[socmag]

Aside from the other comment where I hope I pointed out the reasoning.. The "Betray Open Source" bit.

You might be right that there is some projection.

I've been working on a project for quite some time now, without any pay and it is close to completion, and I more and more frequently reflect on how it should be positioned, marketed and ultimately generate some revenue so that I can actually afford my own apartment.

When I read HN I see this tension. Something comes out and the comments will be. Oh that's cool but fuck you, it's not FOSS but at the same time I see yay, another gadget I will immediately go and buy.

You just can't win.

I develop on Linux mostly and Windows occasionally, and I've more than paid my dues to the community over the years, but at some point hard decisions have to be made. FOSS is great when you have enough cash stashed to not give a damn or you are just doing it as a hobby.

I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun no matter which business model I choose sometimes, and it pains me to have to make a decision, and neither one looks pleasant.

[pfranz]

I think everyone is a bit split on it. We realize how accessible and empowering open source software has made things, so there's a preference to encourage that. As a kid I was curious about Unix workstations, but knew they cost $30k and I wasn't going to get access to one unless it was a university or larger company shared with other people. Only a few years later Linux was released and today I could get a computer for less than $50 and dig through the source to my heart's content. I have access to a commercial quality Operating System, Databases, and Web Servers. All I have to do is download it.

In general the conceit seems to be paying for support and giving the source away for free (RedHat). Or selling a service and not making the source available (GitHub). It sucks because someone who writes an amazing tool still has to come up with a whole other business in order to make income from it.

There is commercial software on Linux where I don't hear people avoiding it because it's not open source: PyCharm, Sublime, Autodesk Maya, Foundry's Nuke, as well as (like you mentioned) games.

[socmag]

Thanks for putting that answer together. It's generally how I feel.

"come up with a whole other business in order to make income from it"

You really hit the nerve there.

And is not that I'm naive enough not to think that marketing function and all the rest shouldn't exist. It's just sheer frustration.

Cheers

[walterbell]

There is a goldmine of unique historical discussion on free software business models on the "Free Software Business" mailing list archives, going back to 1994. Includes industry luminaries including Cygnus/RedHat founders. Content is hard to navigate but priceless, needs to be rescued and imported into a modern mailing list archiver.

http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?ddn:0:0#b

[socmag]

Thanks!

[sjellis]

For Web applications, there's also the Wordpress model, where you publish the source code, but make money providing hosting. Ghost and Sentry are other products that do that.

There are some desktop apps where the developers do a similar thing and provide source code and perhaps unsupported installers, but you can pay for supported binaries through the Apple App Store. Collabora are trying to monetize some of their LibreOffice work that way:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/collabora-office/id918120011...

[vacri]

> It sucks because someone who writes an amazing tool still has to come up with a whole other business in order to make income from it.

However, selling the software itself means you have to engage in a robust licensing system to defeat the pirates, which is no trivial feat (even mighty Adobe went online-as-a-service because they couldn't beat the pirates).

[pfranz]

Well, I think you get around that by making a service-based company instead of a software-based company--that's completely separate from open source vs closed source. Unfortunately, not all businesses can be structured like that.

[vacri]

> FOSS is great when you have enough cash stashed to not give a damn or you are just doing it as a hobby.

FOSS companies make money by selling services, not software. Sometimes lots of it, and they're laughing all the way to the bank. FOSS also means "I can try it out in my own time, and not be hassled by sales staff or have to jump through hoops to get a trial", not to mention "I can tweak certain bits to better match my stuff".

I use Windows for games, because 'right tool for the right job', and the most polished games are on Windows. However, there is not a hope in hell that I'd use Windows for my day job - the one that keeps me fed and housed. Random (and LONG) forced update restarts. Broken/empty "click here for more info". Difficult to get at the system for troubleshooting. High minimum requirements. The list goes on and on. And even working as a dumb end user, I can't reskin the desktop anymore!