Making a living from Open Source

professore

Are there any people on here are making a good living in Ireland (i.e. paying a mortgage, supporting a family) from Open Source software that they developed themselves ?

If so, how?

sean_or99

Selling Free Software

mneylon

I don't know about people who developed the software themselves, but there are quite a few companies and individuals making a good living from the open source sector in general.

lexeme

in general, you are doing charity work.

but that's just with our current economic model.

Karoma

lexeme wrote:

in general, you are doing charity work.

but that's just with our current economic model.

There's a number of companies making a reasonable amount of money supporting Open Source software - by means of training, and implementing & maintaining systems..

lexeme

Karoma wrote:

There's a number of companies making a reasonable amount of money supporting Open Source software - by means of training, and implementing & maintaining systems..

i'm well aware of that.

however,

katrien_ie wrote:

Are there any people on here are making a good living in Ireland (i.e. paying a mortgage, supporting a family) from Open Source software that they developed themselves ?

support and training, hmmm yeah. money-spinner i'd say. just like the "official" MSCE or whatever. they *need* people to use their stuff, it's funny they get to charge people to tell them how to use it, isn't it? i think so.

D.I.Y.

edit: the guys doing the maintainence or development or whatever, it's completely useless without the rest. it's "the rest" which is the charity work.

Karoma

lexeme wrote:

..
support and training, hmmm yeah. money-spinner i'd say. just like the "official" MSCE or whatever. they *need* people to use their stuff, it's funny they get to charge people to tell them how to use it, isn't it? i think so.

Support is normal for any development model. There is always supposed to be time set aside for manuals and/or training. In a closed commercial setting, not only is the customer charged substantial amounts of money for this phase in the development lifecycle but they are also charged for the rest of the work.
In the OSS model however, "the rest" of the lifecycle is, as you so ineptly phrased it, is "charity"; which is in itself a substantial saving for the customer.

I would also point out that projects developed in the OSS model can also quite often re-use other OSS products off-the-shelf; allowing for greater amounts of time for the Support phase. Not to mention, the overwhelmingly obvious advantage of permitting the client to see the source, and the possible large user base which can also provide support.

It is not just a "money-spinner" as you so cynically put it; as it is not mandatory to obtain the support or implementation expertise. They are given more access and support by the very nature of an OSS product (Source code!?). It is desirable to many companies to acquire this expertise, and if they are willing to part with their money rather than reading the manual or spending their time then that's their business.

lexeme

... as you so ineptly phrased it ... as you so cynically put it ... as you so

you sound like a broken aac.

i'm also well aware that support and maintainence is normal for commercial software projects.

but thanks for eloquently rehashing rhetoric. really, i do appreciate it.

as for it being normal for any development model; "this software comes with no guarantee of any kind ... use at your own risk ... not fit for any purpose" etc. remember that?

and "the rest" wasn't a reference to stages in a software development lifecycle.

I would also point out that projects developed in the OSS model can also quite often re-use other OSS products off-the-shelf;

that's "the rest". a patch here, a fix there, a utility every now and again, some hardware given the clean room design treatment (chinese wall), maybe even a complete operating system. by the way, i'm not talking about corporate sponsered open source developers, in case you try to portray those lucky bastards as the majority. i'm talking about john doe, charity worker. (sort of like the people who hang around these places like idiots and help people change their keyboard locale, change their screen resolution, appraise a computer or tell the three hundreath person what "the best" firewall is)

for example, lesson number one: ms, apple, and namesys are the only companies attempting to create "next gen" filesystems, journaling, meta-data, the works. i'm not sure how apple are getting along, ms are after pulling it out of vista 'cause they were overly ambitious. and namesys, the only company producing an open source next gen fs, founded by a Mr. Hans Reiser, who is hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole.

put on the kettle, maybe smoke a little crack. spend the next two hours tactfully formulating a witless response that hides your ignorance and deviates even further from the original topic.

i'll be waiting.

kisses xxx

postscriptum: hopefully, i've articulated myself in a more "ept" fashion.

bpmurray

Now, now, less of the vitriol.

As for making money form opensource, you can certainly be cynical about the folk who gouge money from folk, but what about e.g. setting up a web site with a shopping cart and the works using Apache? That's a reasonably sophisticated solution and not something your average shopkeeper can put together. It's not unreasonable to charge to get somethign like that up and running, is it?

And as for next gen FS's, there are a bunch of journaling FS's available for Linux, and there are serous development efforts on these, primarily from Universities, etc. Of course, IBM and others do support many of these efforts, so it's not all charity work.

lexeme

bpmurray wrote:

but what about e.g. setting up a web site with a shopping cart and the works using Apache?

what about it? that's woudn't exactly fall under the heading of ``making money from an open source project that you started and continue to develop yourself'', does it?

And as for next gen FS's, there are a bunch of journaling FS's available for Linux

journaling fs != next gen fs.

so it's not all charity work.

that's been established. nobody here claimed it is all charity work.

Gandalf23

Gentlemen please... why cant we all just get along without the bad feelings?

Now, back to the OP who deserves a decent response without all this bickering.

katrien_ie wrote:

Are there any people on here are making a good living in Ireland (i.e. paying a mortgage, supporting a family) from Open Source software that they developed themselves ?

If so, how?

Check out www.linux.ie ... there you will find lots of people making a good living from Open Source software. I'm not sure if anyone is making money from software they have developed themselves, but they are a friendly bunch who would be happy to talk to anyone about OSS.

Also check out www.securelinx.com who make lots of $$ from OSS... I think they have developed some OSS also.

