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How to pay your rent with your open source project

plausible.io

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

#91

Post by Legogris »

ghengeveld wrote: post #66

For us, FOSS is the start of the funnel for our SaaS. Somewhat in-between the "hosted version" and the "premium features" buckets, but in separate projects. We employ the two core maintainers of Storybook (one of the most popular FOSS JavaScript projects) who work on it full-time. The rest of us build Chromatic, a SaaS that offers features on top of Storybook, and we occasionally work on Storybook too. Storybook is a…

Without having any knowledge of or experience with Storybook, that sounds like an optimal approach for such a project.

I thin Hashicorp does something similar on top of slect core features (which tend to eventually end up on the free and open version eventually, which is funny because the enterprise customers end up being beta testers due to HC's habit of releasing features in a half-working state).

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

#92

Post by pmoriarty »

dgellow wrote: post #2

What about charging for build and distribution? Krita does something like this for their Steam and Windows Store versions, that helps finance their development. I personally believe that could also work for other distribution channels, such as a private APT repository, or equivalent to other platforms. People could still build by themselves from sources if that's what they want, and if you want convenience you buy th…

"What about charging for build and distribution? Krita does something like this for their Steam and Windows Store versions, that helps finance their development."

Ardour[1] does this too, and from what I understand its lead developer manages to support himself from this.

The Linux distribution that I use is Gentoo, and it has Ardour in its package repository, but that version is always old compared to the newest version of Ardour.

So if I want the newest version I have to compile it myself (which I can and have done, as I have the technical expertise to follow their build instructions), but for others who want the latest pre-compiled and/or want to support Ardour's development, they can donate.

There's also Harrison Mixbus[2], which is a commercial product built on top of Ardour by another company.

[1] - https://ardour.org/

[2] - https://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html

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

#93

Post by gpanders »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

Do you have any messaging suggesting that people donate in proportion to their ability/usage?

I personally have found that I end up donating more frequently to projects that are both explicit about donating and make it easy to donate. Put a link in your README, sign up for GitHub sponsors, etc. And if you have a way to communicate directly with the largest businesses, don't feel embarrassed about nagging them about donating. It's likely that most still won't pay anything, but some will!

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

#94

Post by alextheparrot »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

The most direct way to monetisation I’ve seen in the community is writing a book or doing consulting. Maybe there are other ways that aren’t as visible to a casual observer.

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

#95

Post by gonzo41 »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

Can you just change the license terms on your next update to say, if your market cap reported in the FY is over threshold set by this license then you have to pay a flat fee of X.

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

#96

Post by ianbooker »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

Offer paid support. Most managers in businesses love to outsource accountability for cash.

The trick is to not also take in their work (i.e. for integration).

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

#97

Post by dgellow »

j1elo wrote: post #48
dgellow wrote: post #2

What about charging for build and distribution? Krita does something like this for their Steam and Windows Store versions, that helps finance their development. I personally believe that could also work for other distribution channels, such as a private APT repository, or equivalent to other platforms. People could still build by themselves from sources if that's what they want, and if you want convenience you buy th…

It would be interesting to test this mode. I work for free on the source code, and you can get that for free. But if you don't know what to do with it (i.e. build it) or don't want the hassle of setting up a build environment, you can always pay the project for that effort. I'd argue this would need a special license deviation from the typical OSS ones to prevent distros from packaging it. Otherwise, this model would…

Yes, I arrived to this conclusion too, that to work it would likely not be actual open source (as defined by the Open Source Initiative).

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

#98

Post by pmoriarty »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

Some other ideas:

1 - Charge for support.

2 - Put a Patreon and/or Paypal link prominently on the front page of the website for your product, and clearly and politely ask for financial support. Often people want to help out financially, but they don't see an easy and convenient way to do so. This is one way to let them know how they can.

3 - Consider running Kickstarter campaigns to add new features. See the successful Magit kickstarter[1] for a perfect model of how this was done for a very popular open source project.

[1] - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1681258897/its-magit-th...

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

#99

Post by jahewson »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

Sponsorship, etc. linked to broader goals, such as features, better docs. Reach out to businesses with a positive message: what can we offer if you help us out? Showcase your sponsors, build a small community.

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

#100

Post by klohto »

victor106 wrote: post #84

I asked this on HN a few days back. I open sourced a library and its become heavily used by some of the largest enterprises who make lot of money using that library as one of many. It takes a lot of my time to keep it updated so I would like to be compensated some how for the time it takes me away from my family Even though its used by small and medium businesses I would like only the largest businesses to pay for it…

Consulting or support. State it clearly on the project page and make sure you have a correct license. You need be aware if the library choice in said enterprises is a must-have or nice-to-have. I wouldn’t bet on corp. manager freeing a budget for a non-critical library.

Also, while handling tickets, you can politely explain the user the paid support or consulting if they need it ASAP or require more support. This will can get the manager’s attention more than just “let’s support this guy because we use it”.

As a last resort, you could consider paywalling new features and improvements. Or basically creating paid downstream product with a support and implement changes to the upstream. Sounds awful but that’s basically what most open-source companies do to keep new products alive :)

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