6 ms·

> maintaining kaneo means helping people debug their setups. and honestly? it's taught me more than i expected. > people run kaneo on setups i never imagined:

by mtlynch 11mo ago

> maintaining kaneo means helping people debug their setups. and honestly? it's taught me more than i expected. > people run kaneo on setups i never imagined: > behind corporate proxies > ... > in kubernetes with custom networking It's OP's project so they're welcome to support whoever they want but I definitely would not offer free support to customers who are obviously using the product commercially, especially in large enterprises. It's FOSS, so they can use it for free if they want, but if they need custom support or features, they're a great user to tell, "Sure, I'm happy to help you with that if you purchase a $500/yr support contract." You'd be surprised how many customers like that don't care because they have a corporate card and that amount is too little to require approvals or much process.

mbirth 11mo ago
But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. Also, look at Gitea. People got paranoid and forked the project after the original author did exactly that.
- Klonoar 11mo ago
  > But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. I feel like it shouldn't be poor form to say on this site - a site that predominantly has been about building tech companies and revenue streams - to get over it and charge them.
  - venturecruelty 11mo ago
    Especially a site that frequently champions, shall we say... more creative forms of running a company in its early stages (like how Spotify started out charging money for pirated music). If it's okay for OpenAI to launder copyright, it's okay for you to send a net-30 PDF to a Fortune 500 company. Alternatively, people could just stop complaining about it.
    - faidit 11mo ago
      Well the laws are like spider webs that only catch small bugs. It's "okay" for a Spotify or OpenAI because they can hire lawyers and expect to blitzscale. Harder to take those risks for a random solo developer who just wants to make things.
  - aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ipaddr 11mo ago
      OpenCollective Europe You receive the money as contractor wages
    - Klonoar 11mo ago
      Well not every country is Germany. Dunno what to tell you there. The second half of that also sounds unhinged.
      - aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
        > The second half of that also sounds unhinged. Since Hacker News also centers on entrepreneurship: I know quite some entrepreneurs in Germany who think this way about the bureacratic chicanery that companies have to handle, and already thought about whether hiring a hitman for these politicians would be a good idea. The hate for the political caste in Germany among many people is insane.
        askmike 11mo ago
        These laws may very well be terrible, but no need to mention on an internet forum you want to help (hire?) someone to mass murder people involved in making them. Jokes and sarcasm don't always land as intended. As to a more constructive path: bureaucracy all over EU is definitely considered a big problem (for startups, and for many others) and there are a bunch of movements aimed at addressing them at all kinds of levels. For example look at the eu acc movement.
        distances 11mo ago
        One should hire an accountant to handle the bureaucracy, and of course charge enough to make that viable. And you should stop airing your murderous dreams in public, that's disturbed no matter your feelings towards politicians.
  - mbirth 11mo ago
    Depending on the local laws, that's easier said than done. E.g. in Germany, a private entity (read: person) can't just bill a company. And you can't just write something that resembles an invoice either. Especially, you're not allowed to make it look like a business invoice by putting net sums on it. A German business on the other side of the transaction rarely will pay anything if there's not a proper invoice (listing net sums and VAT separately) on file. And they usually also require the (business) tax ID of the other party. To be fair, founding a business is a matter of filling in some form, paying a small fee, and a few days of time (depending on the workload of your local trade office). But still - if this is a one-off thing and you don't even know whether there will be more... I'm not sure I'd want to go through the hassle. Especially if it means having to hire an accountant with monthly costs, when I don't even know whether there will be more income.
    - Klonoar 11mo ago
      In case it wasn't clear from my other comments up and down this comment chain, I don't really care about the specifics of Germany. If it's hard for you[1] to do it in Germany, then suck it up and figure it out. More than enough has been written about how the ecosystem in various EU countries stifles entrepreneurship. It's not new information, but it's not a problem for the vast majority of people reading this site. This site is also focused on supporting entrepreneurship, we should be supporting the default approach of getting paid for your work. Germany needs to change, not the stance of this site or the argument of charging for your work/time/etc. [1] (the proverbial you)
      - rurban 11mo ago
        Germany doesn't need to change, just Germans need to change talking lot of bullshit. I registered a private SW development entity in Germany easily, without any costs. You just need to declare it as System SW, not Applications, or you'll have to pay Gewerbesteuer and Kammermitgliedschaft. Which is a lot and not needed at all. Your yearly taxes are trivial, no need for an accountant.
- carlosjobim 11mo ago
  Come on, stop with this slave mentality please. You can make invoices without funding any company and without the tax office getting in your hair. It's not illegal to charge for your services and never has been. You can declare that income just fine, or skip it. The tax office won't bother you.
