Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Business Model for An Open Source Developer?

An anonymous reader writes: I'm interested in creating really good open source software. However, unless programmers have an incentive to work on their projects for long periods, many projects are be abandoned.

There's many business models surrounding free/libre open source software: support (pay for help, or additional features), premium (pay for more advanced software), hosting (pay for using the software on someone else's servers), donation (two versions of the same app, pay because you want to be nice to the developers), etc. Not all of those business models align the interests of the developer and the customer/user in the same way: support-based models for example, benefit developers who introduce certain mistakes or delay introducing features. (In the short term. In the long run, it opens a door for competitors...) Which of those align the interests of both?
The original submission also asks if any of these models are "morally questionable" -- and if there's other business models that have proven successful for open source software. Leave your best thoughts in the comments. What's the best business model for an open source developer?

Comments

What's your audience?

[scsirob]

'Really good open source software' doesn't say much. The business model, if there is one at all, depends very much on the audience you target. Enterprise companies will have different incentives to pay you than school kids do. There's quite a difference between making money from the 1000th Flappy Birds clone, or from some financial statistics system that may change a business forever.

Perhaps if your goal is to make a living writing software, get yourself a well-paying job as a developer or start your own closed-source business, and make open source programs on the side without a business model.

An Open Source Developer?

[tomhath]

It sounds to me that you have to separate goals: 1) work as a free lance developer 2) work on an open source project.

Either one of those is pretty easy to accomplish on its own (assuming you're a good enough developer to get hired to do the work someone else wants, or a good enough programmer to write a popular open source project).

But combining the two will be very difficult (not impossible, but very difficult). Being paid for support means you must develop and market a product to someone who is willing to write checks. That alone is a huge challenge. Doing it on your own when your customers will have the source code makes it even more difficult.

Our profession has evolved

[Qbertino]

AFAICT our profession has evolved. The sole developer doesn't exist anymore, at least not for longer than a project solving a specific problem. That means that the tasks we do as a computer expert vary very much throughout the course of our assignments. Most mundane stuff is automated and the practive of sharing code via the free open source is so commonplace, that most problems can be solved by downloading a lib from the interweb in 5 minutes.

All in all this means, for me, as a freelance developer with strong ties to FOSS, that I bill my hours and let the customer decide with my consultation where I'm best suited to bring in my moneys worth.

I've discovered that simply charging by the hour is the easyest and fairest for all involved in the long run. So that's what I do. I offer to do anything that falls into my wide field of IT expertise, decline any useful help for things I'm not good at and ask 65 - 70 Euros per hour. End of story.