

Ask HN: Monetization strategy for my open source projects? - nodemaker

Hi Hacker News,<p>I have two really cool projects that I want to open source.<p>First one is called Baraka and its a Python framework for generating Objective C code.You can generate Objective C classes by writing their templates in Python.
Its very useful as some vanilla code needs to be written in every app and using Baraka you can auto-generate most of your vanilla code.<p>Second one is a re-implementation of Facebook for iPhone and I would like to open source it and call it OpenBook.It basically uses the facebook graph api and has most of the functionality the facebook for iPhone has.<p>Now I want to do this for the following reasons.<p>1) They have been rotting in my private repos for quite some time now and I would rather have them benefitting some other hacker than rot there.I also want to give back to OS.<p>2) I would like to promote my free hacker news app for iphones and ipads.
(Check it out at itunes.apple.com/us/app/hackernode/id473882597)<p>3) If possible I would like to make some money :)<p>Now can you please share your thoughts on how I can accomplish goal 3 and also what license I should use and why?<p>OpenBook will most likely be free but how do I protect myself against sleazy copycats who will publish a dozen paid clones of OpenBook on the app store the next day?
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patio11
Commenting mostly because you asked me to on Twitter:

1) The market value of a social network with 0 users is 0. This would be true
if you were at 100% feature-parity with Facebook. You're not.

2) There are a couple of ways to make money with OSS. I strongly suggest
moving away from the consumer Internet onto the producer Internet with your
OSS endeavors if you want to make money. This gives you a lot of attractive
options, such as a) solving the problems of companies which otherwise would
have to pay $20k per month per engineer to solve those problems and then b)
selling them consulting services priced with regards to the value you will
create for their businesses.

For example, I have OSS A/B testing software. That fact plus a history of
publishing regarding A/B testing and achieving results with it makes me pretty
darn useful to other software companies. I do occasional consulting on how to
implement A/B testing at software companies, generally less on the code side
and more on the "What should we test? How should we test it? Can you get us
started?" side and price that service appropriately, with a salespitch
sounding something like "So what would a 5% lift in your conversions at this
point in the funnel do for your business? Cool. I think my project rate will
be only a fraction of that, and my clients get 5% lifts all the time."

3) Code isn't valuable per se. Solving problems is valuable. To solve problems
with code, you will often have to market that code directly to people who have
the problems your code will solve. Engineers often think that the act of
uploading code to Github will make magical things happen for them. They are
sorely mistaken.

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nodemaker
Thank you very much for responding.

I would like to clarify that OpenBook is not a new social network.It just
shows a person's facebook feed and pics like the official app.Call it a
facebook for iphone clone if you will.

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patio11
Ah, my mistake. OK, back to the question: who does this code solve a problem
for? Facebook already has an app to do this and it is highly likely that
theirs is superior to yours. Additionally, folks don't pay THEM for it,
either.

~~~
nodemaker
Its true that it doesnt really solve anything.I just made it last year to see
if I can. (Actually I built HackerNode from the same code which does solve a
problem for folks trying to read HN on iOS devices)

But now I am thinking if I open source it then other people can contribute and
perhaps make it better than the official app.

Think firefox for facebook iphone apps.

~~~
dantiberian
So if it isn't solving a problem, why would it be useful to anyone?

~~~
nodemaker
Actually it is solving some problems.It enables you to read your facebook feed
and friends feeds ,profiles and their photos etc etc.

Its just that facebook for iphone is also solving those problems and some
extra ones too.

With the support of the open source community it could solve so many other
novel problems and even solve the existing ones better.

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macca321
make your HN app better than other HN apps and charge for it - add some
features like "Don't show posts about x" and "Hide stories after reading".
Offline capabilities

If you already have these features, promote them.

