Monetizing open source projects is important to project sustainability. I feel like ranting about this today so I thought I'd throw these thoughts on the internet. I'd like to preface this whole rant by saying this is just my opinion and in my experience and I am no expert. Open source enthusiast seem hesitant to discuss monetization. They act like it will sully their principles and that every project should be a charity work. Meanwhile, open source skeptics don't believe that open source is possible of making money. How could you possibly sell something that you give away for free? I find that the strongest, most complex open source projects have some commercial element to them and I think that's how it should work. Expecting developers to build and maintain software without any financial support or by begging for scraps on Ko-Fi is short-sighted at best. Conversely, selling open source is very possible. It requires a different mindset than your typical "make product, sell product" business model with more creative funding streams. In the end, I think that open source products are more productive for society as a whole though, encouraging learning, customization, and innovation for all people regardless of background.
So how does one monetize open source? It depends. The most effective way to monetize depends on the size of the development team, the type of software, and the target users among other things. One of the most effective models I've seen, especially for big businesses, is the service/support model. The idea is that you release your software, free and open source, and then you charge for installation, hosting, and/or customer support. Users are completely allowed to install, use, and fix their own systems using your software, but if they want the expert service that comes straight from the source then they need to pay for that. By factoring the cost of development into the support price, customers who can afford to contribute to the project wind up supporting it for everyone and still getting something they want (support) in return. This is Ubuntu, Red Hat, and so many other companies main, successful business model.
Another good model, especially for solo devs or small teams, is the Freemium plan. Basically, your core software is completely free and open source providing the most important features to anyone who needs them. Then you have extra functionality that is provided separately at cost. This paid portion of the software can be closed source or even open source if you have a generous user community. Me writing this article was inspired by seeing a recent art software named Void Sprite do just this. Their main art software is free and open source, but they recently released an Auto-Updater module to help keep the software automatically up to date and they are charging $2 for it to support the project. Some people might criticize this action but I am glad that they have found a non-intrusive way to monetize their product.
Sometimes releasing part of the project as paid is not an option or not desired. For this situation I recommend the "delayed source" plan. Your most recent software version is kept closed source, but to encourage the community to be involved in the project you release an older and/or limited version of the software as open source. This is similar to the Freemium model, but requires less work as you are basically handing out discarded code. There are lots of creative ways to monetize open source and openly licensed content and I think it should be discussed more. I still argue that the idea of Intellectual Property is too simplistic and outdated for our modern information age society, and while forcing people to release their Copyrights and Patents might seem violently satisfying, I think the real path to open source enlightenment comes from encouraging and convincing people of the best way to develop their ideas.
Comments
Post a Comment