Earning Money with Open Source Software? 279
An anonymous reader writes
"I've been working on a financial application which I've decided to release to the public. I want to make some money from the application, though I certainly don't expect to become a millionaire. The problem is that I'd like nothing better than to open-source it. There are many aspects of the application that I don't have time to refine, and other developers could definitely improve upon my work. However, I don't know how I earn money from something once I've made it open source. How have you dealt with trying to turn a reasonable profit on your work while remaining open-sourced?"
Are you new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
FSF view on selling software [gnu.org]
Also: Software as a service
Finally, there is also consultancy for your own project. You need help installing it? You want a feature? Hand over the cash!
No, I haven't done it. Mainly because I'd rather not be my own boss. The payoff is high, but so are the risks. I'd rather be a wage-slave and let my boss bear the risks.
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your question could be reduced to "I've invented a new hammer that works much better than old ones, but anyone can make a hammer just like it. How am I going to make money off my hammer?"
The answer is simple. USE your new hammer to build things instead of calling a halt to your problem solving career and trying to open a hammer store.
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The answer is simple. USE your new hammer to build things instead of calling a halt to your problem solving career and trying to open a hammer store.
Are not these "things" to be built with this hammer themselves potentially hammers for still other things? Re-applying your argument, potential-hammers shouldn't generate revenue either (or at least their potential hammerness should not generate revenue). So it's primarily the things one makes that aren't themselves useful (by having a hammerness property) that generate revunue, i.e., one should be paid to create useless things!
Gotta admit that's a pretty fair assessment of the appeal of most consumer go
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't find a single person out there who has a problem that needs solving and involves your new tool, your new tool is useless.
A tool is a means to achieve a goal, not a goal in itself. If there is no goal at the end of the train, then yes, your whole pyramid is built of meaningless crap.
Being that this is finances he's talking about, all of it is meaningless. The value of financial software is in how close to zero you can bring the time you spend working on it, because it's all administrative overhead and no productivity whatsoever.
Financial stuff gets stale fast as laws change, so I might suggest something along the lines of:
1) Give it away, and sell its advantages strongly far and wide
2) Make it update itself to the suit the latest legal/financial environment from central servers with new data, but only for paying customers
3) Create a business model around being "The guys who watch the laws and make sure our software still suits them."
In other words, don't trap them, empower them, and make money dealing with the ongoing bullshit that's closer to your skill set than their own.
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Informative)
Many here have noted that using OSS as a credibility-building towards consultancy or employment based around your domain knowledge is a common strategy. From observation (but not really personal experience) it is probably the one with the greatest likelihood of success - don't ever underestimate how useful it is to have somebody who knows the domain involved in non-business project roles such a software developer - and a clear history of building a useful piece of domain software is an excellent way to indicate that you know what the domain's issues are and can find ways to make useful solutions for them. The other methods (SaaS, package -OSS or otherwise, etc) offer the sometimes-enjoyable (and always-exhausting) possibilities of entrepreneurship - if that's your cup of tea, I'd seek out people who can complement your knowledge (not to harp on what I said above, but number one among these is a product placement person) in building a product or service around your efforts.
There are downsides to releasing your software as OSS - it can be forked or incoporated by those who already have products in the space, and unfortunately if the release itself is not carefully done, it can make you and your product look very amateur. If I happen to find a set of potentially cool domain libraries on sourceforge with no evidence of community interaction, no product description and no documentation, you can bet I'll move right along to the next product. To repeat what others have said, if you do opt for some sort of OSS-esque release, make sure to focus your efforts on community-building rather than just technical excellence: documentation, response to users/developers of your stuff, getting genuine domain users interested, etc. Or, if you want to focus on the technical parts, try to recruit someone else to do that stuff. Just remember that the community-building is what raises the profile of your software and thus your domain knowledge and skills, not really some badass recursion scheme.
Hope some of that helps.
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Funny)
And then the whole stack of dominoes will collapse like a house of cards. Checkmate!
Re:Are you new here? (Score:4, Funny)
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What's that supposed to mean? Am I not allowed to use Apache because I never felt the urge to create my own webserver? That wouldn't be very free-as-in-speech now, would it?
It's a nice soundbite, I'll give you that. The moderators clearly liked it.
