Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave • Hacker News Board

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#381

Post by brilliantcode » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

noufalibrahim wrote: post #145

brilliantcode wrote: post #139

> I would love to continue as the Octave BDFL but I also need to find a way to pay the bills. Breaks my heart to see such devoted developers having so much trouble paying bills for the work they've done. I truly believe that this problem can be solved-by crowdfunding open source developments that rivals commercial status quo, we can decouple ourselves from restrictive licensing structures while paying people's bills…

I wonder if it's because the time investment demanded of the BDFL is so high. If there were more people and each put in smaller amounts of their time to work on the project, then it would be possible to sustain it without having to depend on the charity of users. I get the feeling that projects like Python operate like this but I have no data to back my claim.

Yes sort of like how Patreon crowdfunds independent youtube channels to create the content the backers want to see.

I just figured out what BDFL meant :)

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#382

Post by brilliantcode » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

JoelJacobson wrote: post #236

$5,000 (will be) donated. Tried to use PayPal. A Top Up to my PayPal account via Instant Bank Transfer worked fine, but when I tried to use the money by making a transfer to The Octave Guy, PayPal said my account had been frozen :-( I have emailed the author and requested bank details in order to make a regular bank transfer instead.

WOW!

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#383

Post by codelitt » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:00 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

One of the best things that can happen to an open source project is support from companies that use those projects. For example, Red Hat contributing upstream to Linux. We have a dedicated 20% time that employees can work on whatever they desire. I'd love to someday be able to fund a full time engineer that is able to contribute to projects we benefit from.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#384

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:07 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #316

fnord123 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree. There should be funding bodies for projects like this who can fund projects and also provide a semblance of orchestration. The Linux Foundation (with the Core Infrastructure Initiative) and the Cloud Native Compute Foundation are already working in the right direction, imo. There are other organizations that work through contracting work to develop free and open source software. Red Hat and Canonical…

"There should be funding bodies for projects like this who can fund projects and also provide a semblance of orchestration. " A much better way than 'government funding' would be for users to just pay for it . It's called 'capitalism' it works very well. Oftentimes, it's difficult for the government and centralized bodies to know 'what to fund' and what not to - it's a hard thing, it can get political. Money goes ent…

Have you been on the internet for a while? You know that anything someone can get without paying for it, most people will go for it. Pirating video games, torrenting movies, music, ad blockers, etc.

And honestly, this idea of perfect meritocracy, the idea that if you don't get funded, then your project was crap, has been disproven a long time ago. There was a kickstarter that raised insane amounts of money for someone to make potato salad. Not as a product, but making a bowl of potato salad for themselves.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#385

Post by sandGorgon » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:09 PM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #371

sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

I know jwe. So, you want Octave to sell support contracts because accounting will never do donations. The two examples aren't selling just stooge licenses. In the case of pfsense, they're selling support. That means changing what jwe is doing from developing Octave to handling support calls. In the case of sidekiq, they're actually just selling plain ol' non-free software, which is what open-core is. jwe will never w…

you are overcomplicating this. The better examples to look at are pfsense and handsontable. There is really no major distinction between the license and free software. Its basically an "early access right", a special package repo for pro customers and in case pfsense case.. an ebook.

In sidekiq pro case, the "support" is a right to send email. If i may say so, that scales with the money you receive.

How to set it up? take a look at sidekiq - they use https://plasso.com. There are tona of alternatives in this space.

More importantly, we are here to help. Please don't hesitate to ask. Also take a look at indiehackers.com to see how others did it.

lastly - we are not angry.. we are frustrated because we have the ability to help. But open source software creators must empathize with procedures and stupid stuff like accountants. Unfortunately thats unavoidable, no matter how much you want to.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#386

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:10 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #368

fnord123 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No overhead needed. Sales, marketing, payment systems, and invoicing are plenty of overhead. >This is just software, it's not rocket science, there's likely a way to just have people pay for it without too much overhead. Sure. People are doing it. Red Hat, Canonical, Continuum, Igalia, and Mozilla are all organizations that pay for developers to work on open source. I would guess OP could look at NumFOCUS or get a j…

There's no need for a sales and marketing team for a very well established and entrenched product. He could make something very easily himself, 1-click to $X a month for some bit of software or service. In fact, if he did it properly, he could be wealthy, or chose to hire a bunch of people to make his software even better. Mozilla is a great org, but I'm not sure if they are the best example as I believe they depend…

"There's no need for a sales and marketing team for a very well established and entrenched product."

