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Comment by derekp7 | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that enterprises have one mechanism to purchase software, and a totally separate mechanism for charitable donations. The two budgets are run by separate groups, and never interact.

The solution? Offer your code under an open source license, but also have a purchase option to buy a commercial license. In many cases, the commercial version is a compiled and validated official executable, available with a support contract. But there is no reason that the came code can't be made available under both licenses, or that the commercial license can't actually be the same GPL (or whatever) license the open source one is offered under.

This way, the technical team that chooses the software has an invoice that they can send to purchasing, to get corporate support dollars to the open source project.

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Then the bean counters say "why are you buying this software, when you could have gotten it for free."

"what do you mean it's like donating to a charity? we already have a corporate social responsibility budget, and it's spent on XYZ. We don't need to donate anymore".

You use a license that’s hard for corporate counsel to accept like GPL3.

Affero GPL 3 :)

If a company can't stomach AGPLv3, then they shouldn't be using software I write.

I seek contributions back, while not leaving a gaping hole for SaaS vendors to extend & close my codebase.

That is quite the polemic statement, especially if the company is using the software internally (like VIM) and not building their product with it (like Python).

> Then the bean counters say "why are you buying this software, when you could have gotten it for free."

Because it's the "officially supported" version and companies don't like running software that isn't eligible for official support.

It is also required by various certifications to purchase support when the option is available.

Ask them why they don’t buy DIY-kits for furniture, or assemble computers from individual parts.

My old company had a ton of IKEA furniture, didn't seem to be an issue.

In my experience purchasing teams are more likely to say "why did you get this for free when you could have gotten an officially supported version?" (Ignoring the fact they probably wouldn't have approved if I had)

PyCharm has two licenses, one called Personal and one Corporate. The corporate one costs more, and the only difference between them is the corporate one lets you use it in a corporate setting.

The open source project could do the same thing -- free for personal use (including code!) and $X for corporate use (including code!).

Then it won't be open source any more.

Ah, the good old RMS / ESR debate.

Open Source means just that: that the source is open and available. You are thinking about "free software"

> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

Open Source means that the license meets the Open Source Definition[1]. That includes "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor ... For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business...".

What you're describing is sometimes referred to as a "source available" license, which is a much lower standard.

[1] https://opensource.org/osd

Not according to OSI, discrimination for personal vs. corporate use is not allowed by the Open Source Definition.

Its easier to buy products so get some certifications, Higher prio for change requests or feature requests etc..

> The solution? Offer your code under an open source license, but also have a purchase option to buy a commercial license

There is one problem though, when you put a commercial license to your software, it effectively make you a software seller and thus maybe facing associated legal issues and responsibilities (provide user support, pay tax for example).

And sometime, those responsibilities can be a huge trouble.

Yes, this is true, but in order to make revenue as a software developer, I don’t think this can be avoided.

OSS does not have the legal contracted support that commercial software does.

The upside of selling license is that some of that money can be used to buy insurance and taxes and whatnot.

I don’t think there’s a way to get paid for OSS work directly without these responsibilities. Even if there’s a tip jar, there is an expectation of support and some warranty.

> The problem is that enterprises have one mechanism to purchase software, and a totally separate mechanism for charitable donations.

And there is paid membership in business associations. That is closer to the purchasing department than to the donation department.

It really is a no-brainer: If there is an organization/foundation which supports the project, the enterprise could just join that, and may in turn even receive voting rights on the future direction of the project.

No need to make complex schemes to work around being unable to donate, or try to sell open source code.

Provide all options.

Corporate policies are often so rigid, and it's so easy to set up a PayPal button and a "members mailing list", that you might as well.

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