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

https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey

I then sell a compiled version signed with my Apple Developer ID via Gumroad:

https://gumroad.com/l/powerkey

This model works pretty well for small apps that you otherwise want to keep in a public repo. The hassle of compiling + signing the app is worth $5 to many people.

For anyone dabbling with the idea, I can't recommend Gumroad enough for simplicity. But it would be nice to see payment/storefront functionality built into GitHub's Releases feature. A GitHub sanctioned payment system might even clue some creators in to the fact that you can charge for some component of your open source work.

The main reason most companies open source stuff is because they had to build something for some reason or another, the thing works, but they don't want to maintain it because it's plumbing and it's not mission-critical.

Sometimes it's easier to throw the thing on GitHub (where others might find it and at least use it) than throw it in your company's internal repository (where nobody will ever find it and it will rot away).

Red Hat Linux is the main counterexample. Companies do pay for their support, but CentOS nips at their heels and Red Hat has also lost the support of the "enthusiast" community which has largely gone to Ubuntu.

Cloudera is an example of the kind of "hype-driven" company that gets taken seriously because they get written about in TechCrunch every few days, but they don't have any unique selling point, particularly compared to the free Hadoop distribution. When they got started, the idea of offering a GUI client seemed like a good idea, but after the devops revolution this became value subtraction instead of value addition. (Why click hundreds of times through multiple forms to set up a cluster and have to repeat the whole process all over again next time you build a cluster when you can type a few commands, hit ENTER and have it be done?)

But you're leaving out one thing.. since it's not licensing, most developers using your project on the job will have to contribute out of their own pockets. Reasonably, they're much more hesitant and will give less.

As evidence, when you buy a piece of software yourself, you probably buy the most basic version you can. When you can expense it, odds are you get those optional components that you _might_ need at some point.

And further, offering "support contracts" can be great but many companies use it as a check box - "do they offer support? yes!" - as opposed to actually buying it. Luckily, of those that buy it, some will never use it. :D

One might say that other open-source projects don't make a significant income because they don't have value, but I think you only need to look at e.g. the npm download stats for many packages to see that this isn't true.

Put another way, _many_ software libraries enable huge amounts of business value that is not captured by the authors of those libraries.

For instance, if you're a JS dev, you've probably used lodash or moment, but maybe can't even name who the authors are of those projects.