Question Details

Browse

How to earn money with open source project

By thedoot - Mar. 19, 2008

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


Answers

Add Answer

  1. By Chris Clarke on Mar. 19, 2008

    You could take a look at SourceForge.net Marketplace. There is an activity community of Open Source Developers who are offering services for their open source software.


    www.sourceforge.net/marketplace


    You could also take a look on their community forums where a number of other developers have asked similar questions.


    0 Votes
    Report this

  2. By an anonymous user on Mar. 20, 2008

    thanks


    0 Votes
    Report this

  3. By Randy Clark on Mar. 20, 2008

    Well, it really depends on what you are trying to sell. The Marketplace makes sense if you are offering customization services for your particular application. If you are looking to 'sell' your application, it is going to be hard to do that with the Open Source license, since people will have access to the source code for free anyway.


    The real purpose behind Open Source is that you give people access to your source code and allow them to distribute that as they choose, depending on the license.


    With GPL, people who enhance your code would have to release it out to everyone.


    It sounds like what you want to do is sell your source code for money, but not allow others to resell that? That by itself I believe is not going to be possible. What you can do with GPL is require anyone making modifications, to make their changes available to you and to others. If they change or modify your code and distribute it, they will have to make their changes available too.


    0 Votes
    Report this

  4. By thedoot on Mar. 22, 2008

    I'm developing a new feature for photograph machine, that can improve image quality.

    It have to be adopted into camera's software (paying in someway for this). And I've have also to

    distribute a free library to read this kind of image over desktops computer, smart phone, etc. This library can be used by image software's authors.


    I don't know how earn money and release it under an open source license. It's not necessary to be gpl, but sure it wave be open...


    0 Votes
    Report this

  5. By an anonymous user on Mar. 24, 2008

    You can also provide your application as a hosted service that people can use and charge a fee for premium services/features and have some sort of ad-supported offering.


    0 Votes
    Report this

  6. By an anonymous user on Sep. 25, 2008

    Register and earn money: http://depacco.com/pages/index.php?refid=nitrus


    0 Votes
    Report this

  7. By Vijaya Kumar Reddy Maddela on Sep. 26, 2008

    You can expose it as webservice and provide service as with little features , if any one is interested they will come back to you.


    0 Votes
    Report this
Share your knowledge