Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 318 posts

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#61

Post by theredbox »

donedealomg wrote: post #3

Most open-source software is written by people who are paid by large corporations. For example, Everybody on the Open-JDK program is on the Oracle payroll. Yes, that's right. Large Corporations are the biggest contributors to open-source software. I know that might burst a bubble of people thinking we all sit in mommies basement coding the best software around for free, the reality is different. Microsoft, for exampl…

You will get downvoted to hell for this but this is a sad reality.

Most people dont realize that open source is unsustainable. Only the big and strong (the megacorps) will be able to outcompete everyone by providing complex stuff for free.

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#62

Post by bovine3dom »

dmortin wrote: post #6

There's donation, but I wonder what percent of users actually donate. Also, what if people donate and there are various contributors to the project beside the main author(s)? Should they get a piece too?

We [1] have received one-off donations from about 1-2% of our users. We get recurring donations from about 0.2% of our users.

There are some caveats here that probably mean we get more donations than most: the software is end-user facing, people who use the software generally use it every day and really like it, the audience skews heavily towards developers and we invite donations prominently without it being annoying (I think - no-one has complained so far).

As for deciding where funds go, most projects only have a handful of core contributors and it's very obvious which these are from how much they contribute. We just talk about it.

[1]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#63

Post by kthartic »

Lemmih wrote: post #4

I have sponsors on Github and rake in a cool $2 per month. It's obviously less after taxes so I also have a day job. https://github.com/sponsors/Lemmih

Just curious (clicked on your GitHub profile), why Singapore? Do you remote work/freelance? I'm thinking about moving to SE Asia and working remotely. It would be cool to hear other HN user's experiences :)

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#64

Post by luckylion »

behindsight wrote: post #27
gitgud wrote: post #16

Working enough making money purely from Open-source is difficult to achieve and usually requires; amazing projects, a good reputation, a big network of followers. But there's also some good monetisation strategies: - Consulting, at the bottom of your project "Hire the creator" - Donations, at the bottom of your project "Donate here" - Open-core, have an open-source core and a premium version with more features (these…

> Open-core, have an open-source core and a premium version with more features (these suck) Out of genuine curiosity, are there some egregious examples that merits (these suck) , or is it more of a blanket statement? I would love to avoid making those mistakes.

My distilled experience from open-core has also left me a bite wary of those. Not as strong to say they suck, but enough to not embrace them too quickly. I've had too many experiences where I felt that the open source version (and especially the documentation) was neglected so much that you'd have to spend a lot of time getting it to work and figuring stuff out.

It occasionally felt like "open source is a good marketing point, so here's the essential source, good luck, we're not going to help you with anything else, pay us". Fair enough, but that doesn't sound "open source" to me.

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#65

Post by james_s_tayler »

jbk wrote: post #57

I've been working on VideoLAN (VLC, x264, other...) for most of my professional life. For a long time, I had other jobs, working at startups around video, and doing VLC at nights and weekends and holidays. And now, I built a couple of companies around Open Source multimedia, where we do consulting, integration, custom development around software, applications development, licensing, support and so on. Those companies…

>But I've worked a lot, and by a lot, I really mean a fuckton... And the rewards are not big

VLC is like a part of culture at this point.

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#66

Post by qu83rt »

WJW wrote: post #54
qu83rt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It frustrates me that companies like Microsoft claim to love and embrace open source these days, but what smaller up and coming projects with independent developers are they financially supporting? That's the kind of support of open source I'd like to see from large companies/corporations/enterprises!

How would the developers still be independent if they are supported by a big company? If they use the money in lieu of a day job they become de facto employed by the company, only with even less job security. If they don't use the money, why do they need it in the first place? In fact, from the perspective of the bigco, there seems to be a thriving ecosystems for leftpad-style packages already even without additional…

Developers don't need to work for a company for the company to sponsor or donate to an open source project. Yes there would be less financial security but it's better than no financial support at all, perhaps sponsors etc. would be open to making commitments about donating $x/month or whatever for 12-24 months etc., not too different to governments promising funding for specific projects for y period of time. I'd take more companies supporting up and coming open source projects as a first step though!