  - SoftTalker 11mo ago
    The IRS will definitely bother you if they figure out you have unreported income. Will they find out? Maybe not if it’s a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars. More than $10K? Then it gets more likely. If a client sends you a 1099 then they’ll certainly know.
    - phendrenad2 11mo ago
      Reporting income from freelancing is no more difficult than reporting income from your day job. So we're left still mystified what mbirth was talking about.
    - digi59404 11mo ago
      They’ll know because in the US and abroad the banks send the balances and transactions to the IRS. I get letters every year/6 months that I’m subject to additional withholding because they haven’t gotten any $$ but they show I have.
      - SoftTalker 11mo ago
        AFAIK only transactions over $10k are reported, maybe different between personal and business accounts?
        salawat 11mo ago
        Reporting to tax authorities by banks/financial institutions was bumped down to any receiving of an amount in excess of $600 during the Biden admin.
mickael-kerjean 11mo ago
This is not as simple as it sounds. Just yesterday I had a call with the Delft university of technology in Netherland, they want me to add some features on the free version of my FOSS product [1] but they did not want to pay anything. Over the last month, I was in contact with a 800B publicly traded company for a 1.8k per year invoice, once we agreed on the general direction they kept adding expectations, first was to sign tons of paperwork with their security checklist, legal stuff which took a few days but when they start asking for things that would take potentially weeks more, I invite them to do extras on a contracting basis, since them I have never heard back and of course they never paid a dime. I have literally tons of stories like this from governments to F500. In my bubble the paid support plan mostly work with US entities. [1]: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
- MrDarcy 11mo ago
  Universities are a special case. They generally don’t spend money because of the red tape. In much of corporate America expenses under $100 give or take don’t even require documentation, so a $50/month support subscription is easily purchased. Just need to find the person with the purchase card.
  - mickael-kerjean 11mo ago
    In my experience, having MIT and UCI as customers, US universities are much easier to deal with small to no process for simple cheap things. On the other hand, I was contacted by a well known engineering school in France (ENSEEIHT), they wanted support but were laughing at the idea to spend 20$ per month for the privilege, left the impression they wanted to use my time for way under minimum wage, same yesterday with a deutch school who wanted help but not willing to spend a dime, and some other universities who have deployed my software in prod but did not upgrade in the last 5 years. Even in China, I stumbled upon a fork maintained by the university of Shangai, of course they never reached out in the first place to ask for any kind of support, just took the code and went their own way. This kind of behavior haven't happen with US universities which are more likely to reach out and pay for support
illusive4080 11mo ago
I wish. In my company that is an instant no. The amount of legal contracting bull we have to go through for that would quite literally take 9 months.
- nickff 11mo ago
  If a company is unwilling to jump through its self-imposed barriers to paying for things it wants, then it obviously doesn't value those features/items. This is definitely a case of 'voting with [one's] dollars'.
- degamad 11mo ago
  I'm almost certain there is a way to get the company to pay for pizzas for a staff meeting which doesn't involve any legal contracting bull.
  - squigz 11mo ago
    Do you think GP is like, lying to you? Or maybe managers are just silly and are indeed willing to draw $500 for a pizza party but are unwilling to drop the same for a year of support for software they depend on. This is absolutely believable to me.
calvinmorrison 11mo ago
> if you purchase a $500/yr support contract 500/hr more like.
- SoftTalker 11mo ago
  I mean you might have to negotiate a bit but yeah, a simple professional statement like “My rate for custom enhancements is $X/hr” is not going to ruffle any feathers. They might not bat an eye. The thing is if you agree, now you have to deliver. Be sure it’s something you want to do. If the project is open source because you don’t want to be a business, then be careful about letting a little quick cash change your mind.
  - calvinmorrison 11mo ago
    I wouldnt worry about the license, unless you licenses yourself into a corner. MIT is great for this. Secondly, yes. The biggest challenge I have seen is getting on "VENDOR LISTS". Vendor approval is a huge PITA. master agreements, proof of insurance, etc.
  - ipaddr 11mo ago
    You don't have to deliver a result or continued service. You are paid per hour not per feature. If you can only offer an hour support you can only charge one hour. If you have too many clients you can decline new work until you have time. Per hour work is limited for total pay but clients expectations are limited by time.
  - Aeolun 11mo ago
    > Be sure it’s something you want to do. Or charge enough that it becomes something you want to do :)
vivzkestrel 11mo ago
or you could do what tsx does? charge money to fix issues as an option https://github.com/privatenumber/tsx/issues/758 https://github.com/privatenumber/tsx/issues/758 issues are fixed on priority basis for people willing to pay

by mtlynch 11mo ago

mbirth 11mo ago

But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. Also, look at Gitea. People got paranoid and forked the project after the original author did exactly that.

