Going commercial with a Python library

Hi everyone

I have written a Python library that integrates with Harvest time sheet web API, and for the last 18 months it has been both open source and free.

Over that 18 months I have had a handful of requests to fix bugs or add features to the library where people expect it to happen on a particular timeline of their choosing.

The Python library is useful in financial reporting, financial systems integration and other software products. And so that kind of work is almost always required "like, yesterday!".

I have found that most of the people who are coming to me have enough skill to write a reporting tool, or even an integration, but are not capable of writing code good enough to fix or extend the library. So it leaves me to do a lot of work.

I have had the good fortune to have Harvest contact me ahead of a breaking change. But, again, on a timeline they have chosen. And they are not interested in contributing to the library.

I have absolutely no idea of the usage statistics. They can only be gathered by Harvest, and Harvest aren't able to share with me. I can only go on what I can see in GitHub and pypistats.org.

Github says I have 3 watchers , 9 stars and 6 contributors (effectively nobody).

Pypistats.org says I have 250 downloads per month almost every month for a year. That's a lot but how many downloads convert to users?

So, I have made the decision to try and sell the library which, in theory, pays for my time to do all of this coding work for the couple of people who have had contact with the repository. And, if there are any usage conversions from downloads I might have a business much bigger than I ever anticipated.

Has anyone here had a software product which has made the transition from free, or specifically free and open source, to commercial?

Is there anything I should look out for?