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Ask HN: How to stay open source and also make money?

9 points by anbardoi ↗ HN
I'm not asking for the tried-and-true slimy methods of baiting and switching, rug-pulling, paid/premium tiers, selling user data. I am oh-so accustomed to that, and it's obviously not very good OSS. Nor the non-slimy ways of requesting donations/support.

Could anyone who wants to comment help me brainstorm some ideas to monetize a completely unrestricted/open-source project? I'm thinking like making everything free to get and use, but providing incentive to WANT to give the project money. Things like transparency and good rapport with users is a must, I think. Perhaps a Sponsorware-like approach where new features are only available to sponsors for a period of time, and then freely released to the public? Anyone else have some ideas?

21 comments

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LorenDB
Traditionally, the best ways to make clean (a.k.a. not slimy) money in open source have been (a) offer a hosted tier for people who don't want to selfhost (which only works for a server-style application) and (b) offer a paid support tier which guarantees a certain level of support; noncustomers take lower priority.

One method that I really like is paywalling software store versions of applications. You can still manually install from a GitHub page or something similar for free, but if you want to have auto updates and such via your software store, you can pay a small fee for that privilege. TaskbarX has used this method in the past, although I don't know if they still are using it.

stephenr
I don't have any info to back it up but I feel like this is a good approach, I've considered the same approach for quite a while: the source is free, if you want access to the apt repo, it costs money.
al_borland
I’ve purchased a couple apps through App Stores that were free or open source, in an effort to support the development. Eventually the devs decided to put the code behind their own store, and I feel like I got the rug pulled a little bit.

I had to buy it again to get the latest version. The main app I’m thinking of, FileBot, I was waiting on a native Apple Silicon version. The stand alone download had it, but the App Store did not. If I remember correctly, this was due to a dependency not being updated or universal, so they have 2 separate binaries on their site, and the App Store allows for the one universal binary. Eventually it seemed like the update would never come, so I bought it again. When I first bought it, there was no non-App Store option, so I specifically bought it to support them… I could have gotten it from their site for free if I remember correctly, and feel like I got the short end of the stick.

brudgers
providing incentive to WANT to give the project money

If you want money, ask for it at least.

Requiring it is better because it makes your work sustainable.

Require enough of it that you are not trying to figure out how to avoid work.

You are not obligated to save other people money.

And if you feel like giving back, take some of the money you get and use it for food for people who don't have enough to eat.

Good luck.

anbardoi
I understand I'm not under obligation to, but I do feel obliged to make software that people actually want to support, rather than just playing another bill for another means-to-an-end. And Ill definitely be transparent about my desire to make money, I just want to be non-scummy about it, and approach it in a way that is both effective and honest.
brudgers
Getting paid for something you made is not scummy.

If you want to get paid, asking for payment is the most honest thing you can do.

If you expect to be paid, requiring payment is the most honest thing you can do. It also means you don’t deal with people who would never pay you.

Hoping is not a plan.

anbardoi
Youve raised some good points. I'll take them into consideration.
sandwichukulele
To help you brainstorm, it would help before looking for ways to monetize, to establish a ballpark figure of how much money is to be made. Should this be enough to cover small leisures like a coffee or are you looking to live off this revenue entirely? How much money are you looking to make OP? how many X US dollars a month?
anbardoi
I don't think I'm in the position to try making a living off a service yet, I just want a little passive income. I'm still a junior developer. Maybe something like $400/month. But I despise the idea of viewing users/customers as a revenue source first, and human beings second. And I don't have a specific service/project in mind either, so feel free to be creative.
AdityaRohit
There can be many ways to monetize your product, you need to start from the top - the problem you are solving and who does it help. I am assuming this is a developer tool as you are working with OSS model. Once you do that identify your user and go up the chain till the point you reach decision maker(writing is helpful--draw a map maybe?) . Find their pain points, solve for them and monetize your product. Happy to chat and brainstorm. My 2 cents from building a devtool.
anbardoi
This is really insightful, I often write little bash scripts to solve annoyances on my system. But I never realize that those bash scripts could be the seed to plant something larger, like an actual full featured tool that solves the original problem and also grabs other related problems as well. And I would love to chat! It would be really helpful to back-and-forth with someone and gain new insights. Please email me at eminent_went_0d@icloud.com!
AdityaRohit
Solving problems is good, however if you end up helping the right set of users from monetization POV it can unlock new revenue streams. Sent you email, lets connect there.
shrimp_emoji
You don't.

