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Making Money from Open-Source Software

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Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#11

Post by gmueckl »

gk1 wrote: post #7

After reading this several times I still don't understand "how [they] did it." Also tried the AGPL description.[1] Can someone confirm: They just licensed it so that commercial use is prohibited without payment? I've worked (and am working) with companies that have an open-source product and a commercial offering built around it. My experience is that it's easy to get _some_ companies to pay you, whether it's for the…

It is more nuanced than that: RavenDB seems OK to use if you have an application that shields its users completely from the database itself. The database server is AGPL, but the client library your application uses is MIT licensed, which is fairly liberal. If you were to directly embed RabenDB in a product, you would have to provide the full source, even if you run it as a service and don't distribute binaries of the software.

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#12

Post by mistrial9 »

yesimahuman wrote: post #9

For others looking for ways to monetize open source, we’ve learned at Ionic that many enterprises aren’t just looking to buy a premium version of your OSS project, they want your help solving (with software) a ton of related challenges around the technology/space, too. The big money is in doing those things too and not just being one small piece of the puzzle. So, for us, that means helping teams be successful with a…

companies outsource the jobs that are the hardest, least-desirable, or worst case, within some turf war or other management dysfunction.. plenty of those also pay "the big money" ... for some duration.. its not easy

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#13

Post by usaphp »

yesimahuman wrote: post #9

For others looking for ways to monetize open source, we’ve learned at Ionic that many enterprises aren’t just looking to buy a premium version of your OSS project, they want your help solving (with software) a ton of related challenges around the technology/space, too. The big money is in doing those things too and not just being one small piece of the puzzle. So, for us, that means helping teams be successful with a…

Isn't it just consulting? How is it different from just offering dev services as a feeelance agency?

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#14

Post by TAForObvReasons »

usaphp wrote: post #13
yesimahuman wrote: post #9

For others looking for ways to monetize open source, we’ve learned at Ionic that many enterprises aren’t just looking to buy a premium version of your OSS project, they want your help solving (with software) a ton of related challenges around the technology/space, too. The big money is in doing those things too and not just being one small piece of the puzzle. So, for us, that means helping teams be successful with a…

Isn't it just consulting? How is it different from just offering dev services as a feeelance agency?

It is, the open source project functions as marketing for your abilities to develop solutions in the space.

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#15

Post by codetrotter »

gk1 wrote: post #7

After reading this several times I still don't understand "how [they] did it." Also tried the AGPL description.[1] Can someone confirm: They just licensed it so that commercial use is prohibited without payment? I've worked (and am working) with companies that have an open-source product and a commercial offering built around it. My experience is that it's easy to get _some_ companies to pay you, whether it's for the…

> to make any significant revenue you're going to have to work hard to provide a lot more value on top of the open-source option, and you probably don't want it to be "consulting."

Why not consulting?

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#17

Post by nemild »

Reupping Nadia Eghbal's excellent, Lemonade Stand: A handy guide to financial support for open source

https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand

This document aims to provide an exhaustive list of all the ways that people get paid for open source work. Hopefully, projects and contributors will find this helpful in figuring out the best options for them.

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#18

Post by gk1 »

usaphp wrote: post #13
yesimahuman wrote: post #9

For others looking for ways to monetize open source, we’ve learned at Ionic that many enterprises aren’t just looking to buy a premium version of your OSS project, they want your help solving (with software) a ton of related challenges around the technology/space, too. The big money is in doing those things too and not just being one small piece of the puzzle. So, for us, that means helping teams be successful with a…

Isn't it just consulting? How is it different from just offering dev services as a feeelance agency?

Because you can build products around the open-source core. So then you are selling enterprise products, not services.

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#19

Post by shoo »

jaabe wrote: post #5

I work for a Danish municipality that co-operates a number of open source projects with other muniplacities. I know we’re a niche of sorts, but the setup we apply is to find small local development houses who can build and maintain our code based, but also sell us hosting. We’ll need a system to handle our vacationflow, with employees reporting it, managers approving it and an integration to our payment system. We’ll…

> whole governance around the code base

Yes, ideally you want to have some highly competent in-house technical ability to assess the quality and maintainability of the codebase that is being produced, separately from the business requirements, otherwise there is a fair chance that you may end up with a lot of low quality code and a system that cannot be safely or cheaply modified.

I've seen a couple of organisations outsource development, keeping only project management and domain expertise in house, but having no in house ability to assess the quality of technical work.

Don't do that. If your vendors fill your project with the most profitable least experienced/capable developers, after enough years of that you'll get to have exciting meetings about "we're no longer able to estimate how long it will take to make changes to the system".

Re: Making Money from Open-Source Software

#20

Post by gk1 »

gmueckl wrote: post #11
gk1 wrote: post #7

After reading this several times I still don't understand "how [they] did it." Also tried the AGPL description.[1] Can someone confirm: They just licensed it so that commercial use is prohibited without payment? I've worked (and am working) with companies that have an open-source product and a commercial offering built around it. My experience is that it's easy to get _some_ companies to pay you, whether it's for the…

It is more nuanced than that: RavenDB seems OK to use if you have an application that shields its users completely from the database itself. The database server is AGPL, but the client library your application uses is MIT licensed, which is fairly liberal. If you were to directly embed RabenDB in a product, you would have to provide the full source, even if you run it as a service and don't distribute binaries of the…

Therefore, companies pay for a license to avoid having to provide the full source of their application. Is that right?
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