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Ask Slashdot: How To Get Paid For Open-Sourcing Your Work?

kc600 writes "Say you're a freelancer, using mainly open source solutions. You notice that customers, although they don't object to the whole open source idea, don't see the point in paying you for the time it costs you to properly open source your code. As a result, code is not released, because it would take too much time to factor out the customer-specific stuff, to debate architecture with the other developers, look at bug reports, et cetera. You feel there's something to contribute that many might benefit from. The code would also be better maintained if more people would use it, so the customer's project would also benefit. But you're not going to do it in your free time; you have enough on your mind and the bill is paid, right? What useful tricks can you think of to encourage yourself — and your customers — to properly share code, to the benefit of all, and get paid for it?"

167 comments

  1. Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by dbIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The hard question really is "how do I convince people to give me money for writing software?". Open or closed are just details if it's being sold as part of a provided service.

    1. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is really rather simple... The reason you are getting paid is because you are doing what they want you to do, not what you want to do. If they don't want to open source it... Tough titties.

      Sure, have a quick go at convincing them that the project or a subset of it would get them good publicity if they allowed it to be FOSSed, but really... It's their code, they paid for it, so it's their choice.

    2. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by lightknight · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Which is why my latest program is probably going to be GPL v3'ed, with a donation page on there somewhere. I'm going to put Benjamin Franklin's quote to the test, to see if something universally useful is better off not being patented / locked up / paid licensing. If there is ever enough money in there to buy a pizza, I will be surprised.

      Now, the other program I am working on...will only be seen in the light of day after I have enough to buy a few south Pacific islands. It's taking slightly more than a year to finish the basic framework, and if it does work (preliminary tests were promising, but again, you can only go so far at that stage), it will be quite exciting. That particular program will probably spend a few years acting as a web service, with the output being what I'd sell.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    3. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Which is why my latest program is probably going to be GPL v3'ed, with a donation page on there somewhere. I'm going to put Benjamin Franklin's quote to the test, to see if something universally useful is better off not being patented / locked up / paid licensing

      Two problems with this: first, you assume that some nebulous thing that you are creating is 'universally useful'. I don't think I've ever seen any software that falls into that category. Secondly, you pick an ultra-restrictive license that a lot of individuals and companies will avoid like the plague to test your hypothesis.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two problems with this: first, you assume that some nebulous thing that you are creating is 'universally useful'. I don't think I've ever seen any software that falls into that category.

      So I get you've never seen an operating system.

    5. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I've seen lots of operating systems, but I've never seen one that is universally useful.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      I know of a universally useful tool
      /me ducks

    7. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by icebraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's your choice too; nothing forces you to work with clients that refuse it.

      Almost all our software is open source, and clients don't really get a say in that besides simply not hiring us. Yet we don't have a lack of clients, because being open source enables us to take advantage of GPLed code from other companies - much like they do with our code - and deliver much cheaper and well-tested solutions that custom proprietary code.

    8. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by ralatalo · · Score: 1

      Or, with the slight modifier of "more".

      Because

      You are getting paid to write the code, and you could have negotiated the cost of releasing the source as part of that,
      but you want them to pay YOU more for that YOU think is the right thing.

    9. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by Vintermann · · Score: 1

      In an ideal perspective, what you want or what they want shouldn't matter. There are only two questions:

      1. Is there some set of people that are better off from this being released?
      2. Can the same benefit cheaper elsewhere?

      If the first is true and the second is false, they should, in a perfect world, be able to coordinate to pay the author to release it, letting him capture some share of the benefit they get from it. In practice, things that are slightly useful to lots of people are underprovided because we don't have the mechanisms necessary to effectively find them and pay for them.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    10. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by Kagetsuki · · Score: 1

      Right, and especiialy with Open Source that comes down to selling software as a service or customization as a service. Having a core product OSS that you can offer as a service can also be beneficial in that you can develop a community of other developers doing the same, and contributing improvements and fixes in the proces (like getting ideas and code for free). Projects like Spree and Refinery CMS are great examples of this.

    11. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by chrismcb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's your choice too; nothing forces you to work with clients that refuse it.

      I didn't get the impression that their clients are refusing to allow the OP to open source the code. They are just refusing to foot the bill for it. I'm also making the assumption that the code the OP is referring to is NOT actually work for hire code, and he actually has the permission to open source it. He is just doesn't want to open source it for free.

    12. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you have a definition of "universally useful" which itself isn't useful at all.

    13. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to agree. His use of "universally useful" is something akin to saying oxygen isn't universally useful because not every person is still alive.

    14. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      Sure you can refuse to work with clients. But is Open Source really that important to you?

      I prefer to get my paycheck, I get my pay check from working with my clients (and the more clients I can handle more I can often make), I am not opposed to open source, however there are other things in my life I consider more important. Like keeping up with my bills. If they want to release it Open Source I am good with that, I can do the extra work to make sure that everything is GNU pure, I may even express to them that keeping it open source can help offer maintenance beyond the risk of a small set closed developers. However if they want to keep I will be ok with that too, Losing a client isn't worth making a scene about it.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    15. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Did you read my whole post, or did you stop at the first period?

      The reason the company I work for is competitive and has clients is because we're open source, not despite it. When our proprietary competitors have to charge an arm and a leg for making a lot from scratch, we're able to benefit from a big open source community an deliver better tested software in less time and for less money. And then we contribute back new modules, as well as bug fixes, translations, etc.

    16. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by autocannon · · Score: 1

      Why is a proprietary competitor bound to NOT use any open source software? They're just as free to utilize it as you are.

      Perhaps your company has a reputation for being a good company. I really think you've overvalued the "open source" bullet item as it applies to potential customers soliciting bids for work. Other companies hiring yours generally aren't going to care about that philosophy. They want to know that the program they paid for will work, be maintainable, and most importantly be done cheaper than the competitor.

    17. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by icebraining · · Score: 2

      Why is a proprietary competitor bound to NOT use any open source software?

      All the software we use* and write is GNU AGPL licensed.

      *Except for the programming language and its standard library.

      Other companies hiring yours generally aren't going to care about that philosophy. They want to know that the program they paid for will work, be maintainable, and most importantly be done cheaper than the competitor.

      I think people here have a reading problem.

      Sigh. Of course they don't, but never I claimed they did. Quoting my own post:

      we're able to benefit from a big open source community an deliver better tested software in less time and for less money.

    18. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by autocannon · · Score: 1

      The reason the company I work for is competitive and has clients is because we're open source, not despite it. When our proprietary competitors have to charge an arm and a leg for making a lot from scratch, we're able to benefit...

      That statement right there implies that the main, if not sole, reason your company is doing better than competitors is because you both use open source as well as require them to open source whatever is created for them AND that the competitors can do neither.

      I disagree with that. Your competitors are free to use whatever open source they can to deliver their own solution. Your company does not have any innate advantage over them with regards to that. Most likely your company just has better management and programmers which makes you more competitive. Better talent is always an advantage.

    19. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Your competitors are free to use whatever open source they can to deliver their own solution.

      How can a company which only develops proprietary software use third-party AGPL licensed code, exactly? Sure, jty

    20. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by icebraining · · Score: 2

      (The sibling post was mistaken)

      Your competitors are free to use whatever open source they can to deliver their own solution.

      I wrote proprietary competitors, not all competitors. Sure, they're free to use and write open source like us, but then they wouldn't be proprietary!

      The fact is, most companies in our field are afraid of open sourcing their applications, and are therefore unable to take advantage of the big copyleft community in which we participate.

    21. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by suutar · · Score: 1

      they are free to use whatever open source they can while building their solution. Delivering existing open source stuff as part of the solution may not work as well, depending on the exact license, and that may force the competition to redevelop the wheel, increasing their costs.

    22. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      +1 to this guy.

      Open Source is free for everyone to use, not just the guys that contribute back to the community (jQuery, Knockout, node.js, Apache, Linux, etc. etc.). Now, companies may want to support your company because you give back, but you can't do work "faster" just because you are an open source company (maybe because you are more talented, but not because you are an open source company).....

    23. Re:Wrong question - "how to get paid?" is enough by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 1

      If the code is useful enough to enough people, there's a chance a large corporation will buy it from you. A lot of OS is actually written with this as the unstated goal. It certainly happened to MySQL. There are many other examples.

