[belorn]

#1 Support?

#2 Hosting/cloudiness?

#3 Administration?

#4 Custom adaptation?

#5 Privileged early access to updates/content files?

All those different strategies has been used to "sell" GPL software. Even the last one has been used, even if their customers could repackage the update and redistribute it to non-paying customers.

[pjmlp]

All of them fail for desktop software, this is why FOSS as business works only for developer tools or SaaS software.

[gillianseed]

Not necessarily. For example there's the model used by the x264 project (and upcoming x265 project), they offer the encoder as free software under GPL but they also sell licences for using it in proprietary projects and apparnetly they (the developers) make good money this way.

Then there's the recent example of Openshot, a GPL licenced video editor where the author went to kickstarter to gain funding for improving it greatly, the goal was $20.000 and it reached $45,028.

I see a combination of these models as a future popular way of making money out of your open source efforts.

[foobarbazqux]

Selling licenses for use in proprietary software is not selling GPL software. In particular, I can not sell you a proprietary x264 license for software that I received under the GPL.

Dual-licensing effectively says, "We'll let you take away user freedoms, but only if you pay the original copyright holders." Which is akin to openly bribing communist party officials.

[pjmlp]

Your first example is a developer tool, as mentioned by me.

Kickstarter projects is USA specific, and it seldom works if you need a steady income of money.

[gillianseed]

It's a video encoder, hardly a 'developer tool'.

As for steady income of money, true that this type of funding isn't of the steady pay-check variety but if you can continue to add value to your project then it could become a long term income.

Either way I'd say the vast majority of open source desktop software today is done without any compensation and during developers spare-time, things like kickstarter opens up possibilities for them to actually make money while doing what they would likely have done either way, and it can also give them the financial opportunity to work exclusively on the project for a period of time.

[pjmlp]

> It's a video encoder, hardly a 'developer tool'.

Quoting from the VideoLAN web site, > x264 is a free software library and application

That is a developer tool on my language.

[teddyh]

Perhaps. But even if no-one would pay money for a direct software download/package, this does not preclude sponsorship of companies to free software projects they wish to be more developed. Indeed, there are many such large projects.