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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

#71

Post by twodave »

gwd wrote: post #64
nvr219 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Cunningham's Law: Posting the wrong answer is the best way to get the right answer.

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.

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

#72

Post by Cu3PO42 »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #61

No. You sell additional premium extension to provide needed left out of the open-source offering. You sell cloud hosting and on prem hosting. There is nothing at all wrong with that. That you have built a business where you make a living from software you wrote is awesome. I wish I could.

Given that the main software is AGPL, the extensions would also be open source.

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

#73

Post by NoThisIsMe »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #61

No. You sell additional premium extension to provide needed left out of the open-source offering. You sell cloud hosting and on prem hosting. There is nothing at all wrong with that. That you have built a business where you make a living from software you wrote is awesome. I wish I could.

Yes.

It's right there in bold: the customer is provided with the source code of the extension when they purchase it. So long as the user is free to study, modify, and distribute this source code, then it's FOSS.

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

#74

Post by unnouinceput »

leovailati wrote: post #63
kgwgk wrote: post #44

Potential next episode: someone is taking advantage of my open source software, it's getting harder to sell it and earn a living.

Just wondering here, is there any way to protect oneself from that type of situation while at the same time keeping the source code open? Obviously, the name and logo are trademarked, but a third party could rebrand the program while using the same underlying source code.

Open source == no protection. You rely on the morals of your customers. At any time somebody bigger than you can take your free source, modify it, make it better because they have already a base and sell it as closed proprietary software and you can't do anything about it.

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

#75

Post by everybodyknows »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #54
jpetso wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting the author from the comments: > Yes, the plugins are open source, too. Customers can test what they will get in an online demo which is available on my website. > They get the functionality as well as the code after they bought the extension in my shop.

This is a bit confusing to me. They sell the plugins, but also the plugins are licensed that a customer can redistribute them to other customers legally? At first it sounded like 'open core' with the plugins not being open source, but if the plugins are open source too... I guess people pay for them, priced modestly, just for the convenience and support?

>convenience and support

Also initial access, and updates. Extensions are not mentioned on the free download page ...

https://www.open3a.de/page-Download

... rather, pay-per-download:

>If someone wants advanced features, I have a shop! In my shop the users can buy many of the extensions I have developed over the years. The prices are reasonable and start at 20€ (~$24) up to around 80€ (~$96) or so. The price contains updates for this extension for one year which means the next two versions.

https://www.open3a.de/page-Plugins

Apparently German businesses aren’t much interested in running bootleg copies of modestly-priced a la carte extensions.

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

#76

Post by gwd »

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.

I didn't realize until you said it, but yes, I do this for technical discussions too. Sometimes I've volunteered to write up a description of an issue on which I'm knowledgeable but not an expert, and when it comes to write it up, I realize there are subtleties about the situation that I didn't understand. So I just make my best guess as to what I think the situation might be, and post it to people who are the experts, knowing they'll correct any mistakes. It is indeed a much more effective way of getting someone to explain something than going back and forth with questions.

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

#77

Post by bityard »

tyingq wrote: post #36
protomyth wrote: post #6

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 This would be an interesting model for quite a few services. It reminds me of Ubiquity's cloud key. I wish some government grant…

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

Every single time the RPi comes up in an HN thread, someone mentions the reliability of SD cards. The truth is:

1) Regular SD cards were never designed to be OS volumes, of course they're going to fail when used for that. Buy better SD cards, like ones with high write endurance.

2) RPi 4 does not need to boot off SD card. It can boot from any USB drive of your choosing, or over Ethernet.

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

#78

Post by tyingq »

bityard wrote: post #77
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.

Every single time the RPi comes up in an HN thread, someone mentions the reliability of SD cards. The truth is: 1) Regular SD cards were never designed to be OS volumes, of course they're going to fail when used for that. Buy better SD cards, like ones with high write endurance. 2) RPi 4 does not need to boot off SD card. It can boot from any USB drive of your choosing, or over Ethernet.

I brought it up because it was being sold as an appliance type device with invoice data on it, to be sold to probably non-technical customers. Not just as a random gripe. I did reply, after finding that specific product page, with an update that she is shipping it with a real drive.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #72
ThinkBeat wrote: post #61

No. You sell additional premium extension to provide needed left out of the open-source offering. You sell cloud hosting and on prem hosting. There is nothing at all wrong with that. That you have built a business where you make a living from software you wrote is awesome. I wish I could.

Given that the main software is AGPL, the extensions would also be open source.

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by bityard »

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

This is such an important concept that it even has its own field of study and practice called "business continuity." Many business have legal agreements with customers and partners _requiring_ this.

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