      That is one way to make money off open source.

      I read (sorry can't find it) an interesting article that made the point that non-sopftware companies (hardware manufacturers, service sellers) support OS projects because they want software to be free and lower the TCO of that OTHER thing they're selling. Essentially, they want to capture the $ corporations would otherwise have to direct to purchasing software . There's only so much money to go around and if its "wasted" in buying software, that's money the complements to software- hardware and consulting and advertising- can't capture.

      You have to have something people 1) want and 2) can't otherwise get for free .

      Google "gives away" code because people have to pay to advertise with them and you can't just whip up a Google on demand.. they have accumulating, ongoing knowledge about the web and the entities on it that is hard to accumulate.

      Apple sells hardware and is a middle man (iTunes), a place people go to reduce the complexity imposed by too-many-things in too-many-places and the complexity imposed by having to circumvent DRM which they must think is the larger share of their value proposition or they wouldn't do it.. an aggregator of reliable stuff for sale in a known location,

      IBM and Oracle sell software and services, but only Oracle is *truly* a software company IMO. They could exist on their licensing alone.. but it's not OS.

      I guess I am trying to answer your question indirectly by answering the question why do people pay for any IT at all instead of getting it for free ? You have to somehow be an easier more cost effective solution to a problem they have and they cannot get it for free. You can sell OS but it has to either be a loss leader to a widget (Apple) or service (Apple IBM Google) .

      That's why business is in love with the cloud- software on a server is effectively inaccessible to the end user for free and anyways the end user could not usefully use that software. Think Google internal algorithms.

      The cloud is as much about building competitive advantage through gradually acquiring specialized knowledge of some aspect of the world, doing Big Data computing against that knowledge and selling the value-added result to your customers as it is about software per se.

      You can't sell something people can get for free ; that's the bottom line, unless those people are very very enlightened. (Ubuntu is trying this now with a pay what it's worth approach. We'll see how it goes. If there are any enlightened user bases out there of this sort, they have to include the set of linux adopters)

      When you OS your code if you want to make money realistically, you better have a business plan that is using that code as a loss leader. Either that or you're serving a niche, but you're not open sourcing (or overpricing).

      I know people will say services, but really, services is a grinding and volatile way to make a living unless you're sending lots of other people to perform those services and taking a cut of what they are billing.

      Meh. I've rambled enough. Hope something in there sparks a thought.

  2. Read a book on the subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  3. Simplest way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Don't open source it.

  4. Do and don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DO: The old MySQL way of selling FLOSS seems fine to me. See also: MySQL.

    DON'T ask for subscription money to open source your work, this is called "pulling a lunduke". See also: lunduke.

    In general, read up on the works of Bruce Perens. See also: Bruce Perens.

    1. Re:Do and don't by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But if you were to make it into a one-off Kickstarter project, it wouldn't be pulling a Lunduke. Personally, I'm getting sick of all the Kickstarter campaigns that are "I want to make a profit, but I'm not willing to risk my own time and money -- you guys take the risk, I'll make the profit, m'kay?" and would relish more campaigns that say "I want to make an honest buck -- pay me fair and square for my time, and I'll forego future royalties," because that's really the whole point of risk-reward. People working on royalties take a high risk, gambling on the reward. Eliminating the risk without eliminating the chance of a high payout, it's, well... unfair.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    2. Re:Do and don't by icebraining · · Score: 2

      There are some nice projects on KS. See git-annex assistant; a very talented guy (Debian 'oldtimer', wrote git-annex) which is delivering a real free and open source program for a fairly low "salary".

    3. Re:Do and don't by Vintermann · · Score: 1

      For non-idealistic projects, equity crowdfunding may be more fair. This is available, just not from Kickstarter (when they started it wouldn't have been legal).

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    4. Re:Do and don't by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      I can't imagine coding something like that at $20k a year -- isn't $30-35k more like the average? And that's not counting pension plans, medical insurance, sickness cover etc. $50-60k sounds like absolute bottom-end for that sort of work as a contractor (and that's still more that Lunduke was asking!)

      So, it's great that he's willing to accept it, but it sets the bar awfully low for the rest of us.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    5. Re:Do and don't by icebraining · · Score: 2

      I think he's taking a big paycut to work on what he wants, when he wants, free from stress and annoying people. It's a reasonable trade-off.
      And I don't think he really lowers the bar for everyone else.

      In any case, his living arrangements seem rather inexpensive: http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/notes_for_a_caretaker/

    6. Re:Do and don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "this is called "pulling a lunduke". See also: lunduke."

      but he had to keep his daughter in fine woolen scarves!

    7. Re:Do and don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I currently make less then 20K a year and would love to be funded to work on my open source project full time (who wouldn't). I couldn't realistically see it happening though. It works out at 150 people making monthly donations of $10 each and I doubt that it's possible to do such a thing.

  5. You're in the wrong business by KalvinB · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you want to get paid to write software then you're writing it for a company. If you want to write software to give away then stop expecting people to pay you for it. They want something for them. Not something for the world to use. By expecting to just give away their code you're telling them you're not focused on their product for their company. And why would they pay you to write software that a competitor can just use for free? If no competitor would use it, then why are you making it open source?

    If you want to contribute to open source then do it on your own time with your own money.

    It seems to me the bigger problem is that you're not a programmer, you simply find existing things that kind of do what the customer wants and piece them together.

    If you can't write custom code for a client without using GPL code then you're not very good at your job.

    And if you can't see the stupidity of giving something away that a client paid you thousands for then there's no help for you.

    1. Re:You're in the wrong business by slashping · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So instead of a programmer grabbing a Linux kernel, and spending a few days to add a driver for customer specific hardware, you would advocate that he wrote his own operating system instead ?

    2. Re:You're in the wrong business by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      I suppose the submitter is thinking about benefiting the ecosystem as whole when you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. That's what open source is about...

    3. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And why would they pay you to write software that a competitor can just use for free? If no competitor would use it, then why are you making it open source?

      They would pay because he is programming what they need. If there already was a solution they would use that instead of paying someone to program it for them - probably regardless of the license.

      You also forget the benefits: If the competitor needs a cool feature that the original programmer is too busy to implement and if the competitor plays less there's a good chance the cool feature your competitor implements itself will end up in your version too.

      It's a different mindeset. "We must absolutely never do something that could also benefit competitors" vs. "We make products because with our products people's lifes will improve (and we also make money)".

      Come on, tell me, it's not economically viable. You are absolutely right. Facebook, Twitter, etc. would never open source their tools.

    4. Re:You're in the wrong business by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      Your post seems to be based on a truckload of assumptions. Yes, there are people like you describe. I don't see any indications that the OP is one of them. Did you even read the story?

    5. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they expect to be paid for everything then yes they should be writing it from scratch or at least not including public libraries and then charging for them. If you expect a customer to pay for your own good deeds to the open source community then you are living in a dream land, especially if you think they are going to be happy about you publishing all the work they just paid for so their competitors can use it for free. If you need to publish the content back to the open source community due to licensing then this should be laid out in any contract you have to build software as it is a part of the cost of what you are building.

    6. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or more likely the competitor makes the change themselves and is not onselling it and therefore has no requirement to publish the improved code. They get the double benefit of a competitive advantage and a free base code funded by their competitor. If you believe most commercial companies would do otherwise then I have this nice shiny bridge to sell you.

    7. Re:You're in the wrong business by Roger+Lindsjo · · Score: 1

      There are customers willing to pay to get software developed to solve their specific problems but lack incentive to also make a profit on it by selling it to other parties. I currently develop software under different GPL licenses (as per request of the client). That way there is a smaller risk of IP conflicts of who actually owned the code (now it doesn't matter). There is also a chance that new functionality will be developed, driven by the need of others that this customer can benefit from in the future. By choosing an appropriate GPL license you can ensure that you have the option to benefit should a competitor decide to expand on your work. It does not mean that you have to GPL all your code, and if necessary you can use it with a non GPL license internally if required.

