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How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

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Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#171

Post by bigiain »

javajosh wrote: post #46
tyingq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be a bit wary of something as important as invoices on the Rpi storage though. Hopefully there's some automatic backup.

Or buy two or more put them on the same subnet and let them replicate. More money!

I thin I'd prefer a cold spare to a hot spare. There's probably more change of failure happening at around the same time if a pair have been running as replicas or one as a hot spare. A 15 min invoicing downtime while you unbox and boot the cold spare and restore from the usb stick from the failed one - is probably not as big a deal as the risk of one of your replication pair going bad and possibly corrupting the other, or having the similar runtime secondary fail around the same time as the primary.

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#172

Post by bigiain »

nemiah wrote: post #133
imhoguy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on customer base. This is B2B solution so I assume when she picks up the phone the caller is someone who values own time. That way she can hear about frequent needs of users who don't buy the thing when it lacks some essential feature, also could upsell existing extensions or the boxed version. Customers often have no idea of potential the software offers. Simply it is support+marketing+sales number.

I do this because I'm in it for the long run. Sure, maybe it won't pay off, but my "first directive" is, to get people to use my open3A. If they've put all their data in it and miss some feature in the future it is more probable that they will just buy it from me instead of going through the hassle of moving to another solution. If they have a good support experience that just gives them a better feeling with my soft…

I think you've hit a really nice market niche too. If you get a support call it's from someone having difficulty extracting money from someone else because invoicing isn't working. So long as you solve that problem for them they'll associate your software as being directly valuable to their bottom line, and that'll make them much more likely to agree to pay money for it.

I suspect that approach wouldn't work nearly so well if the connection between the software you're selling and the money rolling in to their bank account wasn't quite so obvious. I probably wouldn't try such a generous free version of, say, wiki software or document management or backups - things that are way too easy to consider as "cost centres"...

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#173

Post by bigiain »

bityard wrote: post #80
scottlamb wrote: post #62

Kudos to the author! I don't get this part: > In 2021 I recently launched my newest product: It's called open3ABox and it's a raspberry pi with open3A pre-installed which I deliver to my customers who have not the technical skills for their own server but don't want a cloud version either. It's fully remote managed and monitored by me more steady income, yay When people object to cloud (SaaS really), I tend to think…

There are plenty of cases where I want to own a thing, but make someone else responsible for managing it. And if they fail or go away, I want to know that I can hire someone else to manage it instead. If the app is hosted entirely in the cloud, _everything_ is gone if the provider pulls the plug suddenly. If the app is hosted on a device that I own and the provider goes away, it will probably still keep working for a…

> Worst case, I still at least have the option of hiring someone to crack it open and extract the data to import someone else.

Even that worst "single person provider got hit by a bus" case is already somewhat mitigated here - since the software is open source.

I'm guessing she's likely set this up so anyone with physical access and appropriate credentials (which the client has by default) and linux experience, could manage/maintain the RasPi box and/or migrate everything to a self hosted version on a more "regular" linux box.

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#174

Post by bigiain »

scottlamb wrote: post #93
bityard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of cases where I want to own a thing, but make someone else responsible for managing it. And if they fail or go away, I want to know that I can hire someone else to manage it instead. If the app is hosted entirely in the cloud, _everything_ is gone if the provider pulls the plug suddenly. If the app is hosted on a device that I own and the provider goes away, it will probably still keep working for a…

It's a given that you should have backups of your business data, no matter if you're using a hosted installation or a local one. With backups, if the hosted provider pulls the plug, you don't lose _everything_. You may be scrambling to set up the replacement but you have your data, and in this case you'd also have the source code, so you'll survive. And keep in mind that "Raspberry Pi fails" is a more common scenario…

Another commenter mentions the setup involves a Pi with an SSD and two USB sticks. It might be configured so you're required to switch usb sticks for consecutive backups, so you'd always have at least your second most recent backup completely offline - or even have the system ensure there's only a backup usb stick instead while the backup is running (and either unmount it of nag you to take it out when the backup is done).

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#175

Post by bigiain »

nemiah wrote: post #141
imhoguy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it is opened to the Internet? May be just a box behind a NAT calling home and/or be part of closed VPN swarm. I would love to hear how the management part got implemented.

The management works like this: Every open3ABox has an open websocket connection to my server. I do the monitoring over this connection and for updates and support I tell the box over the websocket connection to forward a port via ssh to my server. The port will be automatically closed by the open3ABox after three hours. This means no constantly open port and an encrypted connection where only my server is allowed to…

Nice.

