Earning Money with Open Source Software?

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 13, 2008 @06:08AM from the sweat-of-my-brow dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I've been working on a financial application which I've decided to release to the public. I want to make some money from the application, though I certainly don't expect to become a millionaire. The problem is that I'd like nothing better than to open-source it. There are many aspects of the application that I don't have time to refine, and other developers could definitely improve upon my work. However, I don't know how I earn money from something once I've made it open source. How have you dealt with trying to turn a reasonable profit on your work while remaining open-sourced?"

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make money? by arse+maker · 2008-01-13 06:16 · Score: 1, Flamebait

You capitalist pig! FOSS should cost nothing and let programmers earn next to nothing, thats what we all want!
Shouldn't you already know how to earn money? by VampireByte · 2008-01-13 06:25 · Score: 0, Flamebait

If you know enough to write a financial application shouldn't you know how to earn money?

--
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Re:Are you new here? by spintriae · 2008-01-13 09:28 · Score: 0, Flamebait

I don't see how this inquire implied that the poster didn't know or understand the FSF's view on selling FOSS. S/he didn't ask whether it was "okay," s/he asked how it could be done.