[hello_moto]

Better than asking for big pile of money and give back crap and charge way more for fixes isn't it? :)

[cperciva]

Yes. But I think asking happy users to donate ultimately produces better code than asking unhappy users to pay for support.

[hello_moto]

So true. So true. I wish happy users would donate more as well.

Unfortunately when happy users get used to the culture of free and good quality software, they started to have a sense of entitlement (instead of donating). That if the software didn't provide exactly what they wanted, they starting to swear and whine instead of being... calm and helpful.

[einhverfr]

I think a big part of the entitlement problem is not being clear about the business model, or positioning oneself to take advantage of it.

One key thing is, I think, to advertise services and ways of making money. IOW, giving people the option to get new features, etc. is an important thing.

There is a lot of solid FOSS out there: PostgreSQL, BSD, Linux, CUPS, and more all come to mind. These often are less sexy than heavily marketed, inferior counterparts. But these all also have solid business models attached.

I highly recommend that folks who start open source software look around at business models surrounding the better open source products and see what they can do to capitalize on that.

[einhverfr]

Long run, one wants happy users to donate sales/marketing effort with recommendations, and pay for development of new features.

I'd MUCH rather be paid to produce new features than fix bugs.