Just wondering if anyone here has made money on Open Source projects through consulting, hosting service, or simply building a product/service using an open source app.

If you're consulting on OSS projects - can you specify which projects, the type of service you provide and what is the typical rate/fee you charge?

Feel free to leave an anonymous response if you're not comfortable with disclosing your fortunes here :)

Being employed by a company that uses open source software doesn't count (otherwise i'll have to put my putrid salary on here!)

Cheers!

Hi to all!
I'm developing a new kind of image software. This software to become of real using need to be adopted in all the place where there's the jpeg format.
Now how it works and the source code is my own propriety. No else know much about it.

I want to release it under an open source licence like GPL, but I've the fear that someone can stole me the idea and, with making a fork of my project, can make succes and me (the starting point) loose the possibility to make money with it.

Someone can help me to understand how can i protect my software by this situation releasing it with open licence?

And someone can report me some article, blog, link, manual, book where i can find information about "earn money with open source project"?

Thanks