Did anyone try licensezero for open source side projects?
I'm the author of an open source project which is getting traction and also has some monetization potential so I'd like to give it a try, if everything works well I'd love to work on it full time.
The code is currently available on GitHub at https://github.com/cristim/autospotting and it can generate significant savings for companies using AWS EC2 by conveniently automating the use of spot instances on existing AutoScaling groups. In some cases it achieves up to 90% cost reduction, and it does it with minimal configuration/migration effort.
I'd like to relicense it under LicenseZero (see https://licensezero.com/manifesto) and maybe charge some $200/installation/month in for-profit settings, remaining free of charge for individuals and non-profits and generously give waivers for corporate contributors to encourage contributions.
I'm also contemplating a tiered pricing based on the company size, since one size rarely fits all. How much would you be willing to pay for something like this?
Did anyone give licensezero a try? Would I need to register as freelancer or create a company for monetizing this?
It's using Stripe under the hood, can I receive Stripe payments as an individual?
I don't have experience in monetizing open source code, but you might want to check out the IH podcast interview with Dave DeSandro, founder of Metafizzy. His business model is to publish GPL-licensed code and charge money for people who want to use it in closed-source software.
Thanks @mtlynch, this is a pretty good way for libraries or similar reusable components.
My project is different, it's just a tool that you install, configure and run standalone. Its main advantage is to be as easy as possible to install and use with minimal configuration effort.
It's already quite mature and easy to use so I won't be so successful in charging for support or feature development. I also think these are not scalable.
My initial plan was to charge for the binaries I built and for using the easy installation method, keeping the code under the MIT license. But I think many large companies whom I would like to charge would just build and run custom builds, while I would likely charge smaller players who can't afford to do it, which is exactly the opposite of what I want to achieve.
Licensezero would allow me to charge the bigger players who can easily afford it, but at the same time to freely allow the smaller users to use it for free.
Bit late to the party, but I'm in a similar boat as you. LicenseZero looks interesting, and they refined their licenses recently, I especially like the Parity Public license.
I had a look at your github repo, it seems you didn't go with LicenseZero after all. Mind sharing your thought process as to why not?
I thought the dual-license model would better fit my project, but so far it's not really working. I have no buyers for the proprietary binaries and a single Patreon donor that contributes $5 monthly.
I am not sure if zerolicense can make any difference, people seem to just not care about infringing the proprietary license, and I don't want to alienate the folks who contributed code because it is open source.
Sorry to hear that. Such a shame, esp. as your project is something that clearly saves people money, and they can probably even easily put a number on those savings, which is not the case in a lot of cases.
I've read up quite a bit on open-source business models recently, and people who don't create/maintain projects either seem to think that it's not a problem to create revenue if your product is good enough (personally, it looks to me those people are falling for a sort of survivorship bias, they usually point to RedHat and one or two super-successful JS libraries), or creators shouldn't complain because they could have gone the proprietary route. And then there are the open-source militants who just accept that because they think the free software cause is more important. I can emphasize with the latter group, but reading the rest of the comments is really quite disheartening.
Your experience seems to be a common one, and I really wish this wasn't the case. And not because I want to try to make a living off writing open-source myself.
Anyway, I think I'll give licensezero a shot. I don't have any contributors yet, and the licenses are short and to the point. Even if there's a good chance people will just ignore them anyway... Thanks for your input!
Thanks for the nice words, I wish you more success with monetizing your project.
At least for me this project was a success, even if not yet financially as a passive income source. On the open source front we now have a vibrant community, I got a lot of testers and a bunch of code contributions that made it of a quality beyond my wildest dreams. I wouldn't be able to do it myself with the limited amount of time, especially now as parent of a 7 months old baby.
Last year I managed to convince the right folks at our company to roll it out at a large scale, we just deployed it on our 400+ AWS accounts and people can opt-in to use it. Last year I received a promotion and a raise, largely triggered by this effort. I am now working on it 20% of my employment time leading a number of people who help me in this rollout, and I've fixed a lot of issues I couldn't have done in my spare time. We expect to save the company in the millions yearly once we're done, and I was promised a bonus once the first results show significant savings :-)
So yeah, it's not all about money. Just build something that provides value, be persistent at it and you will succeed one way or another.
I'm super interested in this as well!! I think something along these lines is a great idea.
As per the licensezero author this is one of the most common expected use cases, it's definitely doable: https://github.com/licensezero/licensezero-questions/issues/6