8

I'm an UG Student and an Entrepreneur. I have started a small company with which I'm trying to provide solutions, to various companies in my city, through my software. I put in 30-40 hours of coding and development. I've been a huge fan of Open Source projects and I've also built by software on python.

But now when it comes to selling my software to my customers, I expect money. (Am I being a Hypocrite?)

  1. Is there any OSS license under which I can make money and also make my source open? Please suggest.
  2. Or any other way to make money with my softwares? (I guess I deserve some credit. If not the code, atleast the ideas? :D )
byteofprash
  • 131

5 Answers5

17

If the whole thing is Open Source and people can download the software and use it, it could be hard making money just from that. Some ways you could make money:

  • Support: People pay you to configure and set up and maintain the software, they get their bugs fixed on a priority-level, etc...

  • Training: People pay you to train them how to use and administer your product.

  • Customization: People pay you to customize the software to their particular needs.

  • Extension (similar to customization): Make the "basic" version available for free, and any plugins are not open source and are purchased as needed. Of course this only works if your program actually has plugins.

  • As a service: if your application is some kind of hosted application, you could make the code freely available, and then make money off of hosting and administering it for those who do not want to host it themselves.

FrustratedWithFormsDesigner
  • 46,335
5

This needs to be written in 32 point letters across the intertubes: You Can Sell Open Source Software. Really! If you developed it, you can absolutely sell it and give away the code. You can even use a license which forbids others to sell the software.

l0b0
  • 11,547
4

40 hours of coding isn't a big project. Let's say 2 man-week in an enterprise environment, likely with more testing and documentation that you made. Consider making it a loss leader, i.e. don't try to earn money directly from it.

Instead, use it to gain reputation. Offer it for download on your company web page; create a wiki for it so that people get used to coming to your site. Maybe a few of them will buy your commercial software, if you're selling to individuals. If you're selling to companies or contracting, presenting yourself as the author of moderately popular free software X will be a plus that sometimes allows you to win the contract or charge a little more. If you ever need a salaried job, a portfolio will be a plus on your resume.

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
  • 2,753
2

Depends on what you mean by "making money". Open source software does not preclude making money (Red Hat, the most prominent and successful example, made $32.5 million last quarter), but you can't demand that people pay for using the software - even if you demand this before giving out a licence yourself, this license inevitable includes the right to pass the software on (be it for for free or not). This is why companies making money with OSS don't charge for that at all but rather sell support, training, additional software/tools that aren't open source, etc.

1

Make it open source and sell it anyway. Binpress allows you to do this and there are quite a few projects that have. Just because your code is somewhere out there doesn't mean that everyone knows it's there. Of course, I don't recommend trying to sell it for $1000 either though or people may get very angry at you.

Earlz
  • 23,048