Why? Do hammer makers make good carpenters? Are violin maker
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Produce a printed manual sell it from the main site.
Produce a lightweight but useful book and go into the software from more of a practical application standpoint than your standard manual/documentation, and sell it either dead tree or ebook format on the main site.
Ads on the main site.
Get a nice catchy logo for your project and arrange to sell logo'd tees, coffee mugs, etc... on your site. There are sites out there that will let you do this with little to no capital up front.
This one will be controversial here, but hey futz it... talk to some Indian support firms and see about possibly hiring them to offer support, which you then sell from the main site of the application, where you will serve as "level 2" tech support.
Most important of all, if you decide to do any of this, just freaking do it. Don't second guess yourself once you've decided. Move forward in total confidence, daily feeling/envisioning your goals attained.
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The original developer of the code is in a great position to do so.
Good suggestion.
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Interesting)
A better idea would be to approach large groups and get paid in advance to help them write tightly focused internal use manuals.
The #1 rule to making money, which everyone in the IT sector seems to forget, is this:
Demand payment upfront.
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather be a wage-slave and let my boss bear the risks.
I have always loved that illusion. What do you think happens to the people who work for a company that tanks (think Enron, Xerox, Auto-Manufacturers)? Their jobs and financial futures are not guaranteed. The truth is that we all shoulder some of the risk. The people at the top do not necessarily have more risk (and in fact most often, they have less).
InnerWeb
Re:Are you new here? (Score:5, Informative)
I posted this, because many people seem to equate "Free" (as in speech) software with "free" (as in beer, or gratis) Software. The FSF is clear on the issue, and as such the link was completely on topic. I can imagine that you release speciality software opensource. Your clients buy it, and get the source. A bit like a guarantee when you get run over from a bus. However, they have no intention to help their competition and as such won't give away the source to others. You yourself, only give away the source on demand... exactly as the GPL allows.
The GPL isn't as communist as many think. In a small market, it gives your customer certainty that the product can live on if you stop supporting it (Hire programmers, fork, 3rd party support), however they won't distribute themselves because it would give a competitor an advantage.
The comptetitor can get the source, but only if they become your client. As such, as a software provider you have won.
I can't be the only one except RMS to have understood that, really?
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In short, you don't earn money, you get hired. (Score:4, Insightful)
Value Earned is Experience & Recognition, Not (Score:5, Interesting)
For whatever reason, people often assume a false dichotomy between open sourcing code and making money. This isn't the case. A simple example of this is the ability to donate to any project on sourceforge. So a simple effortless option is to sign on to SourceForge [sourceforge.net], register your project and make yourself the sole dev. Then you just need to sit back and wait for all those donations to roll in!
Likely source of income? Not really.
So let me tell you something that happened to me. I had, in one of my classes, built an interface to GOCR (not Jack Black's band but the Gnu Optical Character Recognition project). This was a while ago. It was in C and it was shitty. I mean really shitty. I didn't even open source it. The teacher liked it though, maybe she still uses it, I don't know. Whoop de doo, right? I made a GUI to a command line tool.
Fast forward 2 years. I'm out of college and it's a bad market for developers. I show up for an interview with a company I had no idea was even into software. I show up in khakis and a button down shirt. Everyone else is in double breasted suits. I figure I'm screwed. But when I get into the interview, we started talking about open source and--wouldn't you know it--GOCR! The woman who interviewed me had used it on a project and started complaining about the command line. So I told her what I had done and talked about the algorithms and how it recognizes characters. I told her why my interface was so crappy. I got the job and I've been working there three years--they even allow me to do crazy research stuff at work!
Did I directly make money working on open source? No. But I think I got the job just on that conversation. I kinda wished I had checked in that interface as I'm sure it's lost somewhere on the university network now. What if she had actually used it?
I suggest you open source it, work with others to make it better, give it time to propagate. Then submit your resume to any place you want and list it on there. If you've made the Firefox of financial apps or prove you really understand how to design financial software, there's a lot of places you could go.
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I hired a dude a couple of years ago who, like you, didn't have a lot of experience.
