How to Earn Money With Open Source Contributions?

Thinking about open source software, most people visualize enthusiastic and generous developers who spend their days and nights creating this stuff for free. In fact, “open source software” was the same as free one for a few decades. Open code development by group work denied an opportunity to make money out of it. But today even building open source software (OSS) is a way to make money.

Many developers are engaged in passion projects that they also do on the side simply because these look valid to them. They are satisfied working on them even after they have done their paid job for the day whether it is for personal improvement, to help others through what they offer, or simply because of some crazy and fun idea. Why, though? There is no way to earn your living from an open-source project – everyone knows that! This is perhaps one of the huge misconceptions about open source.

In a way, most of our everyday work is based on open source; we accomplish this through the use of free tools that allow us to automate something and libraries for things already in place. In this article, we offer all information on How to Make Money with Open Source Contributions.

What Is An Open Source Software?

Open Source is the future of development. A lot of big companies are entering into the open source community right down to their core with Microsoft opening up its .NET framework so that it takes off like a rocket. But, what is open source? In simple terms, it means that the idea/material/information is released to public view. It is the equivalent to code being readily available for others to see and modify, or even use in their proprietary product for a developer. They depend on the various types of open source licenses used.

Open Source Software OSS refers to software whose source code is freely accessible. The source code can be reused, modified or it is just reviewed. One of the best ways to get exposure is open source contribution. The good news is that you can also make money by adding to open source projects. If you never asked for advice from an experienced programmer on how to do things, one of the pieces of advice that such a person will always give is about contributing to open source. But they never discuss making money on open source.

The Open Source Model is the essence of open source collaboration. Nevertheless, it does not talk about how a developer can earn via open source. Firstly, open-source contribution is a great way to be richer. Second, it can bring tremendous value to your resume as companies search for candidates who have gotten involved in open source.

How to Earn Money With Open Source Contributions?

Let’s look at several ways open source projects can monetize successfully, as well as a number of companies that have implemented these strategies to success. However, you will find many ways to generate revenue – for even projects with low adoption.

Paid Support

One of the simplest streams to monetize, all types of open source projects can offer paid support. As a project maintainer, you know much about the codebase. This places you in the position of providing consultancy or support services to companies that wish to use your code.

Meanwhile, the idea of paid support will not ensure a scalable business model for open source projects. Since most of the projects are managed by just a few developers, there is little time on their hands to provide support services to companies. Remember that it may take time to enhance the functionality and manage the codebase. Overall, it’s a good way to earn some money for an open source maintainer and keep the project running.

Software As A Service

The SaaS business model can be used as one of the ways to monetize your open source project. That option is meaningful if you have a kind of app that can create market demand. The subscription model of licensing software is very popular because it’s adaptable and provides quick rollout with lower costs. The aspect that makes SaaS appealing is the fact that software resides in a cloud; users only need to use web browser so as to access an application.

SaaS is a widely used model for vendors who develop tools for HR, collaboration systems, content management and project planning. Free code base SaaS solutions lowers development costs and avoids unnecessary building of redundant functionality. Also, the creative OSS community will be happy to use quality open source products. This OpenSaaS model involves purchasing software via subscriptions that provide different amounts of service.

Dual Licensing

Dual licensing allows companies to release commercial software that is derived from free open-source software commonly distributed under the GNU General Public License. This practice can be implemented in a few ways. In one scenario, a company releases identical products under both a commercial license and a free license, such as GPL. In another scenario, the company releases different versions of the software under different licenses.

Why is dual licensing necessary, you may wonder? Well, let me explain. The GPL license grants certain freedoms to users - the ability to run open source software, distribute it, and even make modifications. However, there's a catch. If you want to incorporate open source solutions into your proprietary (commercial) software and make a profit from it, the GPL license won't allow it. This is where a commercial version of an open source product comes in handy - by obtaining this, you gain the right to sell your commercial software without any legal hurdles.

