this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Out of curiosity, under this system, how do the people writing the software get paid? Are they all dependent on donations?
Good question! The answer can be found by looking at how most of the commercial open source products are monetized. Software hosting and technical support are quite lucrative if the software is valuable.
But let’s look bigger than just software. How do content creators get paid? That’s far less tested. I expect crowdfunding to be the primary vehicle for that. It’s popular for indies, but the big boys haven’t caught up with the times yet.
This only applies to some software, though, no? Like, let's say a group of folks make a game or something, and release it as FOSS. Assuming they're not hobbyists, and this is their career, how are they covering costs and making a living on that?
Largely through sponsorships, I think, right? Sponsorships and crowdfunding, but both of those require some measure of notoriety. It's an unfortunate case where you have to spend a lot of effort doing it effectively unpaid until you get a following large enough to bring in sponsorship money or ad revenue or donations. Or you need to be a pretty woman who's willing to monetize that, that seems to have a much lower barrier to entry.