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Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#31

Post by jashmenn »

Because monetizing your open-source project means you take on a second job.

Here are your choices:

* Turn your OSS project into a company (Docker). The pro is that you can capture a lot of the value, the con is that you're splitting your project into CE/EE and also now you're a CEO

* Give the software away for free and charge for the hosting (Gitlab). Pro here is that you get recurring revenue, but the con is that now you're in DevOps and wear a pager. Also this model doesn't work well for libraries, only "apps".

* Charge for support (Ubuntu, Nginx-ish). Pro here is that by helping folks implement your software, you'll have a long line of success stories. Con here is that it isn't scalable - your upside is bounded by the hours you can bill

* Get a job at a company that will fund you to work on it (React, Angular). Pro here is that you can make tons of money with a job you love. Nice work, if you can get it. Con is that now you work for that company and you're subject to whatever whims they have.

* Run a Kickstarter (Light Table, Diaspora). Pro: you can gauge demand and you don't have a boss. Cons: it's one-time revenue, you have potentially inflated expectations, and just kidding, now you have 1,000 bosses.

* Run a Patreon (Vue). Pro: you have autonomy and recurring revenue (yay!). Con: now you're a personality. This is limited to celebs who are good at marketing _themselves_ as much as their software

* Ask for donations (Babel, Webpack). Pro: this works for tools and libraries (not just apps) and you can keep your mission. Con: Companies feel these donations have ambiguous deliverables. There's a lot of mental overhead too (How many projects can one company fund per month?)

* Sell documentation, books, videos (React Training, my current gig). Pro: JavaScript fatigue makes you money! Con: Writing the docs isn't as satisfying as writing software (for many developers)

So to answer your question: monetizing your open-source project means you take on another job _besides writing software_.

In an ideal world if you write software and it gets used, you'd be able to capture some share of that value. But we're not there yet.

[If you want to chat more about funding OSS, reach out to me (see my profile). I'm working on a few new ideas.]

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#32

Post by nobodyorother »

I've been encouraging a 5% philosophy for organizations that replace software that had license fees with free software:

Just donate 5% of the previous annual license fee to the project you're now using, each year. You still save 95% on license fees and developers get to eat.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#34

Post by orthecreedence »

I run an open source project (turtlapp.com). I want to monetize. I have people who tell me fairly often they want to pay for it.

There are two things that hold me back. First is never quite feeling like it's ready to charge for (perfect being the enemy of good). Second is I don't know how much time I can devote to supporting it.

Both are stupid reasons. I know this. I'm hoping to launch a premium service soon, and we'll see where it goes. If I spend 5 hours a day supporting it, I'll probably just shut it all off and prioritize my Turtl emails a bit lower like I do now. If I end up spending an hour or two a day on it and make some money, I'll kick myself for not doing it earlier.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#36

Post by stevejohnson »

If the project is maintained in someone's spare time, then the cost to monetize it, in time and effort, might exceed what they are willing to put into it.

In my own case, I have a silly JS library with 4,000 hits per month to the docs, but "monetizing" that just sounds like work, whereas working on the library itself is fun.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#37

Post by thibaut_barrere »

Following the example of Sidekiq (with Sidekiq Pro), I'm in the process of launching a commercial offering for Kiba ETL (OSS Ruby ETL framework - http://www.kiba-etl.org), dubbed "Kiba Pro".

My take on this is that more developers could try to follow that path, but we lack a bit of guidance (I'm lucky Mike Perham provided some useful insights to guide me actually) to reduce the anxiety & uncertainty associated with such launches.

The hurdles can be numerous & blocking:

- IP - making sure your consulting contracts are IP-safe

- Proper pricing (how do you segment your offer? how to avoid pricing "ceiling" effect etc)

- Distribution (e.g. I'm using http://packagecloud.io for our "paid gem")

- Proper custom ToS

- Product related theory such as "how to create leads channels" etc

- Billing & invoicing

- etc

Personally, I've decided not to attempt to "monetize" the OSS part, but rather launch a paid counterpart covering more advanced uses or built-in components.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#38

Post by Ologn »

bad_user wrote: post #28

People don't pay unless forced to do it. In other works, people only pay when there's scarcity . What drives our economy? Scarcity. What's the long term effect of capitalism? Commoditization, i.e. driving the costs down. Some people view open source as being about a post-scarcity economy in which human labor isn't need, an economy based on abundance. That's bullshit though. Open source is about commoditizing software…

> What drives our economy? Scarcity... Some people view open source as being about a post-scarcity economy in which human labor isn't need, an economy based on abundance. That's bullshit though.

I don't think that is the case at all.

If I have a woodshop and a customer comes in and hands me wood and nails, and I spend a day banging together a table for them, at the end of the day there is one table. A scarce good - one table is created, no more.

If I spent a day coding an Android app, publish it on Google Play, and it takes off and Android's daily two billion users take to it, my day's worth of work is not used by one person or one family. It is used by two billion people. Perhaps my app is mostly based on gluing together open source Android libraries and non-Android-specific libraries for the open source Android OS.

There is a scarcity and labor needed for the creation of the table or the app. The difference in the case of the app which almost for free goes out to two billion people, is that it's virtually free to copy and distribute it. It's really not even a commodity any more.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#39

Post by indigochill »

franciscop wrote: post #14

To 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 eye…

Another reason some companies publish open source code is to recruit contributors. Contributors already know what they're doing and are clearly passionate enough about the product to spend time on it for free, so they may be a natural hire when a position opens.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize?

#40

Post by kingbirdy »

Ologn wrote: post #38
bad_user wrote: post #28

People don't pay unless forced to do it. In other works, people only pay when there's scarcity . What drives our economy? Scarcity. What's the long term effect of capitalism? Commoditization, i.e. driving the costs down. Some people view open source as being about a post-scarcity economy in which human labor isn't need, an economy based on abundance. That's bullshit though. Open source is about commoditizing software…

> What drives our economy? Scarcity... Some people view open source as being about a post-scarcity economy in which human labor isn't need, an economy based on abundance. That's bullshit though. I don't think that is the case at all. If I have a woodshop and a customer comes in and hands me wood and nails, and I spend a day banging together a table for them, at the end of the day there is one table. A scarce good - o…

The point is a scarcity of a particular type of resource, though - if you're contracted to make a table, then that one specific table is scarce, but I can still go to IKEA and buy as many tables as I want. Similarly with software, copies of the same piece of software are prevalent, but there's only one specific app that does the thing you need.
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