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21-Aug-23 8:31

You can consider this discussion Part 2 of this one: Open Source / Source-Available / Dual-License: We Need a new license!
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I have a few questions:

1. Has any solo developer released Open Source Software (OSS) and then been better off for it?
a) there are numerous stories of OSS devs who have been so frustrated that they later yanked their software and caused great tumult

2. Why would any solo developer ever release their software as OSS?

Debunked Myth Hasn't Proliferated Yet
The only answer I can come up with is "They think they will be helped along by the generosity of those who use their software". But that myth has been debunked. People don't donate actual $$.

If you don't believe this, watch this video of Bruno Lowagie of iText fame (text to PDF conversion) and all of his struggles. Creating OSS is actually exasperating.
Open Source Survival: A Story from the Trenches - YouTube[^] The video is long but I watched it at 1.5x speed.

Linus & Linux?
Ok, I'll give you this one, Linus seems to have done ok, but can you name any others who have really succeeded?

When you release your software as OSS you can't actually profit from others using it.
You can only profit by charging for documentation or support or other on-the-side things.
That means only huge companies who can build huge support structures can really make money.
That means no single dev could ever really do that.

I'm pretty sure OSS is now just a way for large companies to use developer's solutions without ever having to pay them.

Tell my why I'm wrong.

k505421-Aug-23 9:12

k5054

21-Aug-23 9:12

There's a number of reasons I can think of
1) Altruism: Here's something that might be useful. I'm not looking to make money on this. Enjoy!
2) Bragging Rights: This is how clever I am!
3) Assistance: I've got this far with this project, and I could use some help with it.
4) Frustration: The official drivers for device X suck! I've written my own drivers for it, but if I try to publish for pay, I'll get sued into next year.
5) Education: Here's how I solved an issue. Other's might like to see what I did. Maybe improve it?
6) Scratched an Itch: I love writing software for X, its a hobby of mine.

It's not always about the money.

Keep Calm and Carry On

raddevus21-Aug-23 9:37

21-Aug-23 9:37

Thanks for joining the discussion.
Those are all good and I have experienced many of them myself as I share everything I write.

It's definitely not always about the money.

However, as soon as you create something that is really extremely useful I believe your mind would change.
For example, what if you really spent time building your own phone which rivaled iPhone and you wrote the entire OS for it. (This is an extreme example) But the point is that you would want to share it but you would also deserve to be paid for your work.

Here's another example, a long time ago I saw a teenager who created a microwave bacon fryer.
It was simple but very useful way to make microwave bacon.
She sold it in walmart and got rich. Nothing wrong with that.
But if it were Microwave Bacon Code then it would be expected to be downloaded for free to every microwave. Smile | :)

But as much or more work goes into the code.

jschell22-Aug-23 7:25

22-Aug-23 7:25

raddevus wrote:
But if it were Microwave Bacon Code then it would be expected to be downloaded for free to every microwave

I think you do not know how many software companies exist now and have been created in the past.

Many fail. But so do companies that have tangible products. Consider Pet Rocks. Or more recently the significant downturn of NFTs.

I worked for a software company that had at least two funding rounds and at least from the demonstration standpoint had a wonderful service. But there was no reasonable way that they could have ever monetized it. The market was very limited and very cash poor.

raddevus22-Aug-23 8:02

22-Aug-23 8:02

jschell wrote:
I think you do not know how many software companies exist now and have been created in the past.
Many fail.

I absolutely get that. I think that mostly what businesses do, is fail.
It's very difficult to get a business going. IMO, Much harder than writing code.

That's why I'm thinking / hoping that now that I have a great idea for a SaaS that could be offered to Companies of all sizes to run On-Prem that solves a specific problem for them, that I want to make sure if I release it to open source (and I really want to release it to Open Source) then I can protect myself so if it really takes off as I think it would that I would then be remunerated properly.

It's definitely not just about the $$$ for me, because I've been a dev for 30 years.
But if the thing takes off I definitely don't want to say, "oh well, I could've made happy $$ that would help my family but since I opened-sourced it I still drive a crappy car and am living paycheck to paycheck.

englebart22-Aug-23 13:32

englebart

22-Aug-23 13:32

Don’t go on premise…

Host it in the cloud for them, and rent it to them.

raddevus22-Aug-23 14:55

22-Aug-23 14:55

englebart said:
Host it in the cloud for them, and rent it to them.

I definitely want to do that - it’s a perfect SaaS solution but that also means all the support work of keeping the SaaS highly available etc
So I’d like to also “sell the software itself so anyone can run it on-prem and support it themselves.

jschell23-Aug-23 6:36

23-Aug-23 6:36

englebart wrote:
Host it in the cloud for them, and rent it to them.

...and then it is a company.

jschell23-Aug-23 6:38

23-Aug-23 6:38

raddevus wrote:
then I can protect myself so if it really takes off as I think it would that I would then be remunerated properly.

