I've gotten way more out of open sourcing software than I ever could have by trying to sell the same software. Not all value is monetary, and participating in

I've gotten way more out of open sourcing software than I ever could have by trying to sell the same software. Not all value is monetary, and participating in open source creates different types of technical capital (reputational, barter, scratch-your-own-itch, etc). If you want to sell software, all of a sudden you're playing a very different game that is way more marketing/sales and way less technical. There's nothing wrong with that, but know what you're signing up for. If you just want to be paid like a carpenter, contracting for time and materials is the standard way to do that, much easier than starting a software company.