Making money as a libre software programmer
Contents
- 1 Work on the internal software of a company
- 2 Write or customize libre software on a contract basis
- 3 Write or customize libre software for an online service
- 4 Write or customize libre software for a hardware product
- 5 Sponsorship
- 6 Trademark Licensing
- 7 Crowd-funding
- 8 Subscriptions
- 9 Pay what you want distribution
- 10 Sell a limited run of physical copies
Contrary to what some may believe, working in libre software does not mean you cannot make money as a programmer. Libre software is not anti-business. Richard Stallman used to live on selling tape copies of GNU Emacs for $150 back when internet connectivity was rare. Later, he made enough money customizing GNU software that he was able to only work seven weeks out of the year and spend the rest of year working on important free software projects.
Here are ways programmers could make money today while respecting user freedom. You will also find case studies exemplifying each business model. Successful projects and programmers often employ a mix of these methods. Makers of proprietary software also employ these methods sometimes to increase revenue or because they do not make enough money from licenses due to unauthorized copying. However, we do not list proprietary software here.
Work on the internal software of a company
Private software is libre. This is a common job for programmers already.
Write or customize libre software on a contract basis
Customization services are commonly offered by software companies. They it “open source customization”, but we reject this terminology.
Write or customize libre software for an online service
Service sales fund development. Excludes Service as a Software Substitute
Case studies
Write or customize libre software for a hardware product
Product sales fund development.
Case studies
Sponsorship
Organizations provide funds and benefit from the software and marketing.
Case studies
Trademark Licensing
Your trademark is licensed to service providers in exchange for a fee.
Case study
Crowd-funding
Can be one-off or recurring.
Case study
Subscriptions
End-users make payments to receive updates and new releases. Case study: Ardour
Pay what you want distribution
End-users pay for a ready-to-run supported program from an official source. Case studies: Ardour, Bandcamp***
Sell a limited run of physical copies
Works well for games. Gives collector value to the product. Case Studies: independent music
