Generating Income from Open Source • Hacker News Board

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#101

Post by pcthrowaway » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #85

pcthrowaway wrote: post #44

While we're here, does anyone know if a sole proprietorship donating to OS projects for "sponsorship" (aka listing the donor company's name in the project's github) is deductible as Advertising expenses? Specifically wondering about Canada personally, but I'm sure people in the U.S. would benefit from this knowledge as well. Our tax law (in Canada) is so opaque, and I feel like finding ways for these monetary contrib…

Talk to an accountant. As I understand it, in the USA, "donations" are not deductible unless they are to a bona-fide charity/501(c)(3) type of organiztion. To be deductible as advertising, I would think the payment would need to be be explicitly for advertising services, not a dontation with the side-effect that you are recognized and thanked on a list of donors. That's just a courtesy, not an advertisement.

Hmm.. I would hope it's deductible if the software listed sponsorship as an advertising service, and put a price on the services accordingly.

I can't imagine this is too different from paying a youtube or social media influencer to promote your product, or paying for an ad spot on a podcast.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#102

Post by lamontcg » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

TheNewsIsHere wrote: post #99

lamontcg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this argument at all. > There is nothing wrong with developing software and selling it. It used to be the norm and it is still quite common. Yes, agreed. > These days "open source" is virtue signaling and expected "to be cool". Yes, agreed. > That people then grump about not being paid shows that they are not particularly interested in the concept of open source. Well, yes, they got pulled in by th…

I consider it a feature that some FOSS licenses are effectively bound to their licensed code forever but don’t necessarily prohibit forking and relicensing in future. I do think moving the goalposts or being dishonest about your intentions are wrong. What I’d like to see when this happens is honesty about relicensing with a view toward profit (or whatever you’re after), and not attempting to scrub your more liberally…

> I do think moving the goalposts or being dishonest about your intentions are wrong.

> If you think you might one day make money on it, just say that up front and don’t be greedy when you finally do.

You're implicitly assuming that they're doing a deliberate bait and switch instead of just realizing after the fact that they screwed up.

There seems to be an open source fundamental attribution error here where someone changing their mind is evidence that they plotted all along to do evil.

It is also a failure to apply Hanlon's Razor--the original choice to open source license probably was ignorant/naive/stupid and not done with malice in mind.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#103

Post by godelski » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #24

ezekg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only place I've ever seen anyone pretend that "open source" can legitimately mean something other than the OSI's definition is on this forum. I don’t think this is entirely accurate in practice. I talk to businesses, individuals, and enterprises every single day and they all refer to my SAS as open source software. So I don’t think everybody sees OSS like you and OSI wills them to. I’m stepping on toes by sayin…

>> I talk to businesses, individuals, and enterprises every single day and they all refer to my SAS as open source software. I know it gets tedious, but its useful to politely correct this terminology when it's used incorrectly. I get that managers are not techies, but allowing them to use this term is harmful to them. A) they heard the term from one of their programmers, which means the programmer doesn't understand…

> I get that managers are not techies, but allowing them to use this term is harmful to them.

All I'm saying is that if the words you use have a reasonable interpretation that is different from what is intended, it is better to just adopt new phrasing.

> which can lead to legal troubles

I very much doubt this. LeCun has been calling MAIR's work Open Source for quite awhile and people have been arguing about it being Source Available and not Open Source™. IANAL but I have a feeling that if OSI took Meta to court that they would lose, just like I expect Taco John to lose Taco Tuesday and how Bayer lost aspirin. I'd say that the case would probably even be clearer than those, as all Meta needs is a dictionary. I'm sure there's something similar to Roger's test for this.

Fwiw, I don't know a single person, in the flesh, that thinks Open Source is different from Source Available. My bubble is mostly nerds and techy folks. I was only introduced to the OSI definition here on HN, and I was already starting graduate school by that time, even having work experience developing software. I'm not sure what bubble I'm in or the "OSI's definition is well known" is in, but clearly we have to recognize that at least people like me exist. It seems like we're not uncommon either.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#104

Post by godelski » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

warkanlock wrote: post #37

memefrog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Source available" is not open source and has nothing to do with open source. Open source never confused people until bad-faith actors started intentionally trying to confuse them by labeling things that aren't open source as "open source". Open source has a precise definition and it has had it for decades . If you describe your software as open source and it is not available under an open source license then you are…

> Guess what, most people can't make money from their hobbies Essentially this. As talking heads said, Never for money Always for love

Most people can't make money from their businesses. I'm not sure why that means they shouldn't try.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#105

Post by godelski » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 7:28 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #20

scrollaway wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter one whit whether people can "pay the bills". It's totally irrelevant to the discussion. If you can't make money making open source software, then go get a job. What a terrible fucking take. First of all yes it matters. OSS developers not being able to pay their bills despite maintaining software used by trillion dollar corps has been in the news several times. It’s an ongoing issue and talked abou…

We should absolutely be finding business models that work for open source but not compromising the ethic of it, like open core. It probably just won't make a ridiculous amount of money for open source developers. It's the tradeoff you have to make when deciding to write open source or proprietary software.

