
Ask HN: How would one build a business that only develops free software? - anondon
So I was reading Richard Stallman&#x27;s blog on why you should not use google&#x2F;uber&#x2F;apple&#x2F;twitter etc and I understand his reasoning. But what I don&#x27;t understand is how would one go about building a startup or business that develops and distributes free software only and make good money doing so?<p>For example, would it be possible to build a free software version of uber&#x2F;twitter&#x2F;facebook etc? How would that work?<p>By removing all restrictions on the software, what is the incentive to not pirate the software? The GPL can be enforced, but that is clearly not practical especially outside the US.
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Mathnerd314
Easiest (lowest risk) method AFAICT is consulting. Make a webpage, do some SEO
& a few keynote talks at big conferences. Once the consulting is paying well,
quit your (presumably proprietary) job & only accept projects that involve
free software. See e.g. [https://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2009/02/01/free-
software-consu...](https://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2009/02/01/free-software-
consulting-marketing-business-model/), there are tons of wordpress shops for
example.

Another method is to get skilled in another profession, e.g. law degree,
accountant, chiropractor, etc., work in that for a while, build up some custom
OSS software to use in that work, promote it & get a userbase, then quit the
main job and sell software support / premium addons.

Final method is crowdfunding, for example see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_\(social_network\))
as a free software version of Twitter/Facebook, although I think crowdfunding
has gotten harder since then so now you need an MVP or something to succeed.
It's great for consumer software, particularly for moving codebases from beta-
quality to production-ready.

------
mindcrime
A business is more than just the source code. The source for Reddit, for
example, is OSS. So anybody should be able to put Reddit out of business in a
few days, right? But yet... nobody has. Hmmm....

So yeah, you can distribute source code and still make money. Lots of
companies do it. Red Hat, SugarCRM, Alfresco, etc.

In some ways it's probably even easier for an online service to both be OSS
and be successful, exactly because it takes all the other "stuff" (hosting,
devops, marketing, network effects, etc.) to be successful. And, in fact,
there _are_ OSS replacements for things like Facebook and Twitter. The problem
is, very few people use them for whatever reason (probably mostly network
effects).

So at least in regards to the Facebooks, Twitters, etc. of the world, the
first question you'd have to answer, is how to get people to switch to your
service, whether it's free software or otherwise.

~~~
westurner
> The source for Reddit [...]

Src: [https://github.com/reddit/reddit](https://github.com/reddit/reddit)
/blob/master/r2/setup.py

Docs: [https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki/Install-
guide](https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki/Install-guide)

"Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES)" is donationware:
[https://github.com/honestbleeps/Reddit-Enhancement-
Suite](https://github.com/honestbleeps/Reddit-Enhancement-Suite)

"List of Independent GNU social Instances"
[http://skilledtests.com/wiki/List_of_Independent_GNU_social_...](http://skilledtests.com/wiki/List_of_Independent_GNU_social_Instances)

> [...] the first question you'd have to answer, is how to get people to
> switch to your service, whether it's free software or otherwise.

"Growth hacking":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_hacking)

------
BjoernKW
That depends on your business and your business model. Some business models
only work with at least partially closed source software while some profit
from open source licensing (when applying a dual licensing model for
instance).

Stallman is an extremist: To him every piece of software has to be free (as in
speech) and if it isn't it's evil. He is an activist. So, it's fine for him to
have that kind of worldview. The real world and pragmatic solutions often
aren't simply black or white, though.

------
westurner
"Business models for open-source software"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-
sourc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-
source_software)

...

\- [https://github.com/google](https://github.com/google)

\-
[https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform)

\-
[https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes)
(Apache 2.0)

\- [https://github.com/uber](https://github.com/uber)

\- [https://github.com/apple](https://github.com/apple) (Swift is Apache 2.0)

\- [https://github.com/microsoft](https://github.com/microsoft)

\- [https://github.com/github](https://github.com/github)

\- [https://github.com/twitter](https://github.com/twitter)

\- [https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-
agreement](https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement)

\- [https://github.com/facebook](https://github.com/facebook)

...

\- "GNU Social" (GNU AGPL v3)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social)

... [http://choosealicense.com/appendix/](http://choosealicense.com/appendix/)
has a table for comparison of open source software licenses.

[http://tinyurl.com/p6mka3k](http://tinyurl.com/p6mka3k) describes Open Source
Governance in a chart with two axes (Cathedral / Bazaar , Benevolent Dictator
/ Formal Meritocracy) ... as distinct from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-
source_governance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_governance) ,
which is the application of open source software principles to government.
USDS Playbook advises "Default to open"
[https://playbook.cio.gov/#play13](https://playbook.cio.gov/#play13)

Anarchy / Budgeting:
[https://github.com/WhiteHouse/budgetdata](https://github.com/WhiteHouse/budgetdata)