He did, however, have a very impressive FOSS portfolio, and could show all kinds of code he wrote in support of various projects. This involvement suggested that:
0) He cared enough, as a developer, to get involved and donate his time and effort to a project, and
1) He saw his contribution as one to the "greater g
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Learn from thes one who have succeeded (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd suggest you start a company, as you are more likely to be taken seriously by possible clients. And become 'the' company to go for support, customization, etc.
There must be products who have succeeded as a one man show but honestly I can't think of any.
Also, drop the 'I don't have time to refine' attitude. If you want to make money, you have time to do whatever your clients require, unless you just feel it's wrong for your product and refuse to do it altogether.
In short, if you really want to make money, your priorities have to be the ones of your clients', unless you are confident that what you feel like doing today is what someone else will feel like buying tomorrow.
By the way, is anyone using it already?
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Re:Learn from movies who have succeeded (Score:5, Funny)
Also, drop the 'But they'll send me to Federal pound me in the ass prison' attitude.
Re: One Man Show (Score:2)
"A retired Hong Kong judge who spent several years programming a puzzle he couldn't live without".
He waltzed into a newspaper office with just his laptop, and being at the right place at the right time, single handedly boosted Sudoku.
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Can you provide a service with the software (Score:5, Interesting)
The alternative approach seems to be in providing extended support serivces for the software as does Redhat.
Service is the worst job! (Score:2, Interesting)
Merchandising (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, that's musicians.
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FOSS != Money unless you're willing to spend time (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think it'll be mildly popular, and you really want to OS it, throw up a paypal donation link. You may not get as much, but you'll be staying true to your scruples.
Your choice.
It depends on the software (Score:2)
I wonder how successful those paypal links are? I've asked a few people with these on their sites and they all said that it brings in very small amounts. Hopefully, with time, people will begin to pay for what they value rather than just paying because they have to.
In the OSS software I write (used by many of the bigger names out there) I've received very little in the form of donations (but thanks to those that
Easy! (Score:4, Funny)
1) Wish *really hard* that some way exists.
2) Compare proprietary software to the Holocaust.
3) Insist that it's feasible to subsist on money from writing software if you don't have a mortgage or kids and camp/forage at MIT.
Podcasts on making money in open source (Score:5, Informative)
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/index.html [conversationsnetwork.org]
You may need to look around a little.
I have made money indirectly from open source. Basically I through it out there and some people picked it up. When they needed other projects worked on I was contacted.
Documentation is more important than code I can tell you that much. Installation documentation, user documentation and most importantly programmer documentation.
revamp all gui to be web-based (Score:5, Interesting)
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They may develop 10 online shopping cart apps for 10 different online retailers, but they will all be based on the same code and have the same bugs/security holes... Often the only differences will be branding and any specific customization a particular customer has demanded. However every customer will be charged for the same man-hours of coding time, even tho most of the code doesn't get rewritten.
Sell the .EXE files (Score:5, Interesting)
Try to separate your markets. If you give it free to people who would not buy it anyway, then your increase your visibility and your network effect. You might also get some patches back.
So put the source code online, maybe even try to get it in the Linux distributions for more visibility.
However, charge for the Windows binaries/installer. Most Windows users will pay $20 rather than have to figure out how to compile it. If they do compile it anyway then their time is worth less than $20 so they could not have afforded it anyway.
Sell Windows/Mac binaries, or Sell the Interface (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually exactly what I was going to suggest. People running Linux are often either programmers themselves or interested in free/open source software. People running Mac OS and Windows, however, are obviously willing to trade money for the convenience of a point-and-click installer.
There's another option depending on how well you've defined a core/UI split--open-source the core engine, but charge for the GUI (or possibly for a web interface).
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Of course you might try to prevent that with some sort of legal stuff, like using some form of General Ripoff License insted of GPL, that would disallow the distribution of executables. But then you might as well keep the thing closed source.
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If you are a business and you are buying the application then you will be happy to get it from the original author.
> And how long till that site is better known, higher in google and generating more ad revenue.
I really don't think it will be. It will be some corner that only people with lots of time will find, these people will not have bought it
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Do you know how long it takes to make Windows installers for software, I mean it is very boring work, that is why a lot of open source has no Windows installers. Open Source software usually requires packaging up lots of dependencies into a single EXE. Unless you are really hot, we are talking like a whole day's work for a simple application.
