Do you have any numbers to support your premise? "Few" is relative and in the eye of the beholder, and I personally don't have the impression that only few projects 'monetize'. There are a lot of commercial open source projects, I find out about a new one almost every day. However, you may be right if what you want to say is that only a small percentage of the total number of open source projects monetize. The same probably holds for proprietary software, too, most of it is in-house or developed by hobbyists and only few proprietary software projects successfully 'monetize'. And let's also not forget that the vast majority of all projects, be they open source or not, are probably abandoned/given up.
Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
11–20 of 131 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#12IMHO it's because, once you decide to go open source, you're creating with the intention that this is a "for the community" type of product, not a "for profit." It's like a non-profit company with unpaid volunteers. There's a cause that many people believe in and anyone can help work towards that cause to make it a reality.
Moreover, many critical projects are already done by FSF or Apache Foundation, which are non-profit. Other by RedHat, IBM, Google or Oracle, which already monetize them.
Some were done in a "scratch an itch" fashion and author is not interested in maintenance.
Some are research work where a given university (and not the author) would have to draft a contract for anything monetary.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#13Do you have any numbers to support your premise? "Few" is relative and in the eye of the beholder, and I personally don't have the impression that only few projects 'monetize'. There are a lot of commercial open source projects, I find out about a new one almost every day. However, you may be right if what you want to say is that only a small percentage of the total number of open source projects monetize. The same p…
The most interesting one from the failed business perspective is Blender, commercial project turned open-source via a bounty.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#14To answer this I would ask what is the biggest reason to do Open Source. As an individual, the main reason to do that last step and publishing what I do as open source is so other people can use+benefit from it and monetizing it would hinder this.
Now there are many great secondary reasons as an individual, in no particular order: I learn a lot, I got some paying gigs from my open source, better code through more eyeballs, it builds curriculum/personal brand, it feels good to be complimented, etc. For companies I'll guess also it's a great recruiting tool as you are not a name in the dark but you show your code (I've considered that when looking for a job).
Oh wait, I totally (honestly) forgot about your main question when listing the benefits. I would say that the common feeling (at least in JS world) is that open source does not give direct money, so few projects start with the intention of getting it and later on it's more difficult.
If you try to do it there is a whole topic on this: https://opensource.guide/getting-paid/
To OP, since you've opened this discussion would you please share your thinking as well?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#15IMHO it's because, once you decide to go open source, you're creating with the intention that this is a "for the community" type of product, not a "for profit." It's like a non-profit company with unpaid volunteers. There's a cause that many people believe in and anyone can help work towards that cause to make it a reality.
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Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#16It's very difficult to do well is why.
* It changes the dynamics of the project when other people see you're making money on it.
* Dual licensing might hamper adoption.
* Service contracts are not easy to work out, and the better your code is, the less likely people are to even need them.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#17Read "Why do people keep contributing to
these projects, when they’re not
getting paid for it?" (Page 53) from "Road and Bridges" by Nadia Eghbal. It has a very good analysis. https://fordfoundcontent.blob.core.windows.net/media/2976/ro...
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#18Large open source projects have companies or foundations behind them. Project being open source is already part of their operation. Small open source projects don't monetize, because it would be more work then possible gain.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#19I've tried it. I've failed at it.
Halite is a libsodium wrapper for PHP projects that emphasizes ease-of-use and difficulty to misuse: https://github.com/paragonie/halite
CMS Airship is a secure-by-default content management system (think WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.): https://github.com/paragonie/airship
Both projects are released under GPL but offer commercial licenses. In two years, I've only had one person ever inquire about a commercial license, and they backed out.
One of the libraries I wrote has an installed base of (not counting WordPress) over 28 million, yet I rarely hear from its users: https://packagist.org/packages/paragonie/random_compat
The barrier isn't legal or philosophical, it's that a lot of very useful open source software (especially libraries that developers interface with) are infrastructure rather than window dressing, which is largely invisible to organizations.
If you only develop window-dressing libraries, then the stuff 'patio11 has said here over the years might hold true. But if you're trying to build a more secure Internet by giving developers better tools, nobody wants to pay you for that.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?
#20Because not everyone is a self serving greedy objectivist dick.
Some see a benefit in contributing to a shared collective good.