      As for giving something away that originally cost a lot of money, do you never give anything away? I give away used electronics, clothes, toys and furniture. Some of it could probably be sold instead, but the effort of doing that is not worth it (for me). An easier option for me would be to just throw the stuff away and that might even benefit producers as some of the useful products would no longer be available, but this way there is a chance that they will be reused and benefit society as a whole.

    8. Re:You're in the wrong business by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Another poster already called you an idiot, so I can skip that part and get onto exactly why you are wrong. People pay me to write software because they need that software written. That is the best motivation for writing software and the reason why about 90% gets written. The remaining 10% of commercial software is written because someone thinks it's a good idea and that they'll be able to sell finished versions.

      Pretty much all of the software that I've been paid to write has been released under a permissive license (MIT, FreeBSD, or UIUC license). This is because there is a non-zero cost associated with maintaining a proprietary fork, which is basically what happens when you make any nontrivial changes to open source code and don't push them upstream. New features and bug fixes upstream may change some interfaces that you depend on and this means that you end up either having a version with known bugs (including security holes), or you spend money backporting the changes to your branch. If you upstream the code then someone else pays for this and it is cheaper for you. In FreeBSD land, we're currently working with Netflix and Juniper to upstream a load of their changes for exactly this reason: they want to spend developer time (and therefore money) on new features, not on keeping old ones working.

      More importantly, if you don't upstream your code and it's useful to others then eventually someone else will implement the same feature, but often in a different way. You then either throw away the code that you've paid to have written and use theirs, or maintain a fork that is now radically different to upstream and therefore much more expensive.

      As the developer, you also benefit from being able to use the code elsewhere. Everyone wins: your current customer gets a lower long-term maintenance cost, your next customer gets a smaller up-front cost, and you don't get bored implementing the same thing lots of times.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    9. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BTW, there's nothing in the GPL (at least until v2, haven't looked at 3) that forbids you from receiving money for the work, the binaries, or the source code itself.

    10. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never claimed their was, merely that you are then obligated to contribute it back to the community, nothing wrong with that requirement, but it should be put in as part of the cost of your project.

    11. Re:You're in the wrong business by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is nothing in the GPL that requires you to contribute back to the community. The only requirement is that you give the same rights to anyone that you give derived works to that you received. For example, you can take GPL'd code, extend it, and then sell the result to a company, with a contract prohibiting you from selling or giving it to anyone else. They are then free to redistribute it under the terms of the GPL, but they are not required to. The GPL does not require you or them to return any code upstream, only to pass rights downstream.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    12. Re:You're in the wrong business by slashping · · Score: 2

      No, GPL clause 6 explicitly states that you may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted in the GPL. So you cannot sign a contract that prohibits you from distributing the program in accordance with the GPL. While it is true that the GPL does not require you to return any code upstream, it does not allow any way to prevent this either.

    13. Re:You're in the wrong business by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Because we give and take from the free software community (and it's not a zero-sum game), our solution will be up and running on the clients machine before you even wrote the first draft. Clients want results, not paying more just to keep the program closed.

      Keep rebuilding the world for each client, I'm sure they'll be happy to pay you 10 times what we charge for each project.

    14. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the phallacy is "give away"!="open" in the way we usually mean it here.

      "something for the world to use" is also "something for the world to *improve"

      it might actually be more beneficial to your company to invest in opening as related as related to its probability of being improved at no cost (debugging, features, etc...) without any additional investment. or perhaps at least once it falls unmaintained but it was popular enough to have a potential user community

      if you're solving problems, odds are other people out there are solving similar problems, and may try your code. (of course there are probably exceptions, including apparently the only things this dude accepts as The Real Programming(TM))

    15. Re:You're in the wrong business by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      Some people seem to complain that Canonical doesn't contribute enough to the kernel http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Canonical-Contributing-Too-Little-to-Kernel-Development . Which I don't understand. They are not obliged to contribute to the kernel, and they instead focus on areas they feel need improvement: Ease of use, Desktop experience, UI, (Unity not withstanding.)

    16. Re:You're in the wrong business by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You misread. You are not imposing extra conditions on people who receive the code, you are accepting extra conditions imposed by the person to whom you give the code. This is permitted by the GPL, because copyright law does not make it possible to impose this restriction.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    17. Re:You're in the wrong business by chrismcb · · Score: 1

      No, GPL clause 6 explicitly states that you may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted in the GPL. So you cannot sign a contract that prohibits you from distributing the program in accordance with the GPL.

      In the first statement you claim you can not restrict the recipients rights. In the second statement you claim BECAUSE of this, you can't prohibit your rights. YOU are not the recipient. Of COURSE you can give up your rights, without restricting the recipients rights.

    18. Re:You're in the wrong business by slashping · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter where your copy of the code comes from. You have obtained a copy, and your client is trying to prohibit you from spreading it. Clause 2b states that any of your modifications must be licensed as a whole to all 3rd parties. Your client doesn't have the right to stop you. Besides, it's all pointless anyway. If the client that you made the code for is making products and selling the binary, any of their customers can obtain the sources, and publish them anyway.

    19. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *You're an idiot.

      also

      You're an idiot.

    20. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not? That makes you more money and keeps you entertained!

    21. Re:You're in the wrong business by Kozz · · Score: 2

      the phallacy is "give away"!="open" in the way we usually mean it here.

      Pardon me, but I think your spelling is a bit cocked-up.

      --
      I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
    22. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm currently doing some work for a client that involves modifying free (GPL/BSD/etc) software. The client has a dress code so I have to wear a tie while I work on GPL code. According to you, this is a GPL violation. According to the lawyers, the GPL is a distribution license and shit like that is out of scope.

    23. Re:You're in the wrong business by autocannon · · Score: 1

      That "non-zero cost" with maintaining proprietary code is where you begin get your Return on Investment. If an interface changes, then they should want to come back to you to update it. Just pulling whatever updated version exists from the open source version may fix that problem, but it likely also has other changes. Some are most likely good, but some may produce unwanted side-effects.

      Also, who cares if someone else does eventually implement the same functionality in a different way. Customers don't generally care about the backend so long as it all works the way it's supposed to. Customers will only care if someone offers improved functionality. In which case they're going to need additional development regardless.

      Everyone does not win. Lower long term maintenance cost is different for each project. You can't simply generalize that one. The next customer getting smaller up front cost. Well, if it plays out the way you have laid out in the rest of your post, that cost should be close to nil and does not involve you having to do it. As for bored implementing the same thing lots of times, are you just developing webpages and database stuff? Of course that will be repetetive. But not all development paths are like that. Nothing I do is open source, and yet magically I've spent many years and have never had to redo the same thing as what I've done previously.

      Look, you believe open source is some cure-all, cumbaya thing that solves every problem. It doesn't. It's a fantastic option when it's viable and permissible, it's just not always the case.

    24. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Canonical does a lot of bitching when upstream doesn't go the way they want it to, even more bitching when they submit upstream "patches" no one wants (because literally no one else thinks it's a good idea), and fails to actually engage upstream and producing mutually beneficial changes. That's why people give them sideways glances. Their behavior is kind of crappy at times and they seem to see themselves as victim of upstream (and make noises about it) when the rest of the world doesn't really see it that way.

    25. Re:You're in the wrong business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Except that the code is actually a 'work for hire', and the modifications are made for the hiring company,
      with you working as an agent of the hiring company to do the work, and therefore they were never distributed to 'you' as a legal entity - you were granted rights to work on *their* internal fork as a contractor / developer / etc.

      Therfore, if the modifications are *not* distributed elsewhere, they are an internal fork,
      completely owned by the hiring company, and not subject to the GPL 'source availability' requirement,

      Disclaimer: IANAL

    26. Re:You're in the wrong business by Guy+Smiley · · Score: 1

      Sorry, you don't know what you are talking about. I've worked on open source software for over 10 years, and our customers pay us _because_ our software is open source.

      They don't want vendor lockin that makes their system useless if we went out if business or decided to stop developing the product they are using.

      We also get some contributions from non-company developers, both bug fixes and features. Not a ton but it helps the users in areas that we are not focussing development, and in turn helps us move into markets that were not central to us in the past.