Re:Sell the .EXE files (Score:5, Insightful)
But won't someone just compile it and then give the
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Re:Sell the .EXE files (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure they will, however those willing to pay $20 will never find it. Time == Money.
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Or sell appliances which come with the app already configured...
Selling the binaries won't help much, as someone else will compile it and make the binaries available. But you can make supported versions available for a price, and include priority telephone/email support with a guaranteed response time. Support which guarantees the ability to speak to the original developer if necessary is a good service.
Also charge for implementing
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That doesn't matter. People make copies of Microsoft Office available from other channels (e.g. pirate bay), however others still buy it.
People who are willing to buy it, including those that have work's expenses account, will buy it.
For the people who are not willing to buy it, they will never buy it, so let them have it free and get more exposure.
This strategy is not much than a donations strategy, but if I have my work's credit card, I can't pay
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For a financial app, presumably something to run my company on, $20 is laughable. I'd rather a free open source supported app, or a hugely expensive supported app than some BS in the middle for $20. Seriously.
For a minor plugin for Paintshop Pro or Photoshop, $20 is fine. For the life and reputation of my company, $20 feels like you don't think highly enough of your own pr
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X-Chat is a very good IRC program. I use it on Windows. I was looking for an open-source chat program, I found X-Chat, and decided I liked it.
I didn't like their philosophy. They claimed that making a Windows build was "hard" somehow, but anyone who knows anything about programming knows that once you have the dev environment set up properly, making a new build is a matter of minutes. They'd obviously set up the dev environment properly, so why were they charging money for the Windows versi
You've said it yourself. (Score:4, Insightful)
certainly don't expect to become a millionaire. The problem is that
I'd like nothing better than to open-source it. There are many
aspects of the application that I don't have time to refine, and
other developers could definitely improve upon my work.
Wow, blatant self-contradiction within three sentences! If the application
makes you money, then by definition, you can afford some time to work on it.
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Remember, he said he wants to make money from it, not that he is making money from it?
Ensure there is a demand for your software! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm the author of LiarLiar [sf.net], an open source Voice Stress detector. Over the years, I've had several offers from various individuals and companies to further develop or improve upon the software. If you develop software that has enough demand, you may be able to offer support services for your software. Don't expect to get rich, or even be able to make a living for that matter.
The most important thing to keep in mind is, make sure you have a backup source of income. Either a job or something else, as it is unlikely that you will be able to make enough supporting an open source project, unless it becomes very popular.
Re:Ensure there is a demand for your software! (Score:4, Funny)
selling crack?
sell a service on top (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the giving away something for free and selling a few enhancements is probably the easiest way to make money, much more so than consulting and support which directly takes up your time.
Nick
OSS or not nearly matters squat. Marketing is key. (Score:3, Insightful)
all about the portfolio (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically, it works along the lines of market. If what you're doing is useful, well done, and people need it, you'll be rewarded. With money, praise, attention, a job, who knows. If what you're doing is not useful (e.g. what 99% of script monkey developers do) you'll scrape by and be largely unrewarded.
Just because you can make something compile
Sell to people who want to buy (Score:2, Insightful)
There's not necessarily a lot of overlap between people who need financial software and people who know how to build and validate software that they downloaded from the net. Those people value software that works out-of-the-box. Give it to them and charge them for it. There's also not a lot of overlap between people who treat their money as if it were important and people who entrust t
Simple - You don't (directly) (Score:2)
However, I don't know how I earn money from something once I've made it open source.
Short answer: You don't.
Longer answer - You've written a pair of contradictory statements there. Making money from FOSS requires you to stop thinking of the program (whether executable or source) as a final product to sell.
You need to view the program as a hook. People use it and either want support or more features, and they pay you fo
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Without knowing more about this program, I can't give very specific advice since the best exploitation route depends a lot on the target market. Talking to other people who write financial applications, I've been told it's a great market to be in becau
Making money w/ FOSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a time I was a completely unknown, but reasonably competent, software developer. I worked for a big mainframe maker. The software I worked on was proprietery and completely invisible.
