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

How to pay your rent with your open source project

plausible.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 171 posts

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#71

Post by 2can »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #59
2can wrote: post #57

I’m working on a slightly cheaper alternative to Plausible called Nibspace - it’s $1 instead of $6 for similar traffic volume. https://nibspace.com

So it’s only 1/6th as good?

Haha! You should try it and tell me! Jokes aside, it’s just my attempt at indie hacking. I have some experience in sysadmin, and based on that I simplified certain parts of the system, so overall it’s more affordable, yet remains profitable. It’s still early, and probably much worse than Plausible, Fathom or Simple Analytics, but I decided to make an offering based on the price as the space is pretty crowded. If it works, I promise you I will do my best to not make it a 1/6th of the quality. ;)

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#72

Post by dencodev »

teraflop wrote: post #68

I feel like it's weird to first talk about aligning your incentives towards things that provide value to your users, and then suggest this business model: > Training, support or consulting services from the project’s maintainers without even mentioning that it creates exactly the opposite incentive. If you get paid to help people understand how to get stuff done with your product, you have absolutely no reason to imp…

Your core product is something that needs to be popular enough that anyone needs your services though, and it's not going to be popular if it's difficult to learn and navigate.

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#73

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

ddevault wrote: post #55
richardwhiuk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AGPL doesn't guarantee that you'll get contributions back. For the very few companies who are willing to touch AGPL code, they only need to make the changes available (e.g. a CD in the post is sufficient). Very few companies are willing to use it, because it creates an almost unassailable hurdle in lots of industries. It's also highly at risk at making a bunch of other projects AGPL as well.

It does nothing of the sort. This is propeganda that mega-corps want you to believe because they are unable to rip off AGPL software effectively. Organizations like Google can afford to not use AGPL software (they can just write their own software), but it costs them money, so they refuse to use AGPL software and spread propeganda that it's impossible to do so, to weaken its market penetration and ensure that they ha…

You're glossing over the fact that being compliant with AGPL requires more competence than the vast majority of software jobs. I know you could competently integrate or use AGPL software, and I might be able to do it (while repeatedly referencing armchair lawyers on stackoverflow), but there is still a risk I fuck it up and my (or my employer's) competitive advantage is in jeopardy.

You are right that AGPL is easy if you can just run it as-is. The real problems start with libraries. If I link an AGPL PDF-generating library with my monolith service which runs financial reports over my business, what happens? Do I need to now publish my SQL queries that access sensitively named tables? Maybe that reveals new secret projects we're working on, or perhaps security incident mitigations underway.

Sure, there are countless ways to architect my way out of those problems, but what if I don't have the resources to do that right now?

The small obligation becomes a large burden pretty quickly.

(The real solution to the above problems is to pay for the corporate license that removes the AGPL obligation, but that assumes you can afford to do so)

AGPL is fundamentally scary to lawyers and management because they're afraid someone will sink the ship. Sure it's mostly FUD, but there are some serious valid concerns.

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#74

Post by rikroots »

barrkel wrote: post #50
Milank wrote: post #43

Most of the people writing OSS do it for fun/side project/to solve a problem, not for the money. Problems come if that peace of software gets popular, they get a lot of bug reports, improvement suggestions/requests, emails, noise in general. And a person who wrote the software has a full time job, so the time available for OSS is limited. That person is probably well paid in it's current job, so the OSS has a long wa…

Most people who write OSS do it as employees for companies for whom OSS is a strategic asset.

Do they? I don't.

In fact when I was last employed (I'm now freelance, or at least trying to be freelance) I very much did not work on my OSS project, or use it in client work, because while I had verbal assurances that the company would not assert their rights, the contract I signed included an IP clause that was a little too broad for my liking.

As to the OP, It would be nice if I could figure out a way to make my OSS project earn enough to cover my rent. I would be really happy if I could get it to pay its own rent - hosting the project's home page is not $free.

