| I'm in a fortunate enough position that the day job pays the bills and I enjoy it, such that I don't need income from my open source efforts. However, about a year ago I did two things: - Enabled sponsorship through GitHub and Liberapay. - Put my GPL apps (freely available on FDroid) on GPlay for $1. Since then, I've made a fun amount of ~$300 in little donations (a combination of one off and recurring sponsorships). Although a tiny amount of income in the scheme of things, it is still thrilling each time someone kicks a small donation my way even though there is no obligation to do so. Itis a nice pat on the back for things I do for free anyway. Also, given that I do zero self promotion and very minimal nagging (just in some of my release notes), and given I spend probably less than a total 7hrs a week on all of my projects combined, it makes me think that this could be ramped up if I was to dedicate more time to it. Some things I try to do with each project to help gain traction: - Release often, so it appears at the top of the FDroid front page regularly. - Take i18n seriously so that people around the world can benefit from the apps. - Foster a sense of community and inclusion in any discussions (e.g. GitHub issues and PRs).
I also try to add new apps whenever a new idea comes along. Hopefully a large diverse range of apps will find use with more people. Hopefully in the future that $300 will grow to $500, $1000, or even more. |