Many suspected mainframes were all but history. I decided to learn to write for a different platform: PC, Unix. So, I bought a PC, taught myself C/C++. Now what? There was a open source project whose software I used. I felt it needed a big feature. The author wasn't interested in doing it, but was very helpful in getting me started on interfacing with it. I ended up writing a big plugin for it.
That piece of work gave me some personal visibility and credibility in the open source community, and a "portfolio". When the layoffs happened, because of my work on the project, I knew some folks at a shrinkwrap software company. My "portfolio", a demonstrated ability, got me a job with the shrinkwrap company. --- My old employer, the mainframe maker, spiraled down the bowl into oblivion.
The point of the story is that the software I wrote in the FOSS model didn't make any money for me, but it gave me, an introvert with little public persona, nor desire to have one, visibility and credibility to those who would hire me.
That may work for you too.
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Three reasons to open-source (Score:4, Insightful)
* to solicit improvements (see Linux)
* to facilitate adoption (through implementation transparency, see OpenVPN and TrueCrypt)
* for personal reasons (to brag or to support political agenda, see libevent or IO language)
These can be mixed and matched, but it typically helps to understand WHY you are open-sourcing. That's a first step.
Second step, if you want to make some $, is determining (funny enough) your business model. You can make money off the open-source either via the support or via dual-licensing.
Support model does not really scale, because in order to earn twice the money, you have put a double effort. It is also more of a sales task, which you may or may not have an inclination or an ability to so.
Dual-licensing *is* a way to go, but it implies that the code is non-trivial, solid and mature. Otherwise it does not make any sense for a 3rf party to become dependent on something that's not quite ready with an uncertain future. This automatically implies that you should not be open-sourcing the code that needs work.
Keep in mind that it's often possible to find someone willing to purchase the project as is from you. Depending on the arrangement you may also retain a right to influence further development of the product and/or land a mid-term contract gig.
2c
Let's Make Lots of Money (Score:4, Funny)
So you've developed crappy software, you don't want to put the effort into making it good, but you still think people will pay you money?
You are Bill Gates, and I claim my five dollars.
Will It Make Money "Closed Source"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or is it at the point where it's essentially a "nice idea" that's been taken to about typical shareware quality? Something that's not even close to standing on its own as a traditional boxed product, revenue generator without a lot more development work put in by a lot more people?... People that the goal is to get for free from the Open Source movement rather than actually hire?
Back during the dotcom days, I'd get approached daily by someone new from sales or marketting within the large multi-national I was at. They heard I was a good coder and they wanted to know if I'd be willing to join their start up as the lead coder.
I'd check their business model. They always planned the same thing: Who's paying for this? "We'll get VC interest." OK, what idea do you have? "We'll find someone with a cool idea and fund it with that VC money." So you're planning on getting VCs to fund you, to do the VCs' job, with you then taking the millions dotcoms are supposed to make their owners? I don't see this working. At that point, I always politely declined.
Just as I questioned their entitlement to make money and, on a less manipulative level, their simply having deluded themselves... I'd question anyone who doesn't really have a fully featured product, that's not at a point where it can make money on its own, without needing Open Source devs to take it to the next level for them - work they won't pay for because it's "open source" but they'd still like a reasonable profit from for themselves.
Dup article - here's the last submission (Score:2)
What is the Best Way to Start a Paid GPL Project?
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/05/1756217 [slashdot.org]
Generally, making "writing code that you give away" your life's work is generally a bad way to go about things if "steady paycheck" is what you desire (unless you're working for someone who's already figured out the business model).
If you are interested in making a profit, follow the advice of other posters here and figure out what people WILL pay for first, and then
Forget it (Score:4, Interesting)
It's virtually certain you will not make a living from free software.
Our business model is to have a core GPL'd product that is solid, but geared for sysadmins and technical people. We then have a more user-friendly and spiffy product layered around it that is traditional proprietary software (although we do ship with source which is somewhat unusual.
Hard-core techies or FOSS-only people are happy with the GPL'd product, and others buy the commercial product. The GPL'd product is also a good hook and marketing vehicle, as well as a proving-ground for new ideas, scalability enhancements, etc.
Pre-paid (Score:3, Insightful)
I have made a living that way for the last 12 years.
