fbszSep 15, 2023

Bad business model behind open source softwares

https://lemmy.ml/post/4961787

Bad business model behind open source softwares - Lemmy

The principles behind free and open source software has all been ‘knowledge and information should be free and accessible to everyone’, ‘the user should’ve the freedom to study, edit, share’, ‘collaboration’. These principles are nice and the people who admire this principles create free(as in freedom) software, but when we look at the finances behind free softwares, things are messed up. Most services rely on donations, which is not good but when the amount of free services increase, the more there has to be donate. It’s actually problem because the bad business model of the open source has made it’s software fall behind their propreitory alternatives? Here are my few questions and would be nice if you all provide a solution to some questions: 1. What is the philosophy of open source and free software? 2. Why open source softwares are bad at making money? 3. Is there a business model, besides subscription as many people can’t pay? Or am I wrong here? 4. Solutions proposed to solve this problem 5. Some examples of bad and good open source business model and whether it’s good or bad than their mainstream propreitory alternatives?

Show threadmo_ztt ✅
  • This is a pretty good breakdown of what the philosophy is. You may or may not agree with Stallman (a lot of people do and a lot of people don’t), but he in large part created the modern free software movement, so out of anybody, his attitude probably has the strongest claim to being “the” philosophy behind it.
  • Open source software isn’t designed to make money. Some companies have done a great job of monetizing it, some have struggled. Open source software more than any other entity pretty much powers the modern internet (apache, Android, the BSD foundations of MacOS), so the unique challenges that go along with using it to make money don’t, to me, translate into a problem model itself. If you’re going into things to make money, and you decide to write open-source software, maybe that’s not a good decision. But, most open source software isn’t written with that motivation.
  • (a) Sell support (b) Develop open-source software as an adjunct to your core business which is something else (c ) Have a free product for use by free projects and sell a commercial version for use by commercial or enterprise-level projects (d) Obtain grant money because your software seems clearly useful to the world on that level (e) Individual donation / subscription / Patreon model, this doesn’t work as well as a/b/c/d I don’t think
  • See 3 sections a/b/c/d
  • I think covered above
    • What is free software and why is it so important for society? — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software

    Sep 15, 2023 at 2:46pmWeb
    Show threadfbszSep 15, 2023
  • I agree, the philosophy behind open source and free software are created or atleast have a part in it.
  • sure, most open source softwares aren’t written with that intention. But the problem is it would be nice if they have some money to keep on develop without abandoning the project, it would help them to innovate. Although open source companies are innovating, it would push to innovate even to greater extents.

  • a. a good one, but selling support could only be posible for enterprise or is it actually possible for direct consumers, although that’s possible. I think that would give a bad rep for the company? Is it? b. that would be good, but if the software is propreitory, the would still add up the value of their core business? c. a viable business model idea d&e. still the same problem with donations Correct me, If I’m wrong!

    Show threadmo_ztt ✅Sep 15, 2023

    Yeah I agree with that side of it… it’s not really a perfect system. On the personal side, it honestly seems sorta random to what extent someone who’s working on vital open source software gets paid for it. Sometimes they’re working on it as part of their job making six figures, sometimes they’re getting a personal sponsorship or stipend like for Lemmy, sometimes they’re making $300/month from Patreon, sometimes they’re getting nothing. Any or all of those could be true of anyone regardless of how useful what they’re making is. Capitalism, hooray!

    It’s definitely true that a company can make serious money in open source software, although there are some additional challenges that don’t exist in the proprietary space. I don’t know too much about the nitty-gritty of it, but just looking around at how the successful operations have done it, maybe the best-positioned ones are things like Qt or MySQL where you’re not really focusing on making money off your free-software-side users (I think you’re right that they take it almost offendedly if you try to). Instead you sell it on the commercial side to commercial vendors, who are obviously fine with that, and then use the free side just to help get the software done + build the ecosystem that helps to drive sales on the commercial side. It’s a tough thing to do though (much harder than just making your thing proprietary from the start I think yes.)