  6. A friend of mine who is an avid open source... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    advocate told me; YOU should not make money from open source but from other work. (support and crap like that)
    I asked him why he (and Stallman) was getting paid but I shouldnt be? The reply? We are not, our companies/institutions are.

    So there you have it: Wanna live of making opensource? Start working for a mega corp or a university.

    1. Re:A friend of mine who is an avid open source... by VortexCortex · · Score: 2

      Here's what I do:


      Customer: We have the following requirements for this project.

      Me: Oh, looks like I can cut your cost a bit if I use some open source software to save me some time. You would get the work done, but the source code would then become open source for everyone to use.

      Customer: How much of a discount are we talking?

      Me: ./say ($ESTIMATE - $COST_TO_REINVENT_THAT_WHEEL)

      Customer: How can you bid so low?

      Me: Oh, I'm charging my normal rate, not having to write the functionality of the avaliable existing FLOSS software actually saves me that much time.

      Customer: What about the licensing I heard about?

      Me: Well, as long as you're just using the software not redistributing it to end users or other companies you don't have to do anything, I'll just post the code on my public repository, and submit it to the project. I do this frequently, but check with your legal dept. and get back to me.

      Customer (eventually): We really just can't justify spending more money with the other contractors when your price is so low and the turn around so quick.

      Me: Thanks for funding the development of Open Source Software!

    2. Re:A friend of mine who is an avid open source... by jmcvetta · · Score: 1

      Wanna live of making opensource? Start working for a mega corp or a university.

      Kinda true.

  7. The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

    When I open sourced the programs that had made me some money, but I had no time nor the stamina to keep working on them, I didn't expect to get paid for that.

    Instead, I thought of Johnny Appleseed.

    The programs that I open sourced, to me, are old stuffs. I could have kept them under closed source, store them in CD-Rs or external hd or old computers, or ....

    I could have done that, but if I did that, it wouldn't benefit me, nor anybody else.

    When I open sourced those programs, I didn't even know if anybody else wanted them in the first place. I just placed them online, did some advertisement on related sites, and then, let go.

    If the "appleseed" blooms, good.

    If they don't, well, it'd be the same as I locked them up in CD-Rs.

    The most important thing is that I've set them free. Their "lives" after being set free depends on their "fates", or in spiritual kinda speak, "karma".

    Once they are open-sourced, they do not belong to me anymore. Now, they belonged to the world.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by Empty+Bentobox · · Score: 0

      Find customers that understand this mentality!

    2. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      *sits down, shaking*

      I just felt a disturbance in the force, as if a million lawyers just clapped their hands together in glee.

      Make sure, please, that you're contractually permitted to do this. Most paid work I do for companies tends to be owned by those companies.

    3. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, this is why open source licensing is viral. Your own contribution is a note or a comment. You can only get paid for distributing an app with your code, not just your code.

      Thus why closed source is far superior. Well, that an open source is littered with version 0.x apps forever in beta.

    4. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you open the source, do you get two spirit-wives in heaven like ol' Johnny?

    5. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      How could one convince Eugene Krabs to pay? The only way I've found to work is "by the hour," and "by the contract."

    6. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1

      Make sure, please, that you're contractually permitted to do this. Most paid work I do for companies tends to be owned by those companies.

      I am my own boss, and all my programs belonged to me - except those that I've set free via open sourcing. They belonged, as I've said, to the world.

      --
      Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    7. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 1

      "all my programs belong to me"

      You've apparently never heard the words "software patent".

      Almost certainly, you can be sued for infringing someone's software patent and they can prevent you from releasing your code.

      The only question is, does the patent holder know or care about you?

      all your bases are belong to us.

  8. It's not "your" work by KalvinB · · Score: 1, Insightful

    When someone is paying you, it's "their" work. They are paying you to build something they own.

    You no longer own it as soon as you cash the check for the work you did.

    1. Re:It's not "your" work by micheas · · Score: 2

      IANAL, but not in most cases.

      In most cases unless there is a copyright assignment clause in the contract the copyright stays with the developer.

      This is how Ross Perot made his billions

      You don't get copyright to Oracle's database software even if you cut a seven figure check. Small developers are no different.

    2. Re:It's not "your" work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're a contractor, this is something normally specified in the contract. That contract will be specific about who owns what, and when the change in ownership happens. That's usually after delivery and final payment.

      I know it happens, but I have never personally seen work done where the contractor owned the end result. You can't assign them ownership of "Oracles Database", but they usually own the code you wrote that uses that db.

      Either way, it's a contract issue and should always be spelled out.

    3. Re:It's not "your" work by TheLink · · Score: 2

      but I have never personally seen work done where the contractor owned the end result.

      Check out wedding photographers in some countries.

      --
    4. Re:It's not "your" work by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      Not everyone works under those conditions. Most employees do, contractors terms vary considerably."Work for hire" rules are a default and you are free to negotiate different terms.

    5. Re:It's not "your" work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In most countries even: the Berne convention is geared towards the authors: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P85_10661. See article 2 sub 6. Some countries have created a legal fiction that marks an employer as author of a work, but none (afaik) that mark an a casual contractor

      As micheas remarked, unless there are is contractual transfer of rights, copyright ("ownership", although that term does not really apply) lies with the author.

    6. Re:It's not "your" work by chrismcb · · Score: 1

      I didn't realize Ross Perot wrote software. When someone HIRES you to write some software for them, they own the copyright. Its called "works for hire." Of course you can negotiate the contract up front, and retain the copyright.

    7. Re:It's not "your" work by slashping · · Score: 1

      It wouldn't be smart for a contractor to accept handing over the copyright. I have been working as a software contractor for years, and I keep the copyright on everything I write. So, if I write some generic library, say a fixed point math library for a small microcontroller, I don't want to hand over the copyright, and have to reinvent the whole thing for another customer. Over the years, I've collected a large amount of useful code, which means that I can start a new project for a new customer, and quickly piece together a bunch of old chunks of code, make some modifications, add some customer specific stuff, and be done. The customer is happy because he doesn't have to pay for all the hours I didn't waste, and I give them a permissive license so they can basically use the code for anything they'd like (except to distribute the source code).

    8. Re:It's not "your" work by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      So, if I write some generic library, say a fixed point math library for a small microcontroller, I don't want to hand over the copyright

      Most contractors don't write that sort of stuff. They do stuff like interfaces between some random corp's shitty stock control system and its utterly wanky accounting system.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    9. Re:It's not "your" work by micheas · · Score: 1

      In the US hire means a w-2 and unemployment benefits. If you don' t have those, you are probably a contractor not an employee.

      Works for hire only covers employees not contractors. If you commission a painting you won't have copyright of the painting, unless you specify so in the commissioning documents.

      IINAL, but it was well worth the day I spent listening to lawyers talk about this..

    10. Re:It's not "your" work by micheas · · Score: 2

      It is important for the contractor to realize that the default is that the contractor owns the code. This means that if you don't own the code, you should be compensated for not owning it.

      They don't own the code for Windows, Microsoft Office, the Oracle Database, or most of the rest of what they use. In my experience not giving up copyright typically just means crossing out that section of the contract and asking that it be negotiated separately.

    11. Re:It's not "your" work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True. But as one of those contractors, I can tell you that we also accumulate (somewhat) reusable libraries of code to glue various shitty systems together. Every corp thinks their shitty systems are wonderful and unique, and nearly all of them are quite wrong.

      - T

  9. Are you or are you not a freelancer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why should your customer pay you for something you want to do?

    You simply deliver them a solution and make sure the code is GPLed. Release engineering you can do in your own time, which when done right is an investment in future business because you can re-use the code for another client, deliver better solutions because you got some (free) help improving the code from random strangers, that sort of thing.

    As a foss freelancer, you're much more a consultant than a software manufacturer. Amend your mindset as appropriate.

    1. Re:Are you or are you not a freelancer? by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Exactly. If it really will improve the OP's projects, it will pay off in the long term. However, as to the question of "properly open sourcing the code", I would hope that the OP has indeed already done that: if he's using GPL code and there's a copy of the source code available to the recipient of the object code, then it is already properly open source by the terms of the GPL. If the customer later provides a derivative to someone else as closed source, that's still not the OP's problem.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
  10. The real question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are you delivering code to your clients in a state that you're unwilling to publish?