It is a change of mindset, you get paid for your work, not for your code, just like if you were an ordinary wage slave. The difference is that since your code is free, you are too, you won't lose it when switching client.
Pretty well covered... (Score:2, Insightful)
Do it like others have.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I buy it on a regular basis, and recommend it to clients and friends.
From personal experience... (Score:2, Interesting)
What I do is give free access to subversion tree to everyone.
But I sell login accounts which allow people to download the software in packaged form (tar+gzip, Debian, Ubuntu, RPMs) including the compiled PDF and HTML documentation (vs SGML only from subversion), for a modest amount (25 EUROS or US$, and yes I know this is definitely NOT the same).
All people who pay to download such packages are allowed to redistr
Still missing the holy grail (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't forget, is not a metter of philosophy (Score:2, Insightful)
Binary Convenience License (Score:2)
Sell it first, then open it a few years later... (Score:2)
Stand the problem on it's head. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you go some sort of FOSS route then is there any data this applications depends on to run. Financial apps in many domains have to be aware of tax rates or some sort of other specific data that has to be compiled for it to be useful. Compiling that data and keeping it current is at least as big a job as writing the code. If your app is in that category, then I suggest opening the code and charging for the domain specific data it needs to be useful.
More Options Than You Think (Score:3, Interesting)
a) Selling commercial packages for Windows is extremely difficult online. You really need to have a highly trained sales force and a serious marketing budget. Corporations can pay you the big bucks, but, you need to lay out some big bucks yourself. Unless you plan on trying to be a millionaire, its probably not realistic to try and cater to vertical corporate markets via shareware or online software sales. It costs a ton of money to get in there... unless you hit the jackpot with that simple utility or game that everyone just have to have.... but there's a lot out there.
b) Advertising revenue from being the main web site for free software often exceeds the revenue you can get from shareware anyway. This surprises me, but, I've spent far more time bashing my head against Windows shareware world but the Linux world, for a lot less investment, is making more money for me. It may be that my writing is better than my software, for sure, but, those little google adsense keywords do pretty good.
c) There's really more interest in Linux, and, bigger players can give you some serious help. For example, IBM has an excellent solutions directory and keeps a database to help hook your system up with potential clients. That can translate into development work for you, to add new features, and really as more of an architect or senior level person (having designed the original project), then, at a lower rate a normal code-drone would get.
d) Developing for Linux, or just having a site out there, can impress a lot of people in IT, and in some ways, better than Windows does. Everyone does Windows, and so being involved in Linux sets you apart. I have a client that's a closet Linux fanatic, and once I admitted that I too, love my dual opteron (until the SATA chip died), running Linux, our relationship got a lot better and I find myself being involved in ever cooler projects.
So, yeah, there's this belief out there that Linux equals starvation whereas Windows is money, but, its a complicated world out there.
Options abound. Here's one crazy thing I've heard of. As the copyright holder, there's really nothing that precludes you from selling both versions of the same product. You could sell your product for Windows, for sure, and you could open source it for Linux, if you like.
Another thing you could do would be to offer your software as FOSS, but host a web site as a service that does it. Yes, you would in effect allow other people to create competition for you, but, usually, the biggest problem you have isn't the software, but getting people to buy into the idea that you have being your software. If you create a program to make a service that is FOSS, and suddenly a 1000 web sites pop up making it, you've in effect gotten free advertising for your concept, and the advantages of that cannot be understated.
All I can say is good luck. In 2008 I'm going all out Linux - as soon as I get my Opteron mended -, and for the reasons I've listed, I think I'm more likely to make myself a millionaire giving software away than I would be selling it under Windows.
Several Choices (Score:5, Informative)
You've got several choices:
1) Sell Training
Write books, on-line training, seminars, whatever, and sell that as an adjunct to your open source project. Of course, those can be open source as well.
2) Sell Customizations
Offer to develop custom features or just consult on deployment. Some of those may be rolled in to a future version of the existing package if that makes sense.
3) Sell Support
Get people to buy support for the package and offer telephone/email support for issues. If the application is critical to a business, they may pay to have support on hand.
4) Sell access to the code under non-GPL license
Some applications are release GPL, but offer the option of paying to get a closed source commercial license.
5) Split the package in to open and commercial packages.