Klonoar 11mo ago
> But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. I feel like it shouldn't be poor form to say on this site - a site that predominantly has been about building tech companies and revenue streams - to get over it and charge them.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  Especially a site that frequently champions, shall we say... more creative forms of running a company in its early stages (like how Spotify started out charging money for pirated music). If it's okay for OpenAI to launder copyright, it's okay for you to send a net-30 PDF to a Fortune 500 company. Alternatively, people could just stop complaining about it.
  - faidit 11mo ago
    Well the laws are like spider webs that only catch small bugs. It's "okay" for a Spotify or OpenAI because they can hire lawyers and expect to blitzscale. Harder to take those risks for a random solo developer who just wants to make things.
- aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ipaddr 11mo ago
    OpenCollective Europe You receive the money as contractor wages
  - Klonoar 11mo ago
    Well not every country is Germany. Dunno what to tell you there. The second half of that also sounds unhinged.
    - aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
      > The second half of that also sounds unhinged. Since Hacker News also centers on entrepreneurship: I know quite some entrepreneurs in Germany who think this way about the bureacratic chicanery that companies have to handle, and already thought about whether hiring a hitman for these politicians would be a good idea. The hate for the political caste in Germany among many people is insane.
      - askmike 11mo ago
        These laws may very well be terrible, but no need to mention on an internet forum you want to help (hire?) someone to mass murder people involved in making them. Jokes and sarcasm don't always land as intended. As to a more constructive path: bureaucracy all over EU is definitely considered a big problem (for startups, and for many others) and there are a bunch of movements aimed at addressing them at all kinds of levels. For example look at the eu acc movement.
      - distances 11mo ago
        One should hire an accountant to handle the bureaucracy, and of course charge enough to make that viable. And you should stop airing your murderous dreams in public, that's disturbed no matter your feelings towards politicians.
- mbirth 11mo ago
  Depending on the local laws, that's easier said than done. E.g. in Germany, a private entity (read: person) can't just bill a company. And you can't just write something that resembles an invoice either. Especially, you're not allowed to make it look like a business invoice by putting net sums on it. A German business on the other side of the transaction rarely will pay anything if there's not a proper invoice (listing net sums and VAT separately) on file. And they usually also require the (business) tax ID of the other party. To be fair, founding a business is a matter of filling in some form, paying a small fee, and a few days of time (depending on the workload of your local trade office). But still - if this is a one-off thing and you don't even know whether there will be more... I'm not sure I'd want to go through the hassle. Especially if it means having to hire an accountant with monthly costs, when I don't even know whether there will be more income.
  - Klonoar 11mo ago
    In case it wasn't clear from my other comments up and down this comment chain, I don't really care about the specifics of Germany. If it's hard for you[1] to do it in Germany, then suck it up and figure it out. More than enough has been written about how the ecosystem in various EU countries stifles entrepreneurship. It's not new information, but it's not a problem for the vast majority of people reading this site. This site is also focused on supporting entrepreneurship, we should be supporting the default approach of getting paid for your work. Germany needs to change, not the stance of this site or the argument of charging for your work/time/etc. [1] (the proverbial you)
    - rurban 11mo ago
      Germany doesn't need to change, just Germans need to change talking lot of bullshit. I registered a private SW development entity in Germany easily, without any costs. You just need to declare it as System SW, not Applications, or you'll have to pay Gewerbesteuer and Kammermitgliedschaft. Which is a lot and not needed at all. Your yearly taxes are trivial, no need for an accountant.
carlosjobim 11mo ago
Come on, stop with this slave mentality please. You can make invoices without funding any company and without the tax office getting in your hair. It's not illegal to charge for your services and never has been. You can declare that income just fine, or skip it. The tax office won't bother you.
- SoftTalker 11mo ago
  The IRS will definitely bother you if they figure out you have unreported income. Will they find out? Maybe not if it’s a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars. More than $10K? Then it gets more likely. If a client sends you a 1099 then they’ll certainly know.
  - phendrenad2 11mo ago
    Reporting income from freelancing is no more difficult than reporting income from your day job. So we're left still mystified what mbirth was talking about.
  - digi59404 11mo ago
    They’ll know because in the US and abroad the banks send the balances and transactions to the IRS. I get letters every year/6 months that I’m subject to additional withholding because they haven’t gotten any $$ but they show I have.
    - SoftTalker 11mo ago
      AFAIK only transactions over $10k are reported, maybe different between personal and business accounts?
      - salawat 11mo ago
        Reporting to tax authorities by banks/financial institutions was bumped down to any receiving of an amount in excess of $600 during the Biden admin.