    1. Re:The real question by BronsCon · · Score: 2

      It's done all the time. Some little customization, to an otherwise widely-useable codebase, that is tailored to the specific needs of a single client.

      I can't count how many times my company has put together a custom extension to our core product for a client only to later field many requests along the lines of "you know, like you did for [client] but with this small change" and end up rolling that same modification into our core product with a wider variety of configuration options.

      Sometimes you're implementing a feature as a one-off, coded to behave a certain way because the client doesn't need, or want to pay for, the flexibility of a more generalized implementation. That is code I would never release to the public, but that doesn't make it bad code.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  11. Put it in the contract up front by FranTaylor · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you are serious about this, then make it an integral part of your "business plan" and put in your contract that open-sourcing the project non-negotiable.

    REALLY you should SELL your customer on the idea that the software THEY ARE PAYING FOR will be BETTER.

  12. Refactor your code correctly by Frans+Faase · · Score: 2

    If you have to factor out custromer-specific stuff it means that your code is not well refactored and does not have clean interfaces. While you are writing code for a customer, you should take care that at the end you can release your open source parts immediately. The extra time this might cost is quickly returned, because your code will be cleaner and easier to develop. It will also result in component that are beter to use by others, because they do have a clean interface. One reason why open source components are often not reused because they have a bad interface. Refactoring is a great technique to develop clean interfaces. You will benefit it from yourself if you learn to create clean interfaces. It is an art not easily managed, I have come to realize.

  13. maintenance fee by dutchwhizzman · · Score: 1

    Put in the contract for development that either they will have to pay you a maintenance fee, or pay for maintenance on an hourly rate when required. The third option we that If they choose to open source the code you write for them and it gets accepted in the project you wrote the extension for, they will have the option to use that maintained code. Let them make the choice, at least this will give you an option to work on it as an addition to an existing FOSS project, or some custom thing from the very beginning. By starting out already knowing which direction you're going, the difference in development time will be less than if you have to re-write everything to get it merged with the FOSS project.

    --
    I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
  14. Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Use linux as an example; it's open and because of that it has spread to every bit of hardware in existence and has become the most robust OS.

    That's because of all the eyes on it. You can't have that without opening.

    Tell your client to open their eyes and they'll profit from all the eyes when you can't meet the demand.

    They'll see results with their own eyes.

    1. Re:Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey client, I'm a shitty programmer and the source code is full of bugs. You should pay me extra so I can open source it. That way everyone else can see the bugs and they'll work for free to fix them.

  15. We had this problem. We solved it. by JonToycrafter · · Score: 4, Informative

    I work for a 5-person tech cooperative. We were writing code, documentation, etc. that we wanted to contribute back to the community. So out of our "profit", we made sure that we set aside some funds for our members to spend some of their time abstracting code, packaging it up for release, etc.

    The basic principle is the same for a freelancer - you have to raise your rates. Are you charging $100/hr? Charge $110/hr. Use the extra money to pay yourself to package up the code.

    In terms of "useful tricks" - well, as a freelancer, you don't have the privilege of someone keeping you honest to your goals. You can change your personal rules whenever you want. But frankly, I would say my co-op has made a net PROFIT on open sourcing our material. When we open source it, we post about it on our blog, Twitter, etc. This increases our referrals from other developers, it means more folks are finding us on the search engines, we gain credibility with other developers when we need them to fix a bug in their module. Maybe the "trick" is to remind yourself of those advantages.

  16. The only way it has ever worked for me by Yaur · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have been paid for writing open source software but only in the following context:
    Open source project X almost meets our needs, however it is missing the following 3 features. I could spend two weeks implementing those features (but we will need to contribute it back to the project) or two months implementing the library from scratch, which do you prefer?
    Basically, I would say that you need to present a very concrete value proposition in front of the customer and let them pick... starting an open source project as a contractor and on the customers dime is pretty much always going to be a non-starter.

    1. Re:The only way it has ever worked for me by Jim+Hall · · Score: 1

      I have been paid for writing open source software but only in the following context: Open source project X almost meets our needs, however it is missing the following 3 features. I could spend two weeks implementing those features (but we will need to contribute it back to the project) or two months implementing the library from scratch, which do you prefer?

      While I always like to see people contribute their open source work such (bug fixes, enhancements) back to the community, it's important to realize this is not strictly required except for only a few licenses. With most licenses, you only need to provide a copy of the source code when you distribute the binary.

      So a better way to market this might be "If we make changes to open source project X, you'll get a copy of the source code and our changes. You can use that to make changes on your own later - or hire us again to make further improvements." In my experience, companies like having the source IN CASE they need/want to make changes later, but will prefer to outsource that work to the person who did it the first time.

    2. Re:The only way it has ever worked for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could spend two weeks implementing those features (but we will need to contribute it back to the project)

      I know of no software license that requires each and every addition to the source code to be contributed back.
      Things might become different if you actually start distributing the program+3features.
      But if you want to create a highly tweaked version of GNU/Linux/Libreoffice/pftables/Apache/Postrgresql/... to use in $COMPANY, then that's fine.

  17. charge for updates by crutchy · · Score: 1

    open source initial release, and if its good, hold of improvements/updates/bug fixes until a donation meter reaches a certain amount

    dunno if you would get a lot of money that way, but you might get a bit

  18. This is a non-issue. by Alex+Belits · · Score: 0

    This is a non-issue, and the only reason such a question can be asked is being a part in a propaganda campaign against open source software.

    --
    Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
  19. If it were meant to be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you were meant to be a success at writing open-sores software, you would be able to subsist on toe cheese while crashing in the random living room.

  20. Tax write-off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Develop the code, then create a not-for-profit organization and donate the code to it and write yourself a tax receipt.

    Why did you think Mozilla, Apache etc are all not-for-profits?

  21. Re:The spirit of Johnny Appleseed for Everything! by hughbar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mod this up to the skies, please! In my opinion this applies to -everything- forgotten books [I've been thinking about trying to find the rights owners for some of them], forgotten music [same problem, I'm from the 60s there's some wonderful stuff buried] etc. Unhappily, for me, this non-publishing is collateral damage that [in the spirit of Bentham: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham%5D should be increasing the sum total of human happiness and instead lies locked or buried.

    The second point, for software etc., is the 'standing on the shoulders of giants' idea. That is, something fairly simple or a few bits can be used to build something spectacular or inspire it. Same point of inspiration idea for music too.

    Great post with a great many 'extra' implications, thank you.

    --
    On y va, qui mal y pense!
  22. Tell the company what's in it for them by bigHairyDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I recently successfully persuaded the company that I freelance for to open source a core part of their product line. The part we open sourced was essentially the engine that powers several other products. I had a whole page of benefits prepared, but the main one was this:

    "Your developers don't seem to realise that the core engine is supposed to be a general purpose platform, almost like an operating system - it needs to be very well documented, and it absolutely can't have any code in it that is specific to one of the applications that runs on it. If you open source it and give it its own website and code repo, your developers will finally understand what it is, and stop dumping application specific code into it when then need to implement a new application-level feature. This will save you time because you won't have to be constantly refactoring application code out of the platform."

    Also, "open source is cool, and having an open source product will make it easier hiring new developers" seemed to go down well.

    --

    foo mane padme hum

  23. Maintenance costs by MtHuurne · · Score: 1

    I worked on a closed-source product once where one of the customers wanted to pay for a new feature to be developed, but under the condition that it would be included in the main product and not developed as a customer-specific extension. The reason was that they wanted to make sure the feature would be maintained and that the maintenance would be included in the base license costs.

    Opening the source could be part of an effort to reduce future maintenance costs, so that would be a way you could sell the idea to your customers. That would obligate you to actually use the same code for multiple customers as much as possible, of course.

    In terms of who pays for the hours spent generalizing the code, I don't think it's fair to charge the first customer for this. Either increase your hourly rate and do it in your own time, as one of the other posters suggested, or charge the subsequent customers for it, since they will be the ones benefiting from the fact that the first allowed the source to be opened. Besides, generalizing code while you only have a single customer often leads to bad design decisions since you'll have to make assumptions about the requirements of other customers without having talked to those customers yet.

