

Ask HN: How to monetize support of existing free and open-source projects? - hakaaak

Have been managing a few open-source projects for years and have wanted to get paid for the work that I put into it in my spare time. I am aware that it is much more difficult getting people to pay for support for free, open-source projects, especially after the maintainer has been supporting them for free previously, but I feel like I have nothing to lose since the product will only get better if I am more motivated to work on it. Any advice?
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subpixel
If users are submitting pull-requests and you're just too busy to manage the
process for free, that's one thing. Good luck charging for that.

But if you have a backlog of enhancements that a bunch of people want but
can't/aren't coding themselves, maybe you could run a little campaign to raise
$this_much money by $this_deadline in order to deliver $these_features

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jmathai
I'm doing this for a project I started, OpenPhoto. It's sort of like Wordpress
in that anyone can download and install the software. And like Wordpress, we
are trying to monetize it by providing a hosted solution.

I quickly found, for us, that hosting alone wasn't sufficient. So now we are
offering complimentary solutions along side the open source product. We let
you import photos from Facebook and Instagram for free. You pay to do it from
Flickr.

We also automate some tasks that would otherwise be nearly impossible. Such as
migrating from Deopbox to S3 (one aspect of the product is that you select
where your photos are stored). This feature also let's us offer storage
provided by us (required to get users up and running immediately. Then we can
let hem change their mind later.

It is early in the game but people are paying. Hopefully enough users will. It
becomes a win for the project and the creators since active development can
continue.

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bbunix
I wrote Big Brother (<http://bb4.com>), and it was 99.5% free (until we sold
out to Quest/Dell). Originally a lot of our revenue came from support.

We just offered 3 tiers of support. For $250 a year we'd answer emails. For
$500 we promised an answer within a day. For $750, within 4 hours, and for
$1000 a month I'd take your phone call.

So, people are paying for your time, and for access... I was shocked my how
many people opted for $1000 a month phone support (direct access to the
developer/author).

Otherwise, support continues to be provided by a mailing list, group or other
mechanism.

Good luck!

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adambenayoun
You should check binpress <http://www.binpress.com> (I'm one of the founders),
it is a marketplace for source code. While 50% of the projects are not
necessarily open source, the other half are open source projects where the
developer also charge for a support license.

Many customers will prefer to purchase a support license in order to ask the
developer a question. Some will create a feature suggestion and since they
have paid, the developer is more likely to implement them.

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cploonker
Users are always looking for enhancements and willing to pay for them. Allow
people to bid features up, by paying.

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vineet
I think that your best bet is to first understand who is using your project
and why. Once there try to find the needs of companies - they are often more
likely to pay for your time.

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markbernard
If you want more specific advise ,why don't you list the projects you are
talking about.

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Mz
I think it depends a lot on context. I used to participate in a free forum.
The founder was brilliant at choking off all possible avenues of monetization
while bitching endlessly about wanting to make money (edit: mostly to help
cover costs, not necessarily profit per se in his case). He did not want to
ask for donations and he also did not want to commercialize it. However it was
quite popular and outgrowing its hosting solution, which led to lots of
complaints of slowness due to traffic load. I thought he should have posted a
notice saying "The site is slow because we need to upgrade from x server
costing x amount of money per month to y server costing y amount of money per
month. When I get enough donations to cover y for a year in advance, I will
happily upgrade. Until then, quit your bitchin." Then any time someone
complained, link to the notice (with donate button, naturally) and tell them
"Put up or shut up". Similar to the webcomic author whose audience was whining
he wasn't updating enough and he said "I make x amount at my day job. Match
that." Much to his shock, he had $4000.00 in an hour. He said it to say "shut
the fuck up". Instead, he ended up quitting his job and doing the comic full
time.

So where do you have demand? Find some way to charge for it. That's what I am
trying to say. List your assets, list where you have demand, list different
ways that might get monetized. Tie pay to what people want from you.

Best of luck.

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saurik
> He said it to say "shut the fuck up". Instead, he ended up quitting his job
> and doing the comic full time.

Does this story continue? Getting a bunch of money from a one-time plea or
stunt is drastically different than a recurring revenue stream; I'd love to
hear how well he did after he started doing it full time (and how he chose to
monetize; still donations?).

~~~
Mz
Iirc, it is the backstory for this comic, which I believe is still the
author's full time job:

<http://www.somethingpositive.net/>