> We should absolutely be finding business models that work for open source but not compromising the ethic of it

I don't think anyone is arguing this. We're only arguing that "Source Available" is an extremely reasonable interpretation of the words "Open Source."

And I'll be honest, I don't see much of a difference between a Common Clause License and MIT. For the average person, they are functionally equivalent. I don't see this as a big deviation from the original ethics and goals but rather than it is an update because bad actors abused the openness.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#106

Post by bick_nyers » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #42

[old person rant] There is nothing wrong with developing software and selling it. It used to be the norm and it is still quite common. These days "open source" is virtue signaling and expected "to be cool". That people then grump about not being paid shows that they are not particularly interested in the concept of open source. However, the term open source has been used for so many different things that is has lost…

I wonder if "pay to compile" would work well. In other words, open source your code to the world, but if you want to download an .exe you need to pay an upfront cost.

Obviously doesn't work with all types of software, but even something like a C++ backend library (like OpenCV) you could open source the C++, but sell access to the python bindings.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#107

Post by robertlagrant » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

brightlancer wrote: post #89

robertlagrant wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is not open source. It's proprietary software offered as freeware for non-commercial use I shudder at these confident, definitive statements when they're off the mark this far. It's not just "freeware" when you can see, modify, sell and redistribute under the same licence. It's open source.

> It's not just "freeware" when you can see, modify, sell and redistribute under the same licence. It's open source. As the author described it, you could _not_ sell it: "This license allows Isotope to be used in personal or open source projects for free." It turns out that the author was incorrect about Isotope because their software is GPL, but what they were proposing was not open source: "There are no Pro version…

Sure, but that's not the case? It was already mentioned in this thread that it was dual-licenced GPLv3.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#108

Post by elcritch » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

bick_nyers wrote: post #106

ThinkBeat wrote: post #42

[old person rant] There is nothing wrong with developing software and selling it. It used to be the norm and it is still quite common. These days "open source" is virtue signaling and expected "to be cool". That people then grump about not being paid shows that they are not particularly interested in the concept of open source. However, the term open source has been used for so many different things that is has lost…

I wonder if "pay to compile" would work well. In other words, open source your code to the world, but if you want to download an .exe you need to pay an upfront cost. Obviously doesn't work with all types of software, but even something like a C++ backend library (like OpenCV) you could open source the C++, but sell access to the python bindings.

I've pondered in the past about paid "documentation". You have basic opencv docs but charge for the in depth docs. Really it's sorta a thing when people buy books from SMEs on an open source project.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#109

Post by bruce511 » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 4:05 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #103

bruce511 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I talk to businesses, individuals, and enterprises every single day and they all refer to my SAS as open source software. I know it gets tedious, but its useful to politely correct this terminology when it's used incorrectly. I get that managers are not techies, but allowing them to use this term is harmful to them. A) they heard the term from one of their programmers, which means the programmer doesn't understand…

> I get that managers are not techies, but allowing them to use this term is harmful to them. All I'm saying is that if the words you use have a reasonable interpretation that is different from what is intended, it is better to just adopt new phrasing. > which can lead to legal troubles I very much doubt this. LeCun has been calling MAIR's work Open Source for quite awhile and people have been arguing about it being…

I didn't mean legal troubles as in from OSI,but legal troubles from a copyright holder if the source is treated as Open by a programmer.

Open software can be distributed freely. If a programmer is told it is Open, there is a chance they will unwittingly use it in a way that is not permissable under the actual license terms.

Even as an honest mistake, this can lead to serious copyright violations that some companies will not hesitate to demand payment for.

Re: Generating Income from Open Source

#110

Post by bruce511 » Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 4:11 AM UTC

ezekg wrote: post #81

bruce511 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I talk to businesses, individuals, and enterprises every single day and they all refer to my SAS as open source software. I know it gets tedious, but its useful to politely correct this terminology when it's used incorrectly. I get that managers are not techies, but allowing them to use this term is harmful to them. A) they heard the term from one of their programmers, which means the programmer doesn't understand…

The problem is that I'm not talking to managers when seeing the term open source, most of the time I'm talking to programmers. Literally all techies. Many of them can use, modify, and distribute my SAS free of charge , like every other OSS license they know, so it actually won't get them into legal trouble. My SAS is open source to them, because the ELv2 only has a single usage restriction and that's not their use-ca…

Fair enough. If your license makes it "virtual Open Source" in their hands, then they can call it as such and use it as such.

And sure, while ELv2 is not an OSI open license, it's not exactly a proprietary license either. So the line here is very blurred.

Your position in this case makes sense.