As for individuals outside Ireland making money from OSS they have developed, look no further than FireFox...

kyper

I'm a student but I set myself up as a sole trader doing some IT work and the like. I've made a fair bit from open source.

A lot of companies/people do make a lot of money from it, be it deploying solutions or providing support etc.

7aken

a friend of mine was involved with a project called freeside which is very well known and used, he was a large contributor to the original development and still contributes, he made money however, not from developing the code but from doing support and training for companies who wanted to use freeside

rogue-entity

Well, personaly I dont see how one cannot just sell OSS software and make money from the sale of this software as well as by providing support.

SuSE Linux 10 is commercial. But the average person will buy it even if they have the choice to download the source and compile it themselves. It is just easier. The average person has no use for the source code. If you distribute software without the code but say, add a reference telling anyone that wants it, how they can obtain it, at a cost.

I would happily pay €200 for a copy of Linux optimised for server use, if I thought that it was worth the money, and would be well supported. Even if I had to pay for an additional copy of Linux for use on desktops, I would still find it a lot cheaper then Microshaft. And access to the source code would be for me, a bonus.

I dont think it is fair for people to sterotype OSS as being software-for-free. Free software does not mean it wont cost you money, it means you are free to use it as you please.

Oh and Lexeme, that remark you made about OSS as being "without guarentee or warrenty". Microsoft Windows EULA has the same reference that states that Windows should not be used on any system that is life-critical and that its use is entirly without guarentee or warrenty of any kind Use-at-own risk.

wingnut

I just got a contract to develop an OS solution for student management at a third level institution. The pay is excellent. I had designed the project for a MSc thesis and they liked it so much they wanted me to develop / support it further.

Created Using: LAMP (linux apache mysql php) and Flash.

Looked at using M$Sql, ASP, FoxPro etc but found the open source community made it easier to develop with these tools.

I came from doing a BA and started the project without any experience of programming, or having even used a database. A couple of hefty books and some online forums later and I'm happily adding Flash GUIs to Databases etc, through PHP.

lexeme

rogue-entity wrote:

Oh and Lexeme, that remark you made about OSS as being "without guarentee or warrenty". Microsoft Windows EULA has the same reference that states that Windows should not be used on any system that is life-critical and that its use is entirly without guarentee or warrenty of any kind Use-at-own risk.

it's been a while since i read that.

but there's a subtle difference between;

use at your own risk, or "this is not an RTOS and will crash from time to time" therefore don't use it for that purpose, but if you do, don't give us **** about the resulting damages 'cause we told you it wasn't for that purpose

and

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE.

Windows XP for example would be marketed as a home-user desktop , it's purpose, an operating system that can do normal home-user desktop-type stuff.

ya know?!



@wingnut;

that's really cool, congrats! your current situation would make a lot of people jealous

i'm still going to maintain that you situation is the exception though. along with corporate sponorship, there's the academic sponsorship. those guys love doing this sort of stuff. they get to put their school name in the source code, and/or have the official URL for the tool/system on their domain.

i wonder though; can you support a family and pay a mortgage and all that? also, do you see yourself collecting the same salary in ten years time on the same project and supporting the same family?

you could keep the system open source, but you could only hand over the source for a small fee, which is within the scope of the GPL (i'm not sure which version, if all or some). maybe the TLI who sponsors you won't allow you do this. maybe you will hop from project to project.

phil

wingnut wrote:

I just got a contract to develop an OS solution for student management at a third level institution. The pay is excellent. I had designed the project for a MSc thesis and they liked it so much they wanted me to develop / support it further.

It doesn't sound like you're developing an open source application, it sounds like you're using open source tools to develop a bespoke application for a particular person.

If you're opening the actual source code and distributing it under an open source license, that's slightly different. There are cases of once-off development like this, where the tools are opened up after. Mainly, people don't make that much money off open source, but the benefits can be pretty large in terms of making a name, reputation, landing a job and perks/benefits like conference attendance, donations etc.

Phil.

bpmurray

Actually, wingnut's model is the one proposed by Richard Stallman: create an app, get paid for doing so, get paid for support and services, but then make the app available to all.

lexeme

bpmurray wrote:

Actually, wingnut's model is the one proposed by Richard Stallman: create an app, get paid for doing so, get paid for support and services, but then make the app available to all.

but he doesn't own the app. so it's not his call.

derry

OSS or apps for mac or microsoft the whole lot risks a lot of time and effort and high risk of

ZIP NADA

Yes there will always be the success stories in OSS or whatever but for every success there a thousands on low pay or incomes and they will remain there for a long time until they either win or as most dont exit and do something else that pays money for food rent etc like drive a truck or something

Its reallly more like pop music buisness a few mega stars and millions of hopefuls on starvation wages

High teck equals for many low incomes relitive to others such as Macdo managers and crane drivers or even taxi drivers

so if your mega addicited and still wana do this well

then probably long run its OSS as microsoft wants all the money for them
and Mac as it gets more popular will probably be similar
not so bad
but starvation versus half starved versus serious dieting
is leaque table microsoft worst payer in hell with cyber carrot
followed by Mac the carrot is just out of reach to OSS the carrot was much smaller than expected

experience gained unfortunatly working for buttons in high teck along with millions of others especialy hopefuls from other countries

and its not just computers it any high teck

I know highly qualified science grads working for multinationals for € 13 to €15 per hour on very profitable drugs or similar products and the companies are making ZILLIONS and the fork lift drivers often earn more in the same place

go figure

any high teck is a mugs game and i recommend

AVOID IT PERIOD
do law or TV actor politicion street clown
anything
as low teck as you can go if you want to earn a living and pay a morgage

Derry