How to monetize your open source efforts?

To keep OSS ticking, it has to be properly funded. Here are some ways to do it…

Everybody knows that money can sometimes be a harsh topic, but in today’s post, we’ll be talking about just that. With the OSS (Open Source Software) taking over, mainly because of closed-source slow obsolescence and harder maintainability, it shouldn’t be a surprise to many that people have already found ways of turning it into profit… and for a good reason. While OSS most often comes at the price of free, people maintaining it has to somehow “maintain” themselves too. Sure, a casual job would do, but in such a case, one would have to do double the amount of work with no additional profit. Naturally, there are people who really want to be helpful and create FOSS just for that reason. But, and that’s a fact, it’s much easier to find maintainers for a given project if there’s some money involved.

So, unless your project is backed up by a big company, what are your chances of monetizing your OSS efforts? What’s the best way to do this? In this article, we’ll be taking a quick look at some of the most popular approaches to monetization — their pros, cons, and how they all compare. Keep in mind that this is based on my own experiences and research, so let me know in the comments below if there’s something I missed.