Bundle the basic system as open source and then have add-ons that are commercial. This is sort of getting them hooked on the free version and then hoping they grow in to needing the features of the add-ons.
Regardless of which method you pick, you should realize it takes a lot of work develop a successful community around a piece of open source software. If your plan is to just throw the code out under an open source license, you're likely to fail. You need to promote your product, develop a group of users, have forums/lists for them to communicate, encourage developers, review and work on submitted code, and you need to spend time participating in those activities. Even then if your product isn't unique and interesting enough you won't get a following. Bottom line is that you need to be really committed to your open source project and it had better be best of breed or users will move to alternate choices.
Re: (Score:2)
training, training, training (Score:2)
They all insist on boring things like support, training, documentation etc. - stuff that FOSS traditionally lacks for the first few iterations, at least.
My suggestion would be to use the software as a sort of loss-leader. Give it away (hence the free) and sell your expertise in trai
This question was asked and answered on Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)
ransom licensing (Score:2)
1. Make some videos that show off how awesome your software is, and post them on youtube.
2. Tell everyone that you will release your program under the GPL once you have received, say, $1000 in donations. Substitute however much money you want for $1000.
3. Follow through on your promise.
You will only be paid once, but that's the only sensible way to charge money for software. Software is not a product or physical good; the creation of software is a service.
Customisation (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd say closed source at first... (Score:2)
You can always go dual license or OSS later, but
I thought about this for a long time and... (Score:3, Informative)
The conclusion I came to was to sell maintenance, upgrades, training and data conversion. I include the complete source code and database schema and its all very nicely documented. I cannot distribute the compiler because it is not open source ( Delphi Enterprise which includes all the runtime source ) but I include very specific instructions on how to set up the development environment and all the 3rd part bits that are required.
Doing so game me the option of including MySQL server at no cost as the database for smaller implementations. For larger implementations they are required to purchase Oracle since at the time MySQL 4.x simply could not handle the load.
So yes you can make money doing open source. Only the people that use it are required to have access to the source code, you do not, in my opinion have to make an announcement to the world that anyone can snag your product just because they feel like dorking around with it. It is available for download if you know where to look. And no I am never going to put it on any source forge.
Some will argue that this violates the spirit of GPL or FOOS, but I submit that it does not violate the rules themselves. The source is there, you can get it, but it will cost you money to be able to build it
Speaking from personal experience (Score:3, Interesting)
If your product will attract a lot of attention and be of use to lots of people, then it may be more advantageous to open source. My main problem with open sourcing an application is as follows. Lets say your application could save a company 10 000 dollars a year (which is roughly what mine does). If you open source the project, there may be enough incentive for a company to simply take the code and adapt/customize it themselves without paying you a dime. If you left it closed source, they would be more inclined to pay you a licensing fee than to go without the product since its saving them a good deal.
So id say you need to compare how inclined potential clients would be to simply take the code and run versus the possibility of garnering attention from having an open source product and selling services/support for the product (which would only happen if it reaches a large user-base).
Sell a book, offer consultation. (Score:2)
- Write a book, sell the book
- In the book, offer consultation
If the consultation gets popular, organize into more general support services.
Of course, you could just take the dip & sell it.
Software will NOT make you money, fame will do (Score:3, Insightful)
I've made money from open source software (Score:2)
There are many aspects of the application that I don't have time to refine, and other developers could definitely improve upon my work.
You'll never get people to make meaningful contributions to your project, unless it's huge and has a good community, which some accounting program won't. Most likely, someone will hire you to do this modifications you want to do, and that's how you'll make your money. That's what I did.
You're a step ahead (Score:2)
Running a business is
Listen to Michael Tiemann (Score:4, Interesting)
He and a couple of friends started Cygnus software, investing $6,000 to get
started. They added features (well, in the end pretty much built) the
GNU development tool chain. Their customers were embedded developers.
Here's the article:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/tiemans.html [oreilly.com]
I'm really sad to have come in late on this discussion because this
article is a must read for anyone wanting to make money writing free software.
Tiemann, et all became very rich doing it this way (Cygnus was sold
to RedHat for $600 million -- although a venture capital company
walked away with some of that money).
My quick take on it: Get money up front. Get paid for development,
not software. Realize that marketing is probably at least as
important was programming.
