<story><title>Generating Income from Open Source</title><url>https://vadimdemedes.com/posts/generating-income-from-open-source</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ThinkBeat</author><text>[old person rant]&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with developing software and selling it. 
It used to be the norm and it is still quite common.&lt;p&gt;These days &amp;quot;open source&amp;quot; is virtue signaling and expected &amp;quot;to be cool&amp;quot;.
That people then grump about not being paid shows that they 
are not particularly interested in the concept of open source.&lt;p&gt;However, the term open source has been used for so many different things
that is has lost most shared coherent meaning.
I guess that is why &amp;quot;Libre Software&amp;quot; is now being used by some.&lt;p&gt;What is plain hypocrisy to me are the people who developed &amp;quot;for profit&amp;quot;
open source projects, and are angry when they dont get paid enough,
when the projects they have created rely on GNU tools, the Linux kernel 
(Perhaps Debian), a libre software database on so on.&lt;p&gt;Their product is built on the shoulders and sacrifice of other open-source folks that often is not getting paid or not paid enough.&lt;p&gt;For profit open source should have clause of donating X% of profits 
downstream to the open-source projects they rely on. 
(Since they would have no product without them)&lt;p&gt;There are some core and vital open-source projects that have enormous
importance for millions. 
I think supporting them should be a priority.&lt;p&gt;A lot of modern software is &amp;quot;open source&amp;quot; until it become inconvenient
and they introduce &amp;quot;Pro&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;see source&amp;quot;, or shift license entirely.&lt;p&gt;A lot of companies should just be &amp;quot;for profit&amp;quot;. 
There is nothing wrong with it 
and nothing wrong with making money,
or making money off of open source.  
I do nitpick on people who see open source as a way to get 
paid and they are angry if they dont get it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Generating Income from Open Source</title><url>https://vadimdemedes.com/posts/generating-income-from-open-source</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Buttons840</author><text>I recently ran across the the license for Dragonfly [1] which has some restrictions (rights reserved), but 5 years after the license date the license switches to Apache 2.0. Basically a time-limited rights reservation. I don&amp;#x27;t hate it. I might even contribute to such a project for free.&lt;p&gt;I propose something like this: When I release code, it&amp;#x27;s rights-reserved for 5 years, then open-source (and this particular clause would be irrevocable). Anyone may use the software for non-commercial purposes. Anyone may contribute, those who contribute will be granted permission for commercial use if I deem their contributions significant enough. Anyone may distribute the software under these terms.&lt;p&gt;If such a model became popular, I have a hard time imagining it could make things any worse. It might even accelerate open-source development by shifting societies resources to those who are actually producing this valuable software.&lt;p&gt;You might say, &amp;quot;but it&amp;#x27;s not open-source&amp;quot;, fair enough, but we can view it as open-source contribution with a delay. For example, if this model became widely popular this year, and we saw great progress with this model, then come 2028 we would be flooded with new open-source software and ultimately might be better off than we would have been without this model.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately people choose to make their software open-source for moral reasons, and because they hope that by giving they might receive in turn--I contribute, you contribute, and we share freely (and we&amp;#x27;re both poor). This model I&amp;#x27;ve talked about still achieves similar goals. People might still be willing to contribute, even for free, because I have given them an irrevocable legal promise that their contributions will be made available to all at a specific time.&lt;p&gt;(This whole thing makes me rethink copyright and patents and how much they really contribute to society. Perhaps their terms should be shortened?)&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;dragonflydb&amp;#x2F;dragonfly&amp;#x2F;blob&amp;#x2F;main&amp;#x2F;LICENSE.md&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;dragonflydb&amp;#x2F;dragonfly&amp;#x2F;blob&amp;#x2F;main&amp;#x2F;LICENSE.m...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>