Reverse ssh tunnels are a really good way to manage stuff like that.

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#176

Post by bigiain »

xwdv wrote: post #110
yboris wrote: post #49

I sell my MIT open source Video Hub App for $5 ($3.50 goes to a cost-effective charity - it's charityware). Over the 3 years it's resulted in over $9000 donated to protect people from malaria. Public: https://videohubapp.com/en/ GitHub: https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App Charityware: https://medium.com/@whyboris/charityware-doing-good-with-pro...

I would love to build charity ware to help offset some of the ethically questionable things I do, but I was wondering how did you choose a cause to donate toward? Did you know someone personally who perished from malaria? There’s so many things that can be donated to I don’t know how to pick one or evaluate where donations would even be most effective.

Mike Monteiro (a self describe asshole: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/ruined-by-design/ ) thinks and talks and writes a lot about this.

A particularly cutting piece I like to remember is:

"But here’s the thing. You can’t help Uber build Greyball during the day, or help Palantir design databases to round up immigrants as your main gig, and then buy ethics offsets by doing a non-profit side hustle. We need you to work ethically during that day job much more than we need you working with that non-profit." -- https://deardesignstudent.com/ethics-cant-be-a-side-hustle-b...

He's outspoken and hard lined and uncomfortable to listen to. But he's probably right as well.

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#177

Post by bigiain »

twodave wrote: post #71
gwd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an article recently which advised purposely saying something which you knew to be incorrect in order to kickstart a conversation with someone. "What do you do?" "Software development." "What kind of software?" [back and forth, question-and-short-answer at a time] "What do you do?" "Software development." "Oh, so you like write websites and stuff?" "No, actually, [long enthusiastic explanation of their job]"

I've found I do this, but the reason I tend to (especially in technical conversations) is to try and establish a shared vocabulary. Often times I find that I understand the words people are saying but not enough of the context. Injecting an example of my own helps anchor the conversation for me and keeps the exchange of ideas going.

Some of my non-geek friends in a friend circle with quite a few geeks of different flavours call this "geek butt sniffing".

I've been accused of it often, when I meet someone new (who's a geek) and we do what in my head is the "geek subject matter negotiation", where each side narrows down domain expertise and experience by doing a breadth first tree search across all shared geek-domains, followed by a depth first search down the tree paths with significant crossover.

One recovering-geek friend says we're going "Pshhhkkkkkkrrrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchchchchchchcch" at each other before deciding on a conversation topic and speed...

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#178

Post by bigiain »

amenod wrote: post #13
mosaic_school wrote: post #7

Please correct me if I'm wrong but this is not how I understand the meaning of "open source software". It sounds rather like customers get source access. Do they have the right to sell the source code or re-release it in any way by following an open source license? ( https://opensource.org/licenses ) P.S. I'm not criticizing your business model or anyone elses.

Even though OSI clearly defines what "open source" means, it is sometimes (often even?) used as a synonym for "source available", as opposed to "free software" (which is the term that FSF promotes). I'm not saying which term is better, just explaining why "open source" might not be objectively wrong in this case.

I doubt there's anybody who uses the term "open source" that didn't just read it in the latest issue of CTO Monthly who'd argue against code under the AGPL being "clearly open source".

Being on Github doesn't make a project open source. Having a way for other people to easily contribute doesn't make a project open source. But being licensed under AGPL 100% does make a project open source.

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#179

Post by xwdv »

bigiain wrote: post #176
xwdv wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to build charity ware to help offset some of the ethically questionable things I do, but I was wondering how did you choose a cause to donate toward? Did you know someone personally who perished from malaria? There’s so many things that can be donated to I don’t know how to pick one or evaluate where donations would even be most effective.

Mike Monteiro (a self describe asshole: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/ruined-by-design/ ) thinks and talks and writes a lot about this. A particularly cutting piece I like to remember is: "But here’s the thing. You can’t help Uber build Greyball during the day, or help Palantir design databases to round up immigrants as your main gig, and then buy ethics offsets by doing a non-profit side hustle. We need…

If that’s the case then I simply won’t do anything at all and focus on my day job.

But I don’t think that’s the case, because I think doing something is still better than nothing, and for some people ethics offsets can help soothe their weary souls.

Re: How I earn a living selling my open-source web-based invoicing application

#180

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

>Here comes the crucial part: My shop remembers all the extensions a customer bought and every time she downloads her version it puts all the paid for extensions together in a zip file for the update. This is how I sell open source. The customer gets the code (and functionality) after she bought it.

Why is this unnecessarily gendered?

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