

Business model:  improve OSS and ask for payment to release result as open source - amichail


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SwellJoe
It doesn't work very well. Virtualmin was originally developed in this manner.
We made about $10000 total over the span of about a year...and a big part of
that was due to my existing relationships with ISPs and hosting providers that
desperately wanted a non-cPanel solution to the problem. Very little of it
came from people I wasn't already doing thousands of dollars a year in
business with.

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amichail
Would this make sense? You make whatever improvements to OSS that you like and
then you ask people to pay you so to release your improvements as open source.

You could also release binaries to try to convince people that paying to open
source your improvements would be worth it.

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corentin
It's called ransomware.

Fabrice Bellard (<http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr>), who is not your average
hacker, tried this model with kqemu and as far as I know, despite the great
quality of his work, it didn't work (he finally decided to release the thing
under the GPL).

Stephen King tried a similar system for a novel and it didn't work either (he
quit writing it).

John Carmack has a model that works: initially release the thing under a
proprietary license, make money with it and then release it as open source
software.

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queensnake
If it's big enough, release the software but make people pay for the
documentation. That's how NumPy and VTK do it, currently.

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SwellJoe
I know the developer of NumPy. He has a real job (working predominantly on
NumPy and SciPy). Documentation sales provide pocket change.

And the VTK folks provide services, and I'm certain it's a much larger source
of revenue than documentation.

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davidw
People have tried it, and it doesn't seem to work very well.

~~~
amichail
The advantage is that you would have complete freedom in what you do. It's not
like you are working for anyone.

~~~
SwellJoe
"The advantage is that you would have complete freedom in what you do."

Unless what you want the freedom to do is make a reasonable amount of money.
I'm not saying don't do it, if you want to be able to work a bit more on
projects you love--I've done it several times, and don't regret the time spent
or the low figures earned.

"It's not like you are working for anyone."

Here you're wrong. You're working for everyone that sends you a dime, and they
will let you know it, too. Open Source users who've been asked to pay are
among the most entitled software users on the planet--more even than Open
Source users, in general--I'm a (happy) Open Source developer of 8 years, and
I've done several ransomware projects and I think it's a great way to get
things done...but don't imagine that your users will be particularly nice when
you ignore them.

So, by the definitions of many of the folks here at news.yc, it's not a viable
business model. Actually, by almost anyones definition, it's not a viable
business model. But, it is a fun way to work on projects and make a little
pocket money. If you can make the project profitable in other ways
simultaneously, like writing a book about it, writing articles for magazines
or a popular blog, providing high end services to deep-pocketed corporate
customers, etc. you can make a living...I know many people who've done just
that, including myself for several years. But you won't get rich and you won't
be without a boss--you'll have dozens of bosses.

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brl
Ask payment to who exactly? The 'community'?

~~~
amichail
Anyone can contribute to the payment. When it's high enough for you, you would
release your code as open source.