Yes, by creating a company.

You can create a license for the product/service of the company that allows usage on a limited scale for free. And after that they pay.

There are already many examples of that out there.

honey the codewitch21-Aug-23 9:22

21-Aug-23 9:22

Routinely.

1. I do it to raise my professional profile and it has.

2. I do it because I love to code, and I feel like contributing what I dream up to the world. I'd be coding (on my own time) anyway, so why not contribute?

3. When I do put something out there, I feel an obligation to it, so it gets matured and improved in a way code I believe only I am using never will.

I'm sure I could think of some ancillary benefits as well, given time, but those are big one for me.

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx

raddevus21-Aug-23 9:45

21-Aug-23 9:45

Thanks for joining the discussion.
Those are very good reasons for personal growth etc. I believe in that too.

Here's a question though,

"What if?
1. You discovered that BigCorp created a service which uses your component and serves 100 million people
2. BigCorp profits $1 per year from each user
3. You get nothing. Not even recognition because it is running inside their "Walls" as part of a service that is not distributed so there is nothing you can do, because they use it for free.

Would you be okay with that, if you found out 20 years from now? Meanwhile you've had to work to build your own retirement etc. and to pay for your own healthcare etc.

This is most likely happening because of the world of :
Microservices / Web Apps behind the wall of huge corps.

Devs write code that is OSS which is incorporated into huge services that those sole devs could never create but they have actually created part of the web service themselves.
Huge corps aren't selling the code itself but instead are selling the use of the service so they fall outside the limitations of OSS license.
They get free work.

modified 21-Aug-23 16:48pm.

honey the codewitch21-Aug-23 10:37

21-Aug-23 10:37

I guess I've never considered that, and feel better about things continuing not to consider it. Unsure | :~

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx

raddevus21-Aug-23 10:42

21-Aug-23 10:42

Thanks for the discussion.

honey the codewitch wrote:
and feel better about things continuing not to consider it.

Yeah, I get it and I agree.

honey the codewitch21-Aug-23 10:43

21-Aug-23 10:43

Sorry, not trying to end it early, it's just I ran out of anywhere to go in this convo. Smile | :)

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx

rtischer827723-Aug-23 2:27

rtischer8277

23-Aug-23 2:27

I guess if you are getting f****d in the a** and there is nothing you can do about it, then it is best not to think about it? Is that your position?

honey the codewitch23-Aug-23 2:30

23-Aug-23 2:30

I don't agree with that.

For starters google has not taken my code and used it, so the hypothetical I was responding to was just that.

And if I didn't enjoy what I was doing, I wouldn't do it.

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx

jschell22-Aug-23 7:31

22-Aug-23 7:31

raddevus wrote:
Would you be okay with that, if you found out 20 years from now?

What if instead they hired you as a 'guru' to support all of their product lines because you were the author. And paid you significantly more than you were making as a developer.

Some real open source examples that you might want to consider
- C# Moq. They made a badly planned effort to monetize their product recently.
- MySQL. Now owned by Oracle who is sort of attempting to monetize. So much so that there is now a branch taken from the original named MariaDB.

raddevus22-Aug-23 7:51

22-Aug-23 7:51

jschell wrote:
What if instead they hired you as a 'guru' to support all of their product lines because you were the author. And paid you significantly more than you were making as a developer.

That is a very good point and is one of the dreams of OSS devs, but I'm just not sure how much it really happens.
I think that it doesn't happen as often as we hope because I think BigCorps are often using things without wanting anyone to really know -- as a way of limiting litigation.
I also think that statistically it doesn't happen much because there are vast numbers of OSS components but rarely do I hear of this.

But, hopefully I'm wrong and it does happen more often than I think.

jschell23-Aug-23 6:35

23-Aug-23 6:35

raddevus wrote:
I think that it doesn't happen as often as we hope because I think BigCorps are often using things without wanting anyone to really know

Hardly.

There are no human organizations that are omniscient. Organizations, even more so that people, blunder their way through their history based on nothing more than irrational biases that one or groups within have. Why irrational? Because they almost never use any real data for the decisions. Even those that present data often do so with incomplete sets and using cherry picking to support their forgone conclusions.

The most prevalent reason for not hiring a specific OSS developer is because the company does not actually need that expertise. Where need is still based on irrational biases.

Note that I am not using those terms to denigrate but merely to describe the actual processes.

As an actual example of this I have never worked with even a single developer who actually researches licenses before using third party code. I have seen developers claim that because it was found on the internet it is free to use without regard. I have seen developers that do not even know that licenses exist. I have seen developers that cannot read a license and understand what it means. However I have seen some managers that were at least aware of why that could be a problem. But I have also seen 'C' level people who were completely unaware of the problem.

I certainly don't expect any other group within an organization to be smarter than developers.