

Ask HN: How would you monetize jQuery? Coffeescript? GHC? - cjtenny

If you were developing a new language&#x2F;library&#x2F;tool that you wanted to release as open source, and that has no real business being SAAS, how would you try to make a living off of it, or at least support the time you spend? Plain old donate button? Crowdfunding for additional feature development? Restrictive license for commercial use? I&#x27;d like to hear about some success stories for such projects, the relationship of the strategy to the type of project, and the results of testing various strategies in the field.
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electrichead
It is an interesting question. I'd like to see what HNers think about it.
Personally, I would think that offering dev services or tutoring (sencha, red
hat, SPServices, etc.), restrictive licensing (Green sock, sencha again,
neo4j) would be more likely to self-sustain than payment offerings (donations,
crowdsourcing, etc). I guess a good company to watch is famo.us since they are
currently making the rounds after being funded.

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wikwocket
I think offering code as open source and then charging for support is very
typical. E.g. MySQL, Red Hat, etc. But that is probably only profitable after
a ton of people are using the software in question.

If you are releasing a new thing, you won't have an existing install base, so
probably better to charge for licenses. After you get a fanbase, you can
crowdfund your version 2.0 or related material.