So should I go tell Pepsi and Coke that they're wasting their money?

Plus, while Octave is an established project, there are many projects being started each day. No project comes into being fully established.

"He could make something very easily himself, 1-click to $X a month for some bit of software or service."

Do that, instead of working on his project. Plus, the source is already out there. It's not going away.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#387

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:11 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #234

fsloth wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My heart breaks each time I discover a free tool of recognition is developed by some altruistic talent who lives at a near poverty level while their work generates millions in added value. I suppose the simplest way would be to offer dual licensing. GPL for non-profit projects, proprietary for enterprises. The problem is, if the source code you are working on depends on third party GPL software it's very hard to do t…

> My heart breaks each time I discover a free tool of recognition is developed by some altruistic talent who lives at a near poverty level while their work generates millions in added value. Maybe there could be a startup that helps people monetise their free software output?

Ok, I am calling for a ban on the "maybe there could be a startup that solves the problem?" style comments without at least trying to flesh out how they would actually do that.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#388

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #252

cabalamat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My heart breaks each time I discover a free tool of recognition is developed by some altruistic talent who lives at a near poverty level while their work generates millions in added value. Maybe there could be a startup that helps people monetise their free software output?

+100 this is a YC-fundable startup. Here are the projects I can think of: 1. Celery - jeez. It runs half the world's high availability python software, yet has severe funding crunch. 2. Octave - obviously 3. Jupyter+Pandas - http://jupyter.org/ 4. Vue.js - http://vuejs.org/support-vuejs/

If it's fundable, then what would it actually do?

Presumably we're past the point where anything with a .com in the name gets showered in VC money.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#389

Post by enjalot » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

radarsat1 wrote: post #319

sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

I agree. Two things though: * Developers, in general, are not business people. This may be different in Silicon Valley, but in a lot of the world, programmers have spent their life concentrating on one thing, learning to program. That doesn't mean they don't just "not know how" to start a business and find clients. It means they don't even know how to do the basic, first steps to registering one, knowing what to char…

I think your second point is the real open question that should be explored deeper. Your first point however is harmful and patronizing. If you can find coding answers on stackoverflow you can certainly google for information on opening an LLC and a business checking account. There is no need to bring in business partners, you can contract an accountant and even an attorney without compromising anything and just paying for advice.

Just doing one thing all your life is not an excuse for not taking care of yourself. Developers know how to brush their teeth and feed themselves, and they know how to navigate really complex abstractions, they can certainly learn the basics of incorporation and contracts.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#390

Post by jordigh » Thu, Feb 09, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #385

jordigh wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know jwe. So, you want Octave to sell support contracts because accounting will never do donations. The two examples aren't selling just stooge licenses. In the case of pfsense, they're selling support. That means changing what jwe is doing from developing Octave to handling support calls. In the case of sidekiq, they're actually just selling plain ol' non-free software, which is what open-core is. jwe will never w…

you are overcomplicating this. The better examples to look at are pfsense and handsontable. There is really no major distinction between the license and free software. Its basically an "early access right", a special package repo for pro customers and in case pfsense case.. an ebook. In sidekiq pro case, the "support" is a right to send email. If i may say so, that scales with the money you receive. How to set it up?…

The situation really is complicated if you are committed to the constraint of keeping Octave free.

Sidekiq pro is just selling non-free software. It's not just the right to send email.

    My second idea was to move to an open core model: hold 
    back more complex or enterprise-specific features from 
    the OSS version, sell those features as an "expansion 
    pack" on top of Sidekiq. Thus, Sidekiq Pro was born. 
    This proved to be popular and forms my business today.

https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/sidekiq?utm_source=n...

I can't tell about handsontable, but it looks like again it's just plain ol' non-free software, although they do seem to let you look at the source code under what sounds like a restrictive license.

pfsense also seems to sell a lot more than just an ebook. They sell backups, what sounds like another non-free addon "plus many more features". Maybe most people don't use any of that extra stuff?

None of this sounds like it's just a matter of selling stooge licenses, and the sidekiq guy even said that selling stooge licenses didn't bring in any noticeable revenue.