Pick one and only one. It's like asking "how do I make money with acts of kindness".

anbardoi
Wow I didn't realize things were so black and white
bruce511
it kinda is. Or put it another way - we're into the 4th decade of mainstream OSS success, and it's _still_ necessary to ask this question. That might give some clues that it's a difficult question with no current solution.

As you noted most of the common suggestions are either slimy, unsustainable, or simply don't work.

So I think you need to be clear on your objectives. Is it making OSS? It it making money? You can focus on one and then get maybe some of the other, but getting both appears (at least historically) to be both hard and rare.

For example selling software as "source supplied" is not OSS, but will likely improve your income stream. Or you can make pure OSS stuff, and get minor amounts of money via donations, support, whatever.

Both approaches are valid - you just need to decide which road you want to take these projects down. (And obviously you can split your projects between different approaches.)

anbardoi
I've always been a rather ambitious person. I made this post knowing that there isnt really a good viable option for making a notable amount of money while remaining open source. So I was seeing if people would help brainstorm novel techniques. That is the essence of innovation, solving problems that don't have an answer. Although, I understand that its difficult to surmount. I guess my real objective isn't really to take a project down a certain road to make this money or that, but instead to create a novel approach to making OSS that makes better money.
bruce511
Certainly if you crack this nut you'll be a popular lad :)

It's always worth asking the questions, but I haven't seen an answer yet that satisfies.

noashavit
Are you currently accepting donations? If not, get that set up so your users can donate, by tier, if they are gaining value from your project.

If you want them to want to pay for the experience you need to provide an out of this world experience whenever they engage with your project.

danenania
To be honest, I think you have a bit of a self-defeating attitude. Building an open source project and then building paid tiers on top is not "slimy". It's one of the best and most sustainable ways to keep a project going. The alternatives are that it gets supported by a large company, in which case it becomes subservient to that company's needs, or it eventually gets abandoned because people need to eat.

I really don't understand the mindset that it's slimy. I get the "rug-pull" thing, but just because you made a project with features a, b, and c that are free, why does that make it slimy to add paid features d, e, and f on top? People are still getting a, b, and c for free, so what's the problem? There's no rug-pull there.

Would it be better if a, b, and c never existed? It just seems like such a clear win-win to me.

anbardoi
I can see your point, and it seems less slimy in that context. But every time I see a paid subscription for more features, it feels to me like just paying as a means to an end, rather than supporting something bigger than myself. Yeah I'll pay for the features if I want them, but that's because I want them; not because I want both the features and to support the developers. It's so impersonal. I think there is much more money to be made when you make users feel like part of the family (and not by just putting "Join the <app_name_here> family!" in a subscription prompt ) I understand this is significantly more difficult as your app scales, but that's a node of the problem I'm wanting to solve. And I cant relate to what constitutes a self-defeating attitude— I understand well enough that I could walk the well-travelled path that others have paved in order to make money from an app. My incentive here is to get help brainstorming novel methods of getting revenue in such a way that users feel like theyre actually contributing instead of just buying stuff.
danenania
Fair enough, it sounds like you are looking for more of a sponsorship/patronage model than a product-based business. I understand, but I think it could be a more challenging model to make sustainable.

I'd also just say that selling a product doesn't have to be impersonal, and in fact you will get much better results if you do it in a more authentic and human way. It's not actually so different to a patronage model when you are small. Part of the reason many people who are early adopters like buying from small startups or solopreneurs is that it's much more relationship-based and the founder will listen to their needs and concerns.