I really believe there is still a huge niche for custom software
development built on free software. Over 90% of software development
is in house development (OK, it's a number I pulled out of my
ass, but I think it's accurate). Your job as a free software
developer that wants to get paid is to convince companies that
you can deliver software to them cheaper than their in house
teams.
So what you need to do is to get a track record in the niche
that you want to work in. Then you need to hit the streets
and knock on doors. If you build it, they may or may not
come. You need to market your work. You need to show these
companies the potential for using your services rather than
building it themselves, or buying it off the shelf.
As Tiemann showed, if you do it right you will have more than
enough work to keep you fed.
I made it possible through SaaS but (Score:3, Interesting)
Example: CATS Applicant Tracking System (Score:3, Interesting)
While the Exhibit B clause does add some additional restrictions that may not be quite as "open source" as GPL'd code, it does provide a good balance between supporting the open source community and making a profit. Our Exhibit B clause is below, if this helps.
CATS Public License 1.1 Exhibit B:
Additional Terms applicable to the CATS Public License:
You MAY NOT use the Licensed Software to operate in or as a time-sharing, outsourcing, service bureau, application service provider or managed service provider environment.
The following copyright notice must be retained and clearly legible at the bottom of every rendered HTML document: Copyright 2005 - 2008 Cognizo Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
The "Powered by CATS" text or logo must be retained and clearly legible on every rendered HTML document. The logo, or the text "CATS", must be a hyperlink to the CATS Project website, currently http://www.catsone.com/ [catsone.com].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And what if it was a bug-fix and not an improvement, would you then have to keep the bug in the closed-source version?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a client who was on the receiving end of this for a collaboration and time tracking software suit. It ended up costing them about 10 times the normal software costs and they had to allow audits of any software that they resold but this company didn't sell software. They needed the source to develop integration with other software that was made for them years ago but were still using. In all, it worked out pretty good but it was expensive and the license doesn't allow them to use the code in commercial applications they create, only in the context of getting the original software to work with the applications.
I have a feeling though, this brush with open source is because there are elements he thinks others could improve better then he could. Not as much as wanting the client to have the code or anyone else to have the ability to use it. I think going with an open source on part of the code and asking for rights assignments from contributors that would allow use with propriatary applications could work. In that situation, he could have a separately named product with professional support and documentation and an open source project of the same things the might not be as polished as the real deal.
I was surprised to see how much polish and refinements are on some of the Pay versions of Open source software. It almost does the Pay version injustice having the free and open version associated with them. I mean consider red hat's renaming which got around this little issue. Now instead of Redhat enterprise linux and red hat linux, you have Fedora which in name separates bugs and nuances and stuff from the RHEL software. It allows the professional versions to be sold without the negatives of people not knowing what they are doing and blaming something that shouldn't be blamed or talking down the pay offerings based on their experience with the often bleeding edge free offerings.
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P.S. I think it is quite a relevant story to a lot of people here.
To Whom the Money Flows (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't bet my family's ability to eat on this. The problem isn't that there isn't money to be made on support. The problem is that a single person working his garage on software is not a support organization. Consequently, when it comes time to release that software, serious people (the kind with money) with a serious need for support (the kind they're going to bank their business on) won't trust a single individual for support. So your software will flow freely out, the support need may arise and support dollars may exist, but it's quite a gamble to assume they'll flow to you rather than to someone with a brand name and a committed resource of people that can stand behind a claim of support.
It's easy to want to believe you're going to get the money. But you are loads safer and much more likely to be right if you assume someone else will get it. You'd better assume you're going to get nothing and be satisfied with that. People may tell you otherwise, but I'd be surprised if they'd place money on that bet.
Advice, especially from evangelists, is cheap to offer when the one doing the offering doesn't have to deal with the consequences of being wrong. Don't let anyone convince you that doing something that is in the best interest of you and your own financial needs is some form of paranoia.
Of course, it's possible that the willingness of others to make free software has sufficiently driven down the price of software that there's no money you can make by selling it either. That's a different matter entirely. In that case, maybe you can sell service (supported by your own software, without releasing it), or maybe you just have something the world regards as worthless. That would be sad. But being sad would not make it impossible.