How Do Open Source Software Companies Make Money

Yes, as a developer you lot can make money with open source.

When nosotros talk nigh Open Source Software we are used to referring to free tools, libraries, or products, maintained past generous developers or companies effectually the world, which code is publicly available on some repository.

This is far from true.

Every time I hear of developers not knowing you tin can make money out of Open up Source Software (OSS), I feel surprised.

I've met people making a living just by contributing to projects on GitHub, and CEOs completely relying on OSS projects to build billion dollars companies.

In this post I'll share with yous the best 9 ways, developers and companies are using to monetize their Open Source Projects.

Hither's a Quick Summary of What Y'all Are Going to Read:

Open Source is a huge marketplace and in that location are a lot of methods to monetize your contributions:

1. Discover ad study bugs through Bug Hunting programs.
2. Provide premium back up to not-technical individuals. Recollect about WordPress and Magento developers.
3. Create associated content, similar plugins, Apps, guides and courses.
4. Create an Open Source Project and Double license it for enterprise users.
5. Find Donations.
6. Build an Open up SaaS Model and monetize from subscriptions.

All of them are effective methods to build a good revenue equally a programmer while contributing to the Open up Source Community that's powering 80% of live applications.

If you want to know more than on how to finer apply those points, go on reading.

1. Make money with open source finding bugs.

Those programs are likewise chosen Issues Compensation programs and will offer yous coin to observe bugs in Open up Source Software.

In that location are two main means you lot tin can get paid in Problems Hunting programs:

• Finding errors/bugs and reporting them.
• And solving Errors and Submitting a Pull Request to update the Open Source Project.

The size of the advantage varies based on the company, but luckily there are huge companies out in that location set to pay you existent money to observe and solve bugs in their products.

How to find Bug Hunting Programs for Open up Source Projects

Companies like Google, Mozilla, and Apache have bug hunting programs with rewards of upwardly to $150.000 (Android), for those able to observe and solve errors in their Open up Source Software (OSS) lawmaking.

Of course, those are not the but companies willing to pay for your detective skills. Every medium and large company that'south hosting an OSS, will accept a bug-hunting program.

Luckily some platforms are list all of them in a single place, like bugcrowd.

Although finding and solving bugs is i of the nigh frustrating/funny experiences for a developer, y'all might want to kickoff freelancing with real and returning customers.

ii. Provide Premium Support to Open up Source Products

This is one of the most mainstream ways of making money with Open up Source Software for a developer.

Considering Open Source Software is usually everything but User Friendly, you might want to sell and provide those bolt that the free Open Source Project maintainers are not providing.

Call up well-nigh Kubernetes, pretty much every deject provider has its own hosted version, and they are asking you money for it.

Here's some idea to sell support and development services for Open up source products:

• Code and bug fixing.
• Add new and extra features.
• Write documentation.
• Sell training.

Why selling support?

Open Source Projects maintainers do not always have the time to provide the necessary back up to users. This is where you come in:

You lot tin can charge others for the help they need and aren't getting it for free from the original author.

A peachy case is WordPress developers, which sell fully-fledged websites, and spider web apps, based on Open Source Software.

Always cheque the Open Source Software'south license

Before making whatsoever changes to the original OSS codebase, make sure the license supports such activities.

Pretty much every Open up Source projection is, or should be, shipped with a license. Unlike licenses have different boundaries within which yous can base you services.

For example an Open Source projection shipped under the MIT License, will allow for closed versions of the same project (versions which code is not publicly available). On the other paw, a GNU GPLv3 license will force yous to release whatever kind of improvement of additional features, as Open up Source.

Yous can larn more than about licenses on choosealicense.com.

If the License doesn't allow you, limit your support to everything that doesn't change the author'south original source code.

3. Sell associated content and monetize Open Source Projects

As a programmer, you might want to sell content related to Open Source Software.

Call up about WordPress Plugins or Shopify Apps as the perfect example of associate content, with huge markets total of potential customers.

If you desire to get started with plugin development for WordPress, I really propose you this full WordPress plugin development course.

If you want to start with Shopify app development, on the other hand, I suggest you this full course of Shopify for developers.

Non all OSS accept things similar plugins though, only in that location are different types of content yous might want to produce and sell, such as:

• Video courses.
• Guest Technical Posts.
• eBooks.

Let'southward explore them briefly.

iv. Create a video course

Creating one single video or a full form where you teach how to use an Open Source production is a great way to:

• First building an Online Presence.

• Brainwash people and create a customs.

• Present yourself equally an proficient of such a product.

• Monetize your content.
  

If you are just starting out recording videos, a YouTube channel might be the best option, as y'all'll need some practice to feel comfortable in front of a photographic camera.

