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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

#141

Post by oh_sigh »

victor106 wrote: post #108
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…

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will consider offering consulting support. I just wish there was an open source license that basically says "its free to use but if your company makes more than x billion of dollars in profit then you have to pay $x per month/year."

You could just write that term into a modified BSD license or some such. It wouldn't be Open Source at that point but it would get your point across. Enforcement would be difficult but you'd really only need to rely on the rule following behavior of a few big corps

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

#142

Post by kemitchell »

ddevault wrote: post #54
mwcampbell wrote: post #47

How about dual licensing of the core software itself? That is, release the source under a copyleft license, and sell licenses to companies who won't accept the copyleft terms. For libraries and tools targeted at software developers, I think the Parity Public License [1] is a particularly good choice. Taking it further, we should be willing to challenge the strict parameters of the Open Source Definition, the Debian F…

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…

You make a perfectly circular argument. We shouldn't call things the OSI mailing list doesn't like this year "open source" because companies will call things the OSI mailing list doesn't like this year "open source". In other words, "open source" is valuable because it's OSI's exclusive intellectual property. Its utility lies in exclusion and control.

If you want to retreat to "principles", that's fine. But then you'll have to deal with how poorly OSI and FSF definitions express them, differences of opinion among members hidden behind handwavy vague definitions, and a long history of inconsistent results on specific licenses.

I have no idea how any of this makes it easier for companies to disregard copyleft terms. Diffusion of copyright ownership and constant initiatives to discourage enforcement, by giving up rights and including by vilifying those enforce theirs, make it easy for companies to disregard copyleft.

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

#143

Post by lifeisstillgood »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #115
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…

CKEditor ( https://ckeditor.com/ ) releases their product using the GPL license. Most large business avoid the GPL since they don't want to release their own code in accordance with the GPL. CKSource, the company that releases CKEditor, sells commercial licences to those companies, and will issue free licenses to GPL-incompatible open source projects. https://ckeditor.com/pricing/

Can you release the same code under two licenses?

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

#144

Post by kemitchell »

pabs3 wrote: post #80

I get the feeling that every model for a business making money from open source has some sort of perverse incentive.

The value of software lies overwhelmingly in the software. Charging for anything else perverts incentives. Charging for features? Make it hard to add features. Charging for configuration? Make it hard to configure. Charging for training or documentation? Make it hard to understand. Charging for hosting? Make it hard to host, monitor, tune, &c. Not charging at all? Slurp up personal data on users, and charge for that.

You can get good alignment in contracts that pay developers to write new software. And you can get good alignment in license agreements that pay for software already written. You can get good alignment in traditional software-vendor combination contracts for licenses or services plus maintenance and support.

Depending on what you mean by "open source", a substantial number of potentially well aligned models go out of bounds.

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

#145

Post by phjesusthatguy3 »

I've made my time invested in open source projects pay for itself by not giving my source away for free. Present your project as any other paid-for system, let customers pay for it, and only then display access to source. One of two things happen: Paying customers continue to pay for your maintenance of the project, or they pass along the free link to your source and you know they're not a worthwhile customer.

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

#146

Post by kemitchell »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #28
open-source-ux wrote: post #15

There is another option, unpopular with some open source advocates, the source-only option. You simply sell your software product (with source code) for a price. That's it. Simple and uncomplicated. Your customers get the source of your app. They can modify the code to suit their needs. But unlike open source, they cannot re-distribute the app. Very few companies would object to this. Some popular and profitable proj…

That is just "sell your software as closed source". Certainly that works, but not really related to the title. > can still study and learn from the source code. But will have to be careful not to use any of it and have no possibility of contributing improvements.

Many companies on this model welcome and maintain improvements. Some also extend that program to nonpaying customers, who may be more capable of contributing back than paying the standard license fee.

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

#147

Post by wizzwizz4 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #143
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CKEditor ( https://ckeditor.com/ ) releases their product using the GPL license. Most large business avoid the GPL since they don't want to release their own code in accordance with the GPL. CKSource, the company that releases CKEditor, sells commercial licences to those companies, and will issue free licenses to GPL-incompatible open source projects. https://ckeditor.com/pricing/

Can you release the same code under two licenses?

If you hold sufficient copyright to do so (e.g. you wrote all the code), yeah. Licenses are a gift, not an obligation.

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

#148

Post by wizzwizz4 »

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…

How about asking them to sponsor it? And as part of the sponsorship, they get to schedule meetings (no more than 30 minutes a day, perhaps?) where they can tell you how they're using the library, so you can consider that when making changes.

So long as it's clear you have no obligation to re-write the library especially for them, will this work?

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

#149

Post by agustif »

muttled wrote: post #103
ianbooker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Are there any tricks to not getting entangled in the integration web? I could think maybe keep some references on hand of people who do integration work and refer them instead whenever the topic comes up?

Run a partner program and get a cut.

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

#150

Post by KMnO4 »

mperham wrote: post #129
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…

Easiest is to license it as GPL or AGPL, sell a commercial license.

Seems like that would do a lot of harm to your project. GPL isn't the only way to restrict commercial use. It's definitely the best way to annoy people working on non-commercial OSS with any other license though.
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