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

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

#221

Post by deeblering4 »

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…

First I want to say thank you for taking the harder road and providing such great software to the community.

What are your thoughts about software crowdfunding approaches like patreon “$1 donation per donor, per version release” and similar?

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

#222

Post by tehwhynot »

qu83rt wrote: post #52
feross wrote: post #19

Sustainability is another way to say subsistence. The dirty secret of open source is that much of it is powered by maintainer guilt. If you’re looking to make money, I don’t recommend you get into open source. I wish this weren’t the case, but this is the current situation. Unfortunately, it seems the best path if you want to do open source as a career is to do enough open source to get your name out there and then l…

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!

One small example: Microsoft financially supported the developer who added C# support to the Godot game engine. Can hardly call that "small" and "up and coming" though.

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

#223

Post by entha_saava »

See termux app's addons and some simple mobile tools apps for Android. They have paid versions on play store which are actually open source. But you are paying for the privilege of getting them on play store instead of compiling them and loading through adb.

Another way is providing an SaaS version, but having an open core product is better for this. If memory serves right, wallabag does something like this.

Enterprise support etc: There are quite a few companies that provide support for software. Red Hat for example.

Bounties: see bountysource

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

#224

Post by open-source-ux »

antocv wrote: post #171
svjatoslav wrote: post #141

I asked Richard Stallman this question: His answer was: Live cheaply. Eric S. Raymond answer was: Be independently wealthy. I have tried to reach billionaire philanthropists (Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Dean Kamen, Warren Buffet, and others) with the idea that there are very talented people around who have brilliant ideas (say for instance another Newton or Mozart) but are not financially independent to afford to work…

Sad and similar response from both of them, ie "you shouldnt need money" This is a major failure of free and open source, not having a business plan at all while those who do have a business plan, Google, AWS, Microsoft are reeking in the billions in profit from the free labor provided by foss-developers. Why cant developers of the software (say coreutils) make profits on it? Why cant developers put constraints on th…

"This is a major failure of free and open source"

I agree. So many developers would simply like to sell their open source product so customers can run the product themsleves. It's simply impossible.

It's ironic that so many SaaS businesses are built on open source - a model that gives users even less control.

My recommendation is for developers to consider the 'source-only' option: you charge customers for your product and provide the source code. The code is not open source, but it still gives your customer flexibility to adapt the product to fit their needs.

There are successful examples of independent developers making a full-time living using this model, some even publish their source code on GitHub but rely on the honesty of their customers to not redistribute the code (examples include Kirby CMS and Craft CMS).

By the way, the GNU Project (supported by the Free Software Foundation) has never updated their advice on selling open source software to reflect reality. They still advise developers to charge for support or documentation (deeply unpopular with developers and customers). Or charging for distribution of software. This might have made sense in an era of software CDs and dial-up internet but make no sense in a era of broadband and GitHub:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

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

#225

Post by MaxBarraclough »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #214
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's loads who work on the kernel as part of their job, but that's no different to any other dev job. What's the problem with that? It's win-win that this arrangement is relatively common. > I think the question "how do I get paid to work on open source?" is subtly but very importantly different to "how do I get a job that includes working on open source?". The former implies the person asking wants to get paid…

The problem is, for the most part, that the dev will only get paid to work on aspects that advances the employing corporation's interests. It really is just a job.

> It really is just a job.

I'm not seeing the problem with that. You'll never have full freedom to work on whatever you like and get paid for it.

Seems to me the salaried job approach will give the developer less freedom compared to the patronage model, as you say, but it also has advantages. It introduces corporate/organisational resources, so you won't have to personally fund your test server, and hopefully there will be competent management, etc. In practice I imagine it means better job security too, and at the risk of being circular, it's just more likely to happen and to pay you properly.

> the dev will only get paid to work on aspects that advances the employing corporation's interests

True, but compared to the work just never happening, that's still a good thing.

If you instead rely on patrons, you're still beholden to someone else's interests. This takes us back to my first point: you can never have total freedom to work on what you want, and get paid for it.

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

#226

Post by hyperpallium »

Dual licensing: for an open source library that some businesses will want to distribute with their closed source product, use GPL 2 which doesn't allow that. Then businesses will pay for a commerical license from you that does allow it.

It doesn't affect open source users; though Stallman doesn't like it. Projects using this kind of idea are berkleyDB and ghostscript.

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

#227

Post by gwbas1c »

From looking at the comments here, it looks like it's very hard to make a living with a large open source project, especially if that project is an end-user application.

Most of the open-source code that I use are small, limited-scope libraries. These appear to come from someone who wrote the library as part of a larger project; and usually from someone experienced enough to make the library "good."

Usually the limited-scope libraries solve a well-defined common problem that many applications need; instead of a unique tool that someone just wants to give away for free.

Alternatively, there's frameworks like Spring that come from consulting companies. These frameworks only become valuable with lots of external users, so it's in Pivitol's best interests to sponsor their framework, which they also happen to be very good at using to write custom applications for paying customers.

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

#228

Post by metabagel »

Accujack wrote: post #168
svjatoslav wrote: post #141

I asked Richard Stallman this question: His answer was: Live cheaply. Eric S. Raymond answer was: Be independently wealthy. I have tried to reach billionaire philanthropists (Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Dean Kamen, Warren Buffet, and others) with the idea that there are very talented people around who have brilliant ideas (say for instance another Newton or Mozart) but are not financially independent to afford to work…

Are you surprised they didn't respond? Your solution to this problem seems to be focused on what other people can do to make things easier for you and others like you, but that's not how humanity works. You're ignoring that your request is unreasonable because you're taking the easy way out - looking for a source of money and convincing yourself that your efforts deserve it because it's easier than doing the work you…

He contacted wealthy philanthropists, who regularly give money to worthy causes. It’s not an unreasonable thing to do.

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

#229

Post by sudhirj »

orlandohill wrote: post #157
sudhirj wrote: post #128

I have a day job, but I'm trying to see if I can make a living off open source. I'm building a set of libraries, licensing them under the GPL, and offering to sell LGPL and Apache 2.0 licenses for those who need them (any commercial use will require either LGPL or Apache 2). I also found the PolyForm Noncommercial license which, I think is pretty great for hobbyist use and learning, so I'm trying to sell that license…

I imagine that most companies would use Redimo on their web servers. In that case, the GPL wouldn't require them to do anything, so they could always use the software for free. Even the AGPL wouldn't help much, because it would only require companies to open source software that directly extends or modifies Redimo. MongoDB dropped their use of AGPL for exactly that reason. Have you considered using the Parity Public…

I did, might still go that route, but Redimo isn’t a web server (although I am building one that I’m planning to license under Mongo’s SSPL). The code is a Go / Ruby / JS library that builds with your code, so think the GPL does apply. As far as I know the LGPL doesn’t trigger if no modifications are made to the library itself.

Wanted to choose only well known licenses, but I am looking at other options. LicenseZero works only for individuals, by the way - companies will have to go through a separate process, or ask all their employees to buy separately.

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

#230

Post by boomlinde »

bluGill wrote: post #209
boomlinde wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're supposed to submit that form when you do your taxes, which is kind of dumb, because a copy of the 1099 was already sent to the IRS. Isn't that just an escape hatch if you do have additional income to report? The tax office should present it as such. Here, the tax office gets that kind of report from a bank. If I agree that it's correct, all I have to do is sign a prefilled form digitally. Unless I've generat…

It isn't though, even though the irs has that information for most people we have to fill out tax forms as if the irs had nothing.

I mean practically, as in the only practical use of it is as an escape hatch for when your income isn't accurately reflected by the forms.
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