(Obligatory spam of the project's home URL: https://scrawl-v8.rikweb.org.uk/ )

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#75

Post by balfirevic »

krn wrote: post #17
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which in many ways looks deeply unapealing. The last thing I want to do is sell support or services. I'd much rather spend my time writing software that is easy to use and well documented.

Then, I guess, the only choice is Github Sponsors. And it doesn't seem to be a bad one[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23613719

Unfortunately, it's not available worldwide.

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#76

Post by ddevault »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #73
ddevault wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does nothing of the sort. This is propeganda that mega-corps want you to believe because they are unable to rip off AGPL software effectively. Organizations like Google can afford to not use AGPL software (they can just write their own software), but it costs them money, so they refuse to use AGPL software and spread propeganda that it's impossible to do so, to weaken its market penetration and ensure that they ha…

You're glossing over the fact that being compliant with AGPL requires more competence than the vast majority of software jobs. I know you could competently integrate or use AGPL software, and I might be able to do it (while repeatedly referencing armchair lawyers on stackoverflow), but there is still a risk I fuck it up and my (or my employer's) competitive advantage is in jeopardy. You are right that AGPL is easy if…

>If I link an AGPL PDF-generating library with my monolith service which runs financial reports over my business, what happens?

No one uses AGPL for libraries, except maybe by mistake. LGPL is used for this purpose.

>Do I need to now publish my SQL queries that access sensitively named tables?

No. The FAQ from GNU makes how this works pretty clear:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AGPLv3InteractingR...

The AGPL is not viral in the sense that all client software accessing an AGPL-licensed service are required to use the AGPL, but rather, such clients are entitled to the source of that service. It puts no obligations whatsoever on client software.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AGPLv3InteractingR...

Maybe you should actually read up on the AGPL license before you make assumptions about it? It seems like you don't really understand it.

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#77

Post by ddevault »

rat9988 wrote: post #69
ddevault wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shall not challenge the OSI and FSF definitions, because every principle that they defend is not only worth protecting, but under attack by bad interests. "Challenging" these is how you end up being gaslit by companies which are abusing the open source brand to peddle software that isn't. And such muddying of the waters makes it easier for companies to disregard the terms of copyleft licenses. This is non-negotiab…

I for one don't think that every principle they defend is worth protecting, nor I do fully agree with their definition. I'm not trying to convince you, just to say that some people have a different opinion.

How so? Can you elaborate?

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#78

Post by Milank »

pselbert wrote: post #60
Milank wrote: post #43

Most of the people writing OSS do it for fun/side project/to solve a problem, not for the money. Problems come if that peace of software gets popular, they get a lot of bug reports, improvement suggestions/requests, emails, noise in general. And a person who wrote the software has a full time job, so the time available for OSS is limited. That person is probably well paid in it's current job, so the OSS has a long wa…

You make an excellent point here—it takes a lot of effort to get a solo project (OSS or otherwise) to be profitable enough that can compete with a day job’s salary. As somebody that is monetizing OSS, making a supplanting my salary is my measurement of success. At that point I can focus on my product and my customers during core working hours.

Golden handcuffs. Slowing the world's development since.. forever.

Re: How to pay your rent with your open source project

#79

Post by teraflop »

dencodev wrote: post #72
teraflop wrote: post #68

I feel like it's weird to first talk about aligning your incentives towards things that provide value to your users, and then suggest this business model: > Training, support or consulting services from the project’s maintainers without even mentioning that it creates exactly the opposite incentive. If you get paid to help people understand how to get stuff done with your product, you have absolutely no reason to imp…

Your core product is something that needs to be popular enough that anyone needs your services though, and it's not going to be popular if it's difficult to learn and navigate.

That's true, but that's exactly why this strategy can be so detrimental to the long-term health of a project. The core product has to be just barely good enough to solve a problem for enough people; once it gets popular, it can coast on that momentum for a while, even as it ossifies.

I can think of a number of projects in the "big data" space that seem to have fallen into this trap.

Post reply on HN