  24. A: You don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a core problem with open source.

    - Customers see no value in your work, so you either force a revenue stream with subscription or ads
    or
    - You make your customers see value in your work by placing a budget. eg "next feature update at 500$" and keep
    raising the bar until you're in a comfortable position. I've seen this work for games and some useful apps, but probably only works for established content.
    or
    - You make no commitment or support except to paying customers (a la mysql, redhat, etc)

    To take a page from the art/comics community (which has the same problem)
    - Put your content online for free at legible resolution/ad-supported
    AND
    - Put your content into print if there is enough demand
    AND
    - Sell Merchandise (tshirts and hats) for those who want to support your artwork.

    A lot of the time, the reason people aren't making money off of their open-source content is because they're too ingrained in the GPL mindset as opposed to the BSD minset.

    GPL = more or less source code communism, by which anyone can fork your project and make a better one, and then turn around and demand your improvements be shared. Nobody gets a chance to monopolize it (see Oracle buying MySQL or OpenOffice)

    BSD = more closer to public domain with some copyright attached, by which anyone can fork the project and make a better one without sharing improvements. So this is more "Captialism" in nature of taking a public resource and commercializing it.

    From a political standpoint, if you want to be open source, and never charge for source code or binaries, that's great, because it drives adoption of your software. But the pitfalls (especially for games) is that something better always comes along.

    Like what I want to see is someone do an open-source MMORPG. It has all the right opportunities to monetize and get improvements made by the community who plays it, and I'm not talking about Second Life or Minecraft. I'm talking about a game that the actual game mechanics, storyline and assets can be created by the users.

    1. Re:A: You don't by Chrisq · · Score: 2

      A lot of the time, the reason people aren't making money off of their open-source content is because they're too ingrained in the GPL mindset as opposed to the BSD minset.

      The GPL license works better for commercial dual licencing. Release something under BSD and people can use it for commercial purposes for free. Under GPL if they want to incorporate it into a commercial system they can't - that's where you offer a commercial "paid for" license.

    2. Re:A: You don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      BSD = more closer to public domain with some copyright attached, by which anyone can fork the project and make a better one without sharing improvements. So this is more "Captialism" in nature of taking a public resource and commercializing it.

      This Captialism where you steal public resources may be quite common, but I still prefer Capitalism where your profit is based on exploiting your own property and fair use of public property.

  25. Smarter way to get paid by minutetraders · · Score: 1

    Open Sourcing & getting paid are not incompatible. In general developers are very bad at marketing their open source software - poor website design, very technical explanations (if any) .. remember people who are NOT going to pay for your software are people who are probably as skilled as the developer .. they won't spend any penny and can quickly figure out how to use your software. The people who might pay for your software are people who are not very tech savvy, need to solve a problem for 1/4 of the price than if they were to go with commercial software.. usually they won't mind paying for the software to be installed by expert hands and might as well buy extras from you .. just be creative as how you can make money : ongoing support, user manual, extra features (just like TV packages), value added (private) forum, and so on .. so YES it's possible to make money out of open source software, if right from the beginning you think Service, Service, Service

    --
    Negotiate Before You Buy
    1. Re:Smarter way to get paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In general developers are very bad at marketing their open source software - poor website design

      Replace "poor" with "extremely poor". I cannot count the times where I've come to the page of some Open Source software I didn't know, and the first thing I got was a news page which I had zero interest for, but absolutely no description of what the damn thing actually is. And quite often, even a short search doesn't reveal that information. Yes, probably it is written somewhere on the site, and if I looked for it long enough, I might stumble over it. But I always lose interest long before that (indeed, quite often I even omit the short search; if they can't tell me right away what their product is about, then why should I be interested in it?).

      No, I can't give an example, because I quickly forget those projects and their pages. All what remains in my memory is "seen yet another project which fails at telling me what it is." However I've got an advice for any Open Source project (and actually, for any project; but for some reason Open Source projects get it wrong most often):

      The main page of your web site is mostly for people who have no clue about your project.

      It is there for people to learn that it exists, what it offers, and why they should care. Of course, details can be moved to (prominently linked) subpages, but the main message has to be right on the main page, at a prominent place. If you can't tell immediately from the first page what all this is about, then you could just as well have no web page at all.

      Yes, that is a single, simple rule. It should be obvious. It should be easy to follow. Yet far too many projects don't. I don't understand why.

  26. Open Source doesn't mean free, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Charge them for access to the software. Open Source doesn't mean free as in beer. I can't believe that no one has mentioned this yet. Open source only means that you also give them the source if they use the software. And if you aren't charging for the application you have no responsibility to maintaining it. You can't complain about not getting your money's worth for free software without coming off with entitlement issues.

  27. Service Offering by bugg_tb · · Score: 1

    I am an open source BI consultant, we use loads of different open source software when developing solutions for clients. Sadly clients don't always pay for the open source software, they believe open source is free.

    That being said we also offer a piece of open source BI software, until yesterday (this is true) we were GPL based, and to be honest dealing with requests regadding embedding, in a SAAS solution, not in a SAAS solution, was a pain in the ass. So we changed it to Apache 2 now to make our lives easier. All that aside, we have found that our clients really pay for open source software when they feel they will need support, people don't like to support other peoples software, so sell support packages.

    On top of support we find that people are happy to pay for extra functionality, we offer cheaper development rates for people happy to include the new feature back into the open source version, if not we charge standard consulting rates. And last but not least, clients then find we offer a wider range of Bi consulting and we gain more work from that.

    So we find that offering extra services on top of the software is what makes us our money, the software itself, whilst people pay for, isn't what keeps us afloat.

  28. Open source it the second time around by dhasenan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The first time you implement something, you don't know there's a market for it. You write something that is very specific to your customer's needs.

    The second time you are asked to implement it, you have a known demand, and you have a chance to resurrect the old code and make it better suited to a wider variety of uses. You can charge the second customer the amount it would take to implement from scratch, and use that time to clean up and prepare your previous work for their purpose and for general audiences.

    1. Re:Open source it the second time around by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The third time you design an XML format and a custom scripting language to make it do everything from controlling a nuclear reactor to transcoding .flv files. You know, just in case.

      You never reach the fourth time, life expectancy being what it is.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  29. Freelancer billing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm astonished about this question.
    Any freelancer has a per-hour price that also covers other not directly billable work, including customer acquisition, tax reports etc.
    If it wouldn't be so, the freelancer work would be at loss.
    Now, please explain why you can't charge a price that is sufficient to cover all your extra duties, including open-source work.

  30. Do what I do by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    Don't open source it. All the contracts I've had specifically state the IP is owned by the company I contract to, not me. I wouldn't have the right to open source it.

    1. Re:Do what I do by Xacid · · Score: 1

      Alternatively one could write up a contract that states the company is merely licensing the code and that the coder retains the rights to the original, non-company specific parts of it. The "licensing" covers the customizations and support for a given length of time (1 year?). Of course this would have to be in finely worded legalese to substantially cover your ass.

    2. Re:Do what I do by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Sure, but I'd rather get work than get laughed at.

    3. Re:Do what I do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too late.

    4. Re:Do what I do by Xacid · · Score: 1

      Depends on the nature of the business. I'd operate as an LLC at least and market myself as a business, not an individual. When a company is seeking out business from you and not the other way around you're the one who can initiate the legalese. Also, a lot of small businesses would likely be fine with this as long as they get some "discount" and a working product. For those who don't want those terms charge some fee (be reasonable, of course). Sure you may not be able to open source every gig but you'll likely get plenty of folks willing to work with that arrangement for a discount. I get the impression a lot of geeks don't know how to operate like a business and end up coming off as just wandering consultants which causes them to lose all kinds leverage. Be a shop who creates solutions, not some gun for hire.

    5. Re:Do what I do by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      I do operate as an LLC, I just don't go after small companies. Large companies and government departments pay more and dominate the market. They generally have standard contacts and if you don't like it, they'll just get someone else.

      I'm not a sales person, so although it would be fun to build solutions and sell them as a product, I don't have a sales team to sell anything. I don't have a marketing team to get the word out. I have a family to provide for.

