I believe https://community.ardour.org/download https://community.ardour.org/download is the thing in question.
  - kiba 3y ago
    Thanks for pointing it out. I clicked on his profile but somehow missed the details of the project he's making a living off.
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  One look at OP's account would give you "ardour" as a hint to what product this might be. 5 minutes of scanning ardour's webpage would tell you that the "O'Rly? school of Open Source business" blueprint doesn't apply here.
kiba 3y ago
I am always looking for example of successful commercial FOSS projects that doesn't compromise the spirit and intent of Free Software. I am curious as to what you're selling, and why wouldn't anybody just download a free copies from somewhere else?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  They certainly can do that (as well as build it themselves). Linux distros all offer builds, for example. I've tried to build a community where supporting the continuous full time development of the software is seen as a social good, and thus worth participating in even if the software itself is available at no charge. Most of our income comes from "subscriptions" which have nothing to do with the licensing-style arrangements seen today, but are merely a recurring payment agreement that gives us a consistent income, allowing us to avoid endless "got to make a new release" mania.
coffeeaddict1 3y ago
But would you say that Ardour is an exception and not the norm? From what I can remember, it's not like you didn't struggle with making Ardour (see [1]) a profitable business. In fact I vaguely remember that at one point you were seriously considering abandoning the project for financial reasons right? [1] https://discourse.ardour.org/t/another-month-missing-the-financial-goal/78306 https://discourse.ardour.org/t/another-month-missing-the-fin...
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  That was just as the turnaround began, in fact. That particular period was difficult because it was preceded by significant income from commercial sponsors. Dealing with an 80% income reduction wasn't that easy, psychologically, even if the previous situation had barely lasted a year.
Kon-Peki 3y ago
> At this time, the main force behind Ardour is delivered by two people, with less constant contributions from 2 others, and occasional contributions from on the order of a dozen others. Consider that we do support, web site maintenance, documentation, feature enhancements, debugging, as well as development. > There’s more people (perhaps another dozen) pitching in with translation, release engineering (preparing Ardour for users), Mantis triaging (“Mantis” is the bug database used to keep track of known problems, “triaging” the process of prioritizing/verifying bugs) and other necessary tasks. http://ardour.org/support_expectations.html http://ardour.org/support_expectations.html I have a hard time believing that $240k/year is enough to pay an honest market rate to all these people for their time.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  We're not trying to be wealthy, just comfortable. In addition, the freedom from conventional work demands is worth a significant amount to me, and I suspect the same is true for my colleague and friend in Berlin. There is also additional revenue flow via Harrison Consoles' Mixbus, which is a separate commercial product based on Ardour. The amount that flows "directly" to Ardour is small, but the overall amount does add another person at Harrison working on the software in a mostly-full-time capacity. Also, which market should we be aiming for when defining "market rate" ?
  - Kon-Peki 3y ago
    > Also, which market should we be aiming for when defining "market rate" ? That's a very good question :)