How to monetize an open source project?

Question

Monetization

Hey!
There is an open-source project, it is installed by an online installer. The focus of the project is IT, programming.
Now I have about 150k downloads.
Everything would be fine, but the project does not bring money, none at all. And money in this case is motivation, freeing up time for the project and, as a result, better development and more goodies.
The question is how to monetize?
I'm going to show ads in the installer itself. As a fallback - open an advertising page in the browser.
Tell pliz who is in the subject.
Thank you!

Answer 1

Monetization of open source usually goes in two ways:
- to make a regular version for free and "pro" - for money.
- paid support
Paths are not mutually exclusive, of course. Moreover, usually the basic functionality should be enough for the program to "just work", and in the "pro" - only goodies, additional features, conveniences, etc. - otherwise the user will simply refuse such a program

Answer 2

It is possible as an option to make a button - Support the author. With a wallet or a convenient way to donate for a symbolic amount at the discretion of the user.
If 150k downloads - I think there are those who will support.

Answer 3

> How to monetize an open source project?
Project of what? Programs? First, the program for this project will have to be written , it will hardly work out differently.
> open-source
Can't you remember the Russian word to replace the English euphemism "open source" in the meaning of "free", "libre"? The word is "free" . :-)
> installed by online installer
A! So it's already been written? So the real question is: "How to make money with free software" ? Fine.
I know four main ways to make money that are directly related to free software
:sell copies of free software . Audience: any end users. Examples: Parted Magic, a number of programs for Android, for example, Conversations. High morality: in perfect order.
- The second is the well-known support sale . And in fact, sometimes just their name, when some kind of real support begins with amounts slightly larger than the basic contract. Audience: mainly those for whom your program is a means of production, that is, companies and entrepreneurs. Example: Canonical. High morality: in perfect order.
- The third is the sale of copyleft exceptions. The audience will be developers of non-free software, and your software should be a (not hard to guess) copyleft library, and often strong. The bottom line is that for good people, your product is free under the terms of, say, the GNU GPL or GNU AGPL, and let the proprietors pay for the opportunity to use it in their own selfish interests. Examples: GhostScript, MySQL. Vysokomorlnost: limps a little.
- The fourth one is just making money on non- free programs, and should not be on this list at all, but everyone remembers it (comrade CityCat4 just mentioned it ). This is the so-called. free crippleware, that is, your full-fledged program is non-free and paid, but it has a free cut-down version. Moreover, both something significant and sheer nonsense can be cut. Audience: anyone. Examples: Odoo, GitLab, ProcessMaker. High morality: from low to none, depending on how much is cut off.
And of course, all of the above can be combined: Qt, for example, provides support (training), and sells exceptions to copyleft (and weak!) And has a modest non-free part. And the well-known Red Hat - sells copies of free software, provides support and non-free programs (Ansible Tower) also sells. And sometimes this happens: a program for Android called OsmAnd is completely free, but it comes in Google Play in two versions: full for a pretty penny and truncated for free. Once again: both versions are free, that is, there is no moral problem here.
Above, I have listed only ways to make money on programs as such; and there are other schemes where free software participates indirectly. This, presumably, is not your case, but since I am not answering you alone here, it should also be mentioned that free software may well be:
- Part of the service being sold - most often specific hosting services, like Redhat's Openshift or (if ) Feedly.
- Part of the device being sold, and the device itself may or may not be free. Thousands of them.
- And finally, just part of a profitable process technology. That is, the company writes (orders) the program for internal use and could not distribute it at all, but, not considering it something secret, behaves nobly and simply freely shares it with everyone. The most famous example is Reddit (although they've gotten ugly lately).

Answer 4

My project has a paid editorial office , although about 3 people out of a thousand pay. And that's a penny (slightly more hosting costs but less than I have to pay taxes as an individual entrepreneur). But for that, this project helps me find freelance orders. True, again, if I had spent time looking for clients, instead of developing my own comet server, I don’t think that I would have had much fewer orders.

Answer 5

1. Stop giving it away and start selling it. 150 thousand installations is an impressive figure showing interest.
2. Provide paid user support - finalizing the functionality upon request.
3. For private use, continue to give away for free, and for commercial use only for money.
4. Distribute two versions. Light and Pro. Free and paid, respectively.
5. Enter a subscription to use for a very small fee. It is much easier to give 100 rubles once a month than one and a half thousand at once. And it doesn’t matter that in the end you can overpay much more.
But it's all a finger to the sky. Would you show your project or something. Is it such a secret?

Answer 6

I'm completely off topic, sorry if my questions look stupid. But I've seen several programs, for example AIMP, which, during installation, offer to make Yandex the default browser. Surely Yandex somehow sponsors AIMP developers. I am wrong?