If it solves a specific need of a large company, they may decide to fund the developer to maintain it and tweak it for their purposes.
If it only works for small companies or end users, maybe it can be dual-licensed or mixed-licensed, offering the basic software for free but selling closed-source add-ons for expanded functionalities.
If it only works for small companies or end users, maybe it can be dual-licensed or mixed-licensed, offering the basic software for free but selling closed-source add-ons for expanded functionalities.