On the other hand, if you're already an experienced teacher and/content creator, yous might want to create a fully-fledged form and sell information technology on platforms such every bit Udemy or SkillShare.

5. Write sponsored guest posts about open source products

Another market that is usually underrated, is one of the technical writers.

At that place's a huge demand for developers, able to clearly explain complex concepts, willing to share their technical cognition around all sorts of products and technologies.

Starting time writing a blog and go your first readers, providing them value and useful cognition and resources about your favorite Open Source project.

If you don't have the time to create a Web log, you might want to use a platform such every bit:

• Medium.com
• Hashnode.com
• Dev.to

Those provide an piece of cake-to-fix-up weblog, and bright communities of developers to share your stories and get known.

If yous already have your tech blog, yous might want to consider sending your articles to websites paying for technical guest writers such as:

• digitalocean.com

• sitepoint.com

• geeksforgeeks.com

• auth0.com

• linode.com

• css-tricks.com

• hasura.io

• tutorialspoint.com

• fauna.com

• smashingmagazine.com

half dozen. Write and Sell books almost an Open Source Product

Books are a great way to monetize your knowledge. If you lot know a lot almost Open up Source Technology, You might want to consider writing a book and selling it on platforms such as:

• Gumroad
• Amazon

It doesn't need to exist 400-page long, it just needs to provide the needed value to learn noesis around a given production or tool.

Now, I don't recollect every tool can be explained in a book, usually, videos and short on-point tech posts are more useful and common, Simply, I've bought amazing books nigh niche topics where videos were not helping.

There are situations where you have your ain Open source product, let's see how you can monetize information technology to dedicate it more time.

7. Make money Double Licensing

If you lot have an Open Source Project that is getting lots of traction, consider the thought of creating two different licenses:

• A free 1 for Open source projects.

• A paid one for commercial projects.

This is pretty common, every bit it allows small teams and individual to build their Open up Source Projects while monetizing enterprise users and proprietary products.

You might want to also provide premium support to Enterprise users, creating a real business organization around your product.

9. Maintain Open Source Project through donations

While not typically used past big for-profit companies, some individual developers brand pretty good money by taking donations for their open up-source work.

The downside of this model is that information technology'southward really difficult to build predictable, sustainable incomes.

Although yous might non want to relate to Donations to pay bills, with the right community and projects, you might end up building an amazing side revenue.

In that location are different ways to receive donations.

How to receive donations:

To receive donations or embed donations forms, you can utilize platforms such every bit:

• buymeacoffee.com

• Patreon

• GitHub

Keep in mind that simply contributing to OSS won't bring any donation, to do so yous need to create an audition.

Create an audience to get donations:

Donations are more about connecting with users than simply making your open-source products available to them.

If you desire your users to support y'all, they also need to understand the importance of doing that. Every bit always, you need to bring value.

To do so you lot might want to consider starting a Twitter folio or opening a blog in the abovementioned platforms, building a community that appreciates your efforts and that somewhen will consider yous every bit an practiced to rent for his/her services.

Lastly, if yous have your OSS is becoming a fully-fledged application, you might want to consider the adoption of the Open SaaS business concern model.

viii. Software as a Service (Open SaaS)

If y'all have a fully-fledged application, the OpenSaaS (Open Software equally a service) model might be the answer.

This is my favorite method to monetize Open up Source efforts but is likewise the most time-consuming.

The Software as a Services (SaaS) model is a popular way to license software running in the cloud, using subscription plans.
Think about Netflix or Spotify, or your mailing service provider, those are all Software as a Service where Users but need a browser to admission the application.

You might want to apply this business organization model to your Open up Source software, integrating also some double licensing:

• Keep your codebase open to anyone.
• Fork an hosted version of your product and sell it via subscriptions offer bonus features and assistance.

With an Open SaaS model, the software is purchased via subscriptions, which price varies with the amount of the functionalities provided.
For instance, you might offer technical support, hosted solutions, software customization, and grooming every bit package options.

WordPress is a famous instance of Open up SaaS products, which code is open source, only hosted solutions and assist services are priced.

Conclusions:

Yous can make money out of Open Source Project but proceed in mind that:

• Make some side revenue is easy
• Making a living out of that requires above-average time and effort

And then why should you lot try?
Because Open up Source is 1 of the almost of import initiatives powering our current earth. It will give y'all the hang for working with large codebases, sending Push Requests, and coordinating with an international squad of agreeing people.

Something that is invaluable.

Source: https://vitto.cc/how-to-make-money-with-open-source-as-a-developer/

Posted by: readytommand.blogspot.com

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