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Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

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Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#11

Post by tacostakohashi »

I wonder what would happen if someone started an open source software "vendor" run along the lines of public radio / podcasts. Open source licensed (using a regular GPL or other license, nothing new or tricky), but a prominent encouragement to donate it you find it useful.

Those donations could then be used to hire full-time developers, and work on the kinds of software that is currently not well served by open-source (TurboTax replacements, games, office software).

Just as with public radio or podcasts, the price signal of donations would encourage certain kinds of products to be produced according to demand instead of enjoyment or itch scratching, but the end product would still have the benefits of open source, no license keys or DRM to worry about.

I expect 99% of people would freeload as they do with public radio, but that's ok, even a small participation rate could result in new kinds of open source software being produced, and a sustainable career path for creators.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#12

Post by slantyyz »

StreamBright wrote: post #5

> The question isn’t open-source-vs-proprietary, but open-source-vs-business-focused. I disagree. Some of the very successful FOSS projects are backed by businesses that benefitting using those. Linux, RocksDB, React, Tensorflow would be good examples.

Yeah, it seems like he's forgotten the about enterprise segment altogether.

A lot of companies have OSS but make money charging for support and/or additional features (granted, some of those additional features may not be OSS).

Examples: Liquibase, Pentaho, Flyway, etc.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#13

Post by rhn_mk1 »

astazangasta wrote: post #3
collinmanderson wrote: post #2

> Maybe this is why you can’t make money with open source: it’s a distraction. The question isn’t open-source-vs-proprietary, but open-source-vs-business-focused. > Another lens might be: who are you selling to? Classical scratch-your-own-itch open source software is built by programmers for programmers. Yes, open source works well for software written for programmers as an audience. If programmers aren't using the o…

This will become less true as a greater fraction of humanity learns to program.

That's not a given, seeing how the software people have access to is often specifically made to prevent people from wanting, or even realizing, that it could be changed. I'm thinking of iPhones, but also about what motivated me to start programming: games. Nowadays, consoles are the epitome of DRM, and many PC games are following on that path.

Unless open source catches on soon, I am afraid only smaller and smaller proportion of humanity will be programmers, even without the compounding effect of the general population constantly increasing and diluting the existing programmer pool.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#14

Post by Already__Taken »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #11

I wonder what would happen if someone started an open source software "vendor" run along the lines of public radio / podcasts. Open source licensed (using a regular GPL or other license, nothing new or tricky), but a prominent encouragement to donate it you find it useful. Those donations could then be used to hire full-time developers, and work on the kinds of software that is currently not well served by open-sourc…

Look at nuxt.js you get a funding update after you npm install it

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#15

Post by oweqruiowe »

It recently dawned on me, in light of the Elastic / AWS battle, that Elastic's business model is kind of like GGG's 'free to play' game Path of Exile. Where the base game is free, but as you get more serious you end up spending money on quality of life things, stash tab upgrades and what not. That business model has proven to be very successful (in gaming), versus the buy once model with games like Diablo. Hopefully, by sharing that here doesn't result in a 'gray-at-the-bottom-comment'.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#16

Post by est31 »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #11

I wonder what would happen if someone started an open source software "vendor" run along the lines of public radio / podcasts. Open source licensed (using a regular GPL or other license, nothing new or tricky), but a prominent encouragement to donate it you find it useful. Those donations could then be used to hire full-time developers, and work on the kinds of software that is currently not well served by open-sourc…

Godot engine has this model. They are getting donations from patreon [1], enough to pay 2 people full time at the center of the project. Wikipedia is another project which is doing this very successfully.

But in general, those methods bring you much less money than if you were proprietary, because as you rightfully point out, most people are "freeloaders".

[1]: https://www.patreon.com/godotengine

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#17

Post by cwyers »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #11

I wonder what would happen if someone started an open source software "vendor" run along the lines of public radio / podcasts. Open source licensed (using a regular GPL or other license, nothing new or tricky), but a prominent encouragement to donate it you find it useful. Those donations could then be used to hire full-time developers, and work on the kinds of software that is currently not well served by open-sourc…

Depends on your market. If it's direct to consumer, you're basically in the same boat as shareware/freeware back in the day, and it's a model that _can_ work.

If your market is businesses, then no. There is no budget for donations at most businesses. There is a budget for _buying_ things.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#18

Post by eleclady »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #11

I wonder what would happen if someone started an open source software "vendor" run along the lines of public radio / podcasts. Open source licensed (using a regular GPL or other license, nothing new or tricky), but a prominent encouragement to donate it you find it useful. Those donations could then be used to hire full-time developers, and work on the kinds of software that is currently not well served by open-sourc…

There are so many smaller open source projects I would love to donate to but don't accept donations. I would even pay subscription to them if it ensures their continued development.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#19

Post by sanxiyn »

oweqruiowe wrote: post #15

It recently dawned on me, in light of the Elastic / AWS battle, that Elastic's business model is kind of like GGG's 'free to play' game Path of Exile. Where the base game is free, but as you get more serious you end up spending money on quality of life things, stash tab upgrades and what not. That business model has proven to be very successful (in gaming), versus the buy once model with games like Diablo. Hopefully,…

Yup. Open-core model and freemium model are two different words for the same thing.

Re: Open Source Doesn’t Make Money Because It Isn’t Designed to Make Money

#20

Post by dec0dedab0de »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #11

I wonder what would happen if someone started an open source software "vendor" run along the lines of public radio / podcasts. Open source licensed (using a regular GPL or other license, nothing new or tricky), but a prominent encouragement to donate it you find it useful. Those donations could then be used to hire full-time developers, and work on the kinds of software that is currently not well served by open-sourc…

that is basically how the Free Software Foundation runs, and it predates open source.
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