GitHub Sponsors

Ever since May 23, 2019, GitHub has introduced its remarkable GitHub Sponsors program. It is a well-known fact that the world thrives on open source contributions. None of this incredible progress would have been achievable without the dedicated team of maintainers, designers, programmers, researchers, teachers, writers, leaders—and more— who wholeheartedly dedicate themselves to advancing technology. These exceptional developers are now able to receive financial support from the very community that relies on their hard work, effortlessly through their own GitHub profiles.

Using GitHub Sponsors offers a significant advantage as they do not impose any charges. All sponsorships received by developers are completely retained by them. This feature is specifically designed to acknowledge and appreciate developers for their efforts in maintaining free software. Sponsorships act as a valuable source of income for established open-source projects, enabling them to secure the necessary funds and sustain their operations effectively.

Open-Core Model

The open-core model presents a fascinating option for open-source projects to generate revenue from their code. The concept underlying this model is to make the majority of your code open-source but reserve a small portion as proprietary. Typically, this is done to offer exclusive modules or extensions to businesses. Consequently, developers are able to employ the software freely in other open source endeavors.

But companies are obligated to make payments for utilizing enterprise-specific components or connections. An illustrative instance of this scenario is when companies provide exclusive functionalities that are necessary for configuring the software for its usage in production. One must remember that it is not a simple task to implement an open-core model. It is rather intricate to segregate the proprietary features from the already existing code base and package them into distinct units. Accommodating an open-source project demands a remarkable architectural structure in order to sustain the open-core model effectively.

Why You Should Contribute To Open Source?

Help Others 

You Spread Help Through the Open-Source Community. What is coolest about open source is the act of making or creating stuff for others. When using open source, you create code that is helpful to the community. Whether you’re making some documentation, a small patch to the code or just opening an issue – whatever contribution it is…you certainly enhance any tools or software and make life easier for other developers.

By working on a project, one enhances the quality of work for everyone while somehow also helps other developers in providing them with some solutions or better code. When you are going to contribute something in an open-source project think about several things and ask yourself a few questions.

Learning and Experience

Working on an open-source project is a huge learning opportunity. You cooperate with professionals, you receive responses and turn the other way to a real making of software. You watch how software is created or done in some huge tech giant companies like Microsoft, Google,or Facebook.

You familiarize yourself with technology on a much deeper level. When you are a newcomer to the open-source, contributing to some projects is not easy. There are certain procedures you need to go through and a level of effort required in terms of learning how things work, but once it is learned the benefits can be very good.

Excellent Project Quality

Open source projects are often high in quality because the developers worldwide contribute to it. Globally, there are great developers who employ their exceptional coding style or approach to implement some features novelties in the codebase.

When you work on quality projects, it is possible to see what good software represents and how various developers use different solutions or coding styles in creating the said reliable solution. On an opensource project, your code is exposed to the other developers and when it comes you tend to make your clean maintainable coherently understandably modifiable written.

Free and Reduces Development Cost

Gaining a required experience or learning something is not always free of charge. Most areas require spending money. Open source also contributes to the reduction of software cost in any organization. Bring the ideas, recommendations and help from an outside team of specialists. But you’re not limited to the ones that are discussed among your team or in and iteam. 

It provides unbelievable ideas from the open-source community and you can be able to access what is done by other developers. The solution suggested by the individual from the open-source community can be a better idea than what has been discussed within organization.

Conclusion

Open source software is well-liked because of its dependability, security, and active communities of support. Furthermore, Open Source Software (OSS) saves businesses from having to create the wheel and can even be integrated into proprietary software. These elements combined have helped to make open source very well-liked. In order to guarantee professional services, technical support, and legal protection, people are now willing to pay for open source software. 

Businesses may provide the best of both worlds with paid open-source technologies: transparent technology combined with the features and support of commercial software. For developers, earning revenue from open source has always been advantageous. We covered a few of the top strategies for monetizing open source projects. 

FAQs