mickael-kerjean 11mo ago

This is not as simple as it sounds. Just yesterday I had a call with the Delft university of technology in Netherland, they want me to add some features on the free version of my FOSS product [1] but they did not want to pay anything. Over the last month, I was in contact with a 800B publicly traded company for a 1.8k per year invoice, once we agreed on the general direction they kept adding expectations, first was to sign tons of paperwork with their security checklist, legal stuff which took a few days but when they start asking for things that would take potentially weeks more, I invite them to do extras on a contracting basis, since them I have never heard back and of course they never paid a dime. I have literally tons of stories like this from governments to F500. In my bubble the paid support plan mostly work with US entities. [1]: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash

MrDarcy 11mo ago
Universities are a special case. They generally don’t spend money because of the red tape. In much of corporate America expenses under $100 give or take don’t even require documentation, so a $50/month support subscription is easily purchased. Just need to find the person with the purchase card.
- mickael-kerjean 11mo ago
  In my experience, having MIT and UCI as customers, US universities are much easier to deal with small to no process for simple cheap things. On the other hand, I was contacted by a well known engineering school in France (ENSEEIHT), they wanted support but were laughing at the idea to spend 20$ per month for the privilege, left the impression they wanted to use my time for way under minimum wage, same yesterday with a deutch school who wanted help but not willing to spend a dime, and some other universities who have deployed my software in prod but did not upgrade in the last 5 years. Even in China, I stumbled upon a fork maintained by the university of Shangai, of course they never reached out in the first place to ask for any kind of support, just took the code and went their own way. This kind of behavior haven't happen with US universities which are more likely to reach out and pay for support

illusive4080 11mo ago

I wish. In my company that is an instant no. The amount of legal contracting bull we have to go through for that would quite literally take 9 months.

nickff 11mo ago
If a company is unwilling to jump through its self-imposed barriers to paying for things it wants, then it obviously doesn't value those features/items. This is definitely a case of 'voting with [one's] dollars'.
degamad 11mo ago
I'm almost certain there is a way to get the company to pay for pizzas for a staff meeting which doesn't involve any legal contracting bull.
- squigz 11mo ago
  Do you think GP is like, lying to you? Or maybe managers are just silly and are indeed willing to draw $500 for a pizza party but are unwilling to drop the same for a year of support for software they depend on. This is absolutely believable to me.

calvinmorrison 11mo ago

> if you purchase a $500/yr support contract 500/hr more like.

SoftTalker 11mo ago
I mean you might have to negotiate a bit but yeah, a simple professional statement like “My rate for custom enhancements is $X/hr” is not going to ruffle any feathers. They might not bat an eye. The thing is if you agree, now you have to deliver. Be sure it’s something you want to do. If the project is open source because you don’t want to be a business, then be careful about letting a little quick cash change your mind.
- calvinmorrison 11mo ago
  I wouldnt worry about the license, unless you licenses yourself into a corner. MIT is great for this. Secondly, yes. The biggest challenge I have seen is getting on "VENDOR LISTS". Vendor approval is a huge PITA. master agreements, proof of insurance, etc.
- ipaddr 11mo ago
  You don't have to deliver a result or continued service. You are paid per hour not per feature. If you can only offer an hour support you can only charge one hour. If you have too many clients you can decline new work until you have time. Per hour work is limited for total pay but clients expectations are limited by time.
- Aeolun 11mo ago
  > Be sure it’s something you want to do. Or charge enough that it becomes something you want to do :)

vivzkestrel 11mo ago

or you could do what tsx does? charge money to fix issues as an option https://github.com/privatenumber/tsx/issues/758 https://github.com/privatenumber/tsx/issues/758 issues are fixed on priority basis for people willing to pay