    6. Re:Do what I do by Xacid · · Score: 1

      Just a different business model of course. But would you be going after the large fish and trying to open source your stuff? Probably not. I guess the OP just needs to figure out what's more important to them.

      And +1 for actual civil conversation on the internet. Where's the AC to ruin everything? :)

    7. Re:Do what I do by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      And +1 for actual civil conversation on the internet. Where's the AC to ruin everything? :)

      Sorry, I ran out of expletives for the day wrangling with svn.

    8. Re:Do what I do by Xacid · · Score: 1

      Same here - though instead of SVN, Windows Servers.

  31. Community by cowboy76Spain · · Score: 1

    As other posts tell, if you want X to pay you for a work, you need to convince X that such work is interesting to him. Just saying "I want to open source it" is not going to impress anybody

    An option, if the product has a functionality common enough, would be the possibility of creating a base of developers (that may add some useful functionality) and users (aka as "testers").

    This can be combined with a marketing or "coolness" approach so that such company can be seen as providing something for free (don't they give free pencils?).

    --
    Why can't /. have a rich-text editor? Editing your own HTML is so XXth century.
  32. Make it part of your build cycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We've all had this problem. Recently, I started working for a company where, rather than using the upstream as the git base, a deployment profile was based on a make file (drupal, using drush make), which pulled in the base software, and applied various patches as required, and create the install profile from that.

    As a result, the standard operating procedure when hitting a bug, or creating a feature in an upstream contrib module was to create an issue on drupal.org (if one didn't already exist) and then submit a patch for said issue, which we'd then reference in our make file until it got pulled into upstream.

    The result was that because this was common activity, rather than a big single event, we did it all the time. The norm was two or three line patches that fixed an annoying bug, or added a useful feature, and it helped us with keeping our installs up to date, because our modifications on top of upstream modules were cleanly seperated out.

    It also helped that drupal.org had a easy common way to create issues, and attach patches to them.

  33. One way by heikkile · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I work for a company that does a lot of Open Source stuff. Here is how we manage it: We have core toolkits that are open source, and custom applications that are closed source, made for specific customers. When ever a customer needs new functionality, we try to generalize it and put it into the toolkits, which we then release. We tell the customer that we have this open source toolkit which we use for the project, and which we keep improving. But we don't specify how much of the work goes into the toolkit, and how much on the custom side.

    Those toolkits have been our main marketing effort, and have certainly paid off. Within our very narrow field we are world famous, and our toolkits almost dominate the market. Nobody can afford to build a competing one, when ours is free. Although anyone may use our tools, we happen to know them best and have most experience with them, so we can often do any given job faster than others. The company has survived over a decade, and has expanded internationally, and is now all of 15 people.

    --

    In Murphy We Turst

    1. Re:One way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. This.

  34. Don't do it "properly" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just share it, and remove the very minimal (i.e. any hardcoded passwords/api keys you might have).

    If anyone is interested on it, *they* will take the time to factor out whatever doesn't fit them. Or at least they will nag you about it, so you know which parts are more prioritary. If no one is interested on it anyway, then the project is not worth opensourcing, and you should not invest more time on it anyway.

  35. Arguments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you think they might listen, you may try to convince them by pointing out that making parts of the system open source has a number of advantages such as free code reviewing and bug fixes by the community. Basically, you need to show them that they get a good return for their investment.

  36. Flawed question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Share code, get paid.

    Sharing implies giving.

  37. Don't sell project itself but its future by cronostitan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have been in the Open Source business for almost 10 years now and I am leading a big open source software project which is completely self-sufficient.

    From my experience what you need to sell is not a 'Please open source this software because other will benefit from it' but a 'Please open source this software because YOU will profit from it - in the future'. Open sourcing a software is usually a bet on future option, like a stock option you are creating which needs constant nurturing.

    Tell the customer that with a regular maintenance fee he might be able not only to help you support him (in case of problems/bugs/general support), but also will be able to extend it with possible new features with no additional costs (beyond that maintenance fee).

    The 'do it for the public common good' is certainly weighing in on your suggestion but certainly a future investment and return is the key point. At least this worked for me/us. Usually if additional features happen they will be so happy and donate on top, too.

    --
    Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
    1. Re:Don't sell project itself but its future by Guy+Smiley · · Score: 2

      I'm also a 10+ year open source company veteran, and we have survived 1/2 on customers paying us for feature development, and 1/2 on ongoing maintenance and support in production environments.

      The one thing that I think is the linchpin in _customer_ value is that there is no vendor lockin on their part. If our company were to go bankrupt or become money grubbing idiots, then they are free to go their merry way an continue I use our software without any license or support from us. They can hire someone else to provide their support, or do it on their own via mailing lists. There are many smaller sites that so not pay for support, but the larger ones pay us because their system uptime and stability is more important to them than the annual support fee, and they know that money paid to us makes their product better.

  38. Business Reasons to opensource by WombleGoneBad · · Score: 1
    The reasons to opensource in a business context are :-
    • 1) You want to use GPL or similar licensed components in your software instead of spending time and money re-inventing the wheel
    • 2) You expect the product to be adopted by other DEVELOPERS, who will work on and improve the code for free in their own interests
    • 3) If 'broad' user testing is usefull. By releasing opensource you are potentially greatly extending the userbase and by releasing early it is possible to get significant testing.

    The core idea is that costs are shared by co-operation between parties who have a similar need. This is not a new concept, and has appeared and suceeded in many different forms in business. Like a 'franchise' which shares branding costs because it would be impossible to get the same level of branding on their own individual budgets. There are other reasons to opensource your code (fame, altruism, etc) but these are not very appropriate in your context.

  39. Just approaching the market wrong by CadentOrange · · Score: 1

    And if you can't see the stupidity of giving something away that a client paid you thousands for then there's no help for you.

    You could offer a discount to your customers if they allow you to open source the code. This benefits everyone. Your customers get a nice discount, and you get to open source your code and potentially help speed up your development time on subsequent projects. To get around the drop in income, you could raise your baseline rate and encourage your customers to take the discount.

    Alternatively, you could just focus on refactoring and open sourcing the code in your own free time.

    1. Re:Just approaching the market wrong by bernywork · · Score: 1

      Don't discount, and I'd nearly go so far as to say, ever. It makes you look cheap.

      The moment you offer a discount is the moment when they start thinking they aren't getting a good enough deal and they'll screw you more or they'll resent it.

      The only possible exception is if your contracting and someone is buying hundreds and hundreds of hours of your time, at that point, you don't have to worry about dead time so much (You should have this factored into your hourly / daily rate) and you can take that out.

      --
      Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
  40. It's All About Incentives by peatbakke · · Score: 1

    (background: I've been freelancing for about twelve years, with several engagements that have resulted in open source contributions)

    If you're freelancing, the general rule is that the customer owns everything you produce within the scope of the contract. This means you do not own the copyright, and therefore you can't open source the code. The specific phrase you look for in your contracts is "work for hire" ... and although IANAL, I believe this is the implicit legal relationship when someone pays you to produce something.

    It's very difficult to get around that rule, or to outline specific exceptions ahead of time -- but you can change the incentives to encourage your client to contribute code to the open source community.

    I offer to reduce my rates for any work we mutually agree to release as open source. I benefit by getting my name and work in broader distribution, my clients benefit by paying less for the work, and the open source world grows a little bit. It's a reasonable trade off for all parties, and even if most clients don't exercise that option, they appreciate the spirit of such an offer.

    Where it gets hairy is when you're making changes to code that has been open sourced under a "viral" license, like the GPL. If that is the case, then you should inform your client that they are bound by the terms of that license -- that those changes *necessarily* become open source. Keep a copy of those emails. If your client decides that they're going to skip out on that obligation, you'll want to make sure your ass is covered if/when your client gets in trouble ...

    1. Re:It's All About Incentives by lostfayth · · Score: 2

      In the case of a contractor or a comissioned work (in the US), a work qualifies as a work for hire only if all the following 3 conditions are met:

      1. The work must be specially ordered or commissioned
      2. The work must fall under one of 9 categories defined by 17 U.S.C. 101: contribution to a collective work, translation, supplementary work, compilation, instructional text, test, answer material for a test, atlas, or part of a motion picture or audiovisual work.
      3. There must be a written agreement between the parties that the work is a work made for hire.

