Producing Open Source Software (2020)
producingoss.com
producingoss.com
In the meantime, the entire 2nd edition is online in various formats, under a free license of course (CC-BY-SA), at the link OP gave.
-Karl Fogel (author)
I myself prefer open sourced app for better transparency and maintaining an open source software cost a lot of time, can be called as full time job if the project is big.
We are planning to develop a mobile app which is subscription based, but I want to make it open source. Would subscription based open source apps will work? I have not seen any significant size mobile app which subscription based and open sourced. Is this possible? (There are a lot of server side software which are open sourced, where they earn by cloud hosting or enterprise features, but it is different case for mobile apps) We will be planning to develop that app full time, so we are planning to earn a living too as startup.
If it is just a local-only app, like a game for example; you could make money through subscribing to updates. If any of your customers redistribute your code for free, then other potential customers might use the free version instead. OTOH they might like it is open source, so pay for it or donate, while they would turn away if it were proprietary.
Apps like Krita have a setup where you can download the app for free from the website, you can donate on the website or you can download the exact same app via the various app stores for money. That seems like the best option. People who don't want to pay can get it for free and pay by promoting the software through word of mouth. People who want to use app stores can pay. People who have spare cash can donate.
[0] https://fund.krita.org/ [1] https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/krita/9N6X57ZGRW96?h...
Ideally the Windows store would have a way to let users donate what they want rather than have people commenting links to the free downloads.
I definitely agree that proper funding for open source work is important. There are lots of companies who provide this by having their employees work either full time or part time on open source. There are various other ways to get paid for work on open source, some of them listed on the pages below.
https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
Charge for the app on the App Store. Post the code online under an open source license (for example, on GitLab.com). Add a page to your app that explains where to get the code.
Even with GPL you’ll see people talk about “free as in freedom, not free as in beer”. Back in the day, people charged for CDs and postage. App Store distribution seems like the modern version of that.
Edit: Examples…
Check out Signal and Pythonista. Both great apps that are largely open source. Pythonista charges for the app, which runs Python on iOS. Signal is free, but officers an in app subscription to support the foundation.
Not sure what you mean, almost everyone depends on open source libraries these days. My project is not just gluing several os libs, if that you meant
> Check out Signal and Pythonista.
Pythonista look like a onetime purchase. Signal is majorly donation based and it is non profit AFAIK.
This bit in particular resonates:
> "Developers had another reason to stick together as well: it turned out that the free software world was producing some very high-quality code. In some cases, it was demonstrably technically superior to the nearest non-free alternative; in others, it was at least comparable, and of course it always cost less to acquire — and you didn't have to worry about the manufacturer going out of business. While only a few people might have been motivated to run free software on strictly philosophical grounds, a great many people were happy to run it because it did a better job."
This is very inline with academic thinking on distribution of information: put your research in the public domain with your name on it, transparently, so that everyone can replicate it (or not), and that's how you get rid of the chaff as soon as possible. This also leads to academic appointments and a financially secure career... Sounds like an argument for federally funded software development, really, but would Bill Gates still call that 'communism'?
There's another connection: open source seems to suffer from lack of investment in UI/UX, and that appears to be because spending a lot of time on that is viewed as drudgery. Similarly, for other academic researchers the Materials and Methods section of a report is often the most important if they're out to replicate the work, but researchers aren't going to hold your hand and walk you through the fundamentals of experimental design and setup, you're expected to learn that on your own. M & M sections of reports are notorious for being terse and requiring insider knowledge to replicate, kind of like using some open source projects is.
I wonder if the foundations and such in the open source world would consider just hiring experts in UI/UX, on a contract basis, to clean up their UI/UX to make it easier for non-techie people to adopt opensource platforms?
All hail Stallman & Co and all the brilliant masters of narratives behind them.
There have been occasional examples of misbehavior and ignoring the license terms of certain FOSS licenses, but by and large almost everyone -- including corporations -- does abide by them. The common licenses are well-written, legally solid, and most lawyers (again, and most importantly, including corporate lawyers) agree they would be enforceable in court.
I don't know if you've had a bad experience with releasing free / open source software, and I'm sorry if you have. Many people have seen good results from doing it, and furthermore there's a baseline level of digital freedom now available that is entirely due to people producing such software. The most obvious example, of course, is that you can run a free operating system on your computer and thus not be at the mercy of gigantic tech companies when it comes to privacy, advertising nuisance, non-configurable user interfaces, etc.
It may come as no surprise that I disagree with your characterization of being duped. I'm handsomely rewarded for my work and my resume has never looked better.