Everyone has costs for things like shelter, power, food, water and other necessities, there is a need for some form of income.

I certainly think they should fund projects based on quality, as your reputation for quality increases I would hope that your ability to bring in sponsorship would be higher, though it's also a shame that people need years of their own funding to break in to open source software development properly full time. In many ways, open source development is only for the privileged/rich.

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#67

Post by andyrichardson »

Prior to my current job, OSS was just something that I did in my free time and considered an investment.

My current employer pays me for any OSS I do in my free time which is pretty cool. We collaboratively maintain OSS projects and are able to actively work on them when between client contracts.

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#68

Post by erinaceousjones »

gitgud wrote: post #50
behindsight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open-core, have an open-source core and a premium version with more features (these suck) Out of genuine curiosity, are there some egregious examples that merits (these suck) , or is it more of a blanket statement? I would love to avoid making those mistakes.

"Open-core sucks" is a blanket statement as the incentives of the business do not align with the users of the project. And as a result, in my book it's a red flag for an open-source project, and I can't think of a single project I like which does this. The incentive of an "Open-core" business is to convert people to the premium version of the product. This has the effect of hindering/restricting development on the co…

I think open-core can work well, when done right - as long as you're not necessarily crippling your FOSS offering compared to the paid version(s). When the code is likely to be used by other businesses, for example. There's generally a trade-off between time and price: use the open core, develop your own additions to add in the extra functionality you want -- or buy a license and use the "premium" features.

I can see there's a whole ecosystem built up around kubernetes, cloud management and microservice meshes, for example. You can set it all up for free using the FOSS offerings but it will sink a lot of time learning how to and maintaining the stack. Or you can pay to use someone elses "batteries included" distro which can be deployed with a few commands and save yourself a lot of time but spend $$$($..$??).

As long as projects don't actively refuse to accept contributions to the core, respond well to issues, document stuff well and keep a nice pluggable architecture allowing other people to fork it and hack in their own features, you're allowing people to choose between time or money.

Benefits of having a "pro" version also filters down to the open core - if you're wanting to market your product to businesses, you're likely going to spend more effort on making it more user-friendly and therefore documentation and howto guides become more slick and comprehensive.

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#69

Post by orlandohill »

If you want to work full-time on open source, then you need to treat it like a job. Either find an employer who will pay you, or start a business and become your own employer.

One way to start an open source business is to use a public/private licensing model, a.k.a. dual licensing with an 'open' license and a commercial license. The key is that you can have readable, modifiable, redistributable source code, without universally giving your work away for free. Instead, charge a fee for the right to use your software to create proprietary software, or for the right to use your software in a commercial context.

License Zero is designed to support developers pursuing this kind of business model. There are two public licenses, Parity and Prosperity, and there's a payment platform to charge for private licenses. https://licensezero.com/

Parity is a copy-left license, and is best suited to developer tools and software libraries. https://paritylicense.com/

Prosperity is a non-commercial license, and is best suited to end-user applications. https://prosperitylicense.com/

The Sustain podcast has an interview with the creator of License Zero, Kyle Mitchell. https://sustain.codefund.fm/29

Re: Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself

#70

Post by smashah »

Due to this crisis, I have kinda become full time open source maintainer. The good thing is a while ago I paywalled some features and monetize new ones - or more accurately unlock features for donators. The main one I maintain is one used to automate Whatsapp [0], I manage license keys through Gumroad[1] and donations through Buy me a coffee[2]. I'm happy with the amount I'm getting right now but it's definitely not a lot.

One cool thing about doing this is that due to the nature of maintaining a project like this, I end up being the most competent at building products with it. This in turn leads to my discord community asking me to build ideas and I've selected one to build and monetize (still WIP). So it might end up being quite lucrative.

[0] https://github.com/open-wa/wa-automate-nodejs

[1] https://gum.co/BTMt

[2] https://www.buymeacoffee.com/smashah

Post reply on HN