      If these conditions are not met, the work is not a work made for hire and the ownership of the copyright remains with the creator of the work.

      In any case, consulting a lawyer to understand your particular case (and review your contracts) is always a good idea. If you're in the position of propsoing that contract, you should have a lawyer draft the standard framework you then customize for the client.

    2. Re:It's All About Incentives by peatbakke · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the breakdown on work for hire -- and I 100% agree, regarding hiring a lawyer to look at contracts. :)

  41. Show them the difference. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Closed source: they have to buy in someone to fix it or improve it. They make no money from it being closed.
    Open source: they potentially get free fixes. They make no money from it being opened.

    Additionally, since it is opened source by an independent contractor, there is no reasonable trait of ownership of the code by the company. If there is any complaing about patent or copyright infringement, they are not the owner of the code and are not responsible for the complaints redress.

    There's no need for it to be closed source.

  42. Meh by fisted · · Score: 1

    Get your Boss's permission and Open Source it in your spare time. Jesus, it works like this in the Open Source world.

  43. Why worry about the competitor getting benefit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To refuse would be cutting your nose off to spite your face.

    If your competitor gets someone to write an improvement for them, they have had to pay full wages for it. This company could do the same. If it was closed source, then they would HAVE to get someone in and pay full wages for an improvement. But open sourced, they may get improvements for free. So just to spite the competition in the remote possibility they would bother to leech off the GPL release, you would refuse to get free improvements?

    Penny foolish AND pound foolish.

  44. They pay for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so they can do anything with my code they want; I don't want that code anymore, let them have it. Most of the time it goes to the trashbin anyway (nowdays agile means reiterate forever).

  45. The same way I get free tools.... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Roll the cost into the project. If I need a new Hot Air Rework station I add the cost of that to the next project that needs one. So that $22,500.00 job becomes $25,500.00 The customer still buys it and I get a nice shiny new Tool.

    All businesses do this, Why is this not understood by freelance programmers?

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  46. rebate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Charge a little less when they allow you to open source it compared to when they don't (put it in the contract up front).

    Money talks.

  47. Incentivize! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I started coding for hire when I was 15. The way I approached it was, $30/hr for normal work, $25/hr for OSS development, and it had to be decided at the start of the project. Developing OSS usually required a bit more time because more work had to go into writing unspecialized, portable code in contrast to a project that stuck to a strict spec. In return you got more frequent updates/new features and a "sponsored by" pat on the back on the website and within code comments.

  48. Limit your legally allowed protection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Current IP law surrounding patent and copyright protections are absurd. But the intent of those laws is not - to provide limited protection to encourage innovation and progress. So do what patent and copyright law should be doing - provide *limited* protection. License your code under restrictive terms - but only for a limited time. Then release the code. Just because you *can* retain indefinite control over your creations doesn't mean you should.

  49. Re:We had this problem. We solved it. by HnT · · Score: 1

    The fundamental problem is that typically you write software for the customer and then it belongs to your customer and not to you - so one way or another you have to involve your customer in this decision.

    --
    "Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
  50. Re:We had this problem. We solved it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fundamental problem is that typically you write software for the customer and then it belongs to your customer and not to you - so one way or another you have to involve your customer in this decision.

    It all depends on how the contract is worded and the agreed upon license. It's also a lot easier to ensure open sourced code by building upon GPL'd frameworks, which in most instances is required to be GPL'd as well.

  51. Your argument is garbage. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure. And some people complain about people complaining about Ubuntu not contributing enough.

    In both cases, no one really cares about their complaints.

    To you I say: if you don't want to be painted as a linux advocate by virtue of posting on slashdot, then don't try to paint the linux community with that sort of broad brush.

  52. Make the business case to your client. by cduffy · · Score: 1

    There's a shop I used to work at in the past that did kernel ports to custom architectures, custom drivers, etc.

    Now, you could pay us to do the work and keep it in-house... and when a new upstream kernel version came out, you could pay us to do it again.

    Or, you could pay us to do the work, and pay us to do the extra work of getting it upstream once... and not have to pay for ports to every new upstream release.

    We didn't have to try very hard to sell the second option.

  53. Something tells me by KalvinB · · Score: 1

    He's not writing operating systems.

  54. totally depends on how your contracts are worded by Chirs · · Score: 1

    Basically whether you're doing "work for hire" or working independently. If independently, you could have a clause saying that anything you write independently is licensed by default under the GPL, with a dual license giving the company non-exclusive rights to use/modify/distribute.

    If they want exclusive rights, they get charged more because it means you can't reuse that stuff later (and you can't reuse stuff from previous jobs).

  55. Put it in your contract by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    My standard contract has a brief paragraph explaining the open source ecosystem, how we could start each code block from scratch instead at much greater cost but we'll use open source whenever possible to improve cost, time, and quality, and stating that software modifications tangential to the core business of the client will be fed back upstream, unless the client requests otherwise.

    Deal with the issue once.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  56. Price discount by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Charge more if the code is not open sourced.
    $150/hr for non-F/LOSS coding.
    $120/hr for F/LOSS coding.

    Money will often make them change their minds.

  57. Contracts with Government & Biz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Open-Source start-up business in every big city shouldn't be to hard. IF THE GOVERNMENTS AT ALL LEVELS DECIDED TO MIGRATE TO LINUX (Servers, Workstations, Desktops, Laptops). Get a contract to audit the source code, add features to applications, remove features from applications, etc. EVERY GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS AND COMPANIES IS UNIQUE AND WANT DIFFERENT FEATURES WITH THEIR APPLICATIONS. It's like having a suit created to fit your body. Open-Source should be able to create a lot of computer careers in Open-Source Start-Up Business. I'm just hoping that the government(s) wake up and create laws to migrate to Linux ASAP.

  58. The Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why bother getting paid? Why would you want to reap the benefits of your own work? And donate your time and efforts to maintain something?

    Oh yeah, that's right. All these little whiny hacker wannabe's stealing software and music because they don't want to pay for it! They all make the argument you should not be compensated for your work, you greedy bastard.

    Do as I say, not as I do, right?

  59. Move To Moscow To Get Paid Top Dollar... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Get U.S. Passport at any Post Office
    2. Book flight online to Moscow
    3. Fly to Moscow
    4. Walk to different buildings of Tech Companies in Moscow and ask for a Job
    5. Get paid top dollar for your hard work and live in luxury!!!
    6. Profit !!!

  60. Re:We had this problem. We solved it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you can write whatever you want into the contract. Microsoft did it, so why not you? Just write that it doesn't belong to him, they do, too.

  61. Just don't pull a Lunduke. by BryanLunduke · · Score: 1

    EOM.

  62. Ransom it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Set up an account, kickstarter, whatever. You get $1000, the code goes free. The donators pay if they all together hit 1000.

  63. Give them a discount by pclminion · · Score: 1

    Increase your rates by 25%, and then offer to take 20% off your rate if they allow you to open-source the solution. Existing customers may complain a bit, but new customers who didn't know what your rate was anyway, will think you are offering them a deal.

  64. But is the payment really for the software? by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Mostly people want a problem solved, are paying you for that, and don't paticularly care about what happens with the software you use to solve it.
    People don't care if the details of for instance a database backend or something to deal with forms or whatever stay secret or not, they only care that the data in their database or their custom forms (or whatever) stay secret.
    Very few places are in the business of selling software so most places really get no direct value out of stopping you from reusing what you've written to solve their problems.

  65. How about this: by drolli · · Score: 1

    You make a library of funcitons on your own responsibility, which itselfs forms not a complete product, open source it,get more efficient in composing your products. Your customers will not care very much about it (they want that you do the job, fast) and you can complete more projects by using the shared code. With a little luck, people will start to contribute to the library and there will be a synergy.

    That is how i understand most open source projects works: provide the building block open/free (on your responsibility) and build the final product (closed) for the customer.

    The myths about not being able integrate GPL components into a complete commercial product is just not true. Where i work there is a process for defining and managing obligations from the usage of open sourced code. Once this is standardized, its actually not complicated or difficult at all. If a customer doesnt understand it, explain it.

  66. look@/try-this: by m.bobak · · Score: 1
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