This is interesting. Even more, I would like a software publisher, to package open-source software with an installer for various platforms (mostly Windows/MacOS), set up a landing page, provide invoices/POs to companies that need it, deal with payment and refunds, and just give me a cut. Does anyone know a small company out there who does this?

maybe you could elaborate a little how that works? selling open source software - it doesn't have to be an oxymoron, but making that work isn't straightforward

Sure, happy to share more:

Config:

1. You set up an account on the marketplace - sign up, then connect it to Stripe through the marketplace and decide which software you want to sell (about 15 minutes in total)

2. Copy-paste a new license to your repositories - You relicense your software to use a slightly modified version of MIT license, which requires commercial entities to pay for your software (5 minutes or so)

That's all for config, now your part is done and the rest of work is on buyer's and marketplace's side.

You of course remain owner of your software, you don't move any rights to marketplace or users, except the license for usage, just like you do it now with MIT/GPL/whatever license you use right now. Marketplace is only to connect you with buyers and give you centralized place to sell with automated infrastructure, so you don't process payments, signups, etc. by yourself

Selling:

If a company wants to use your software, they need to pay a monthly/yearly fee - you choose how much you charge

License:

You can customize the license if you want - you can choose whether you allow free usage for non-commercial/scientific/charity purposes and you can also set some other feature flags, so you have a control over how your software is used

And that's basically it

There's an MVP on https://poss.market if you would like to check if that even makes sense to you. Thanks and please let me know what do you think if you made it to this point. I still figure this out and your feedback is invaluable to me!

> 2. Copy-paste a new license to your repositories - You relicense your software to use a slightly modified version of MIT license, which requires commercial entities to pay for your software (5 minutes or so)

Then the software is not open source anymore, i.e. the claim that one sells open source software is fraudulent.

Side remark: In the past Microsoft attempted to establish the term "shared source" for software where you can see the source code, but which is not open source.

> the claim that one sells open source software is fraudulent

Fraud requires intent to deceive. Your conclusion seems very alarmist and unfair.

The rules about open source aren't mysterious or hidden, and anyone who has spent time rewriting the MIT license and creating a marketplace for open source software is either familiar with them or incompetent.

Thanks for the remark. On the marketplace I call it "paid open source software", so I guess I could be more specific in original comment, sorry for unclearness from my side

1) Simply don't call it "open source software." Making up new definitions for open source is more harmful to it than anything else could be. There's nothing to open source except licensing.

2) The usual way to do this is to AGPL your software (or be even stricter), and sell it by relicensing it for businesses who pay you so they can use it how they wish. You don't have to make up a new "non-commercial open source" license to do this.

edit: It feels like OSS people are haphazardly stumbling through the thought processes that lead to the GPL in the first place. Once you've made an open source license that doesn't allow people to make money using the software, does it matter whether they share their changes or not when they distribute?

What's motivating people to reserve the right not to share changes in the software they distribute for free, other than to maintain a now enforced as worthless (by this particular license and similar variants) distinction from the GPL?

The established term is "source available" specifically because it's not open source.

> On the marketplace I call it "paid open source software"

This is still wrong (and likely again fraudulent, but IANAL), since the software is not open source if there are such usage restrictions. Call it, for example, "paid sofware with source available" ("source available" is another common term for software for which one can see the source code, but which is not open source).

I like this. I’ve always been wondering why something like this does not exist.

There are different variations of a similar idea. The implementation suggested here though, isn't my favorite since a modification in the license shouldn't really be necessary. And, lost of FOSS projects out there can't just simply relicense. So far, the best implementation I've seen is specific to Elementary OS in their distro software center. You can donate to projects directly via the store.

I truly believe that open-source developers can gain financial independence by selling supply-chain security. Disclaimer: I'm exploring this idea.

This sounds really interesting. If you ever get a chance to sit down and do a write up as to what you discover, I would love to read it.

Can you expand on this? This sounds fascinating to me.

Sure. The plan is to provide security assurance to the consumers on software contents, packaging, governance, etc..

Many have attempted to offer services that allow developers to "sell their FOSS projects". Unfortunately, no successful model has emerged so far.

I've seen something similar in https://indiecc.com/

how do you enforce any of this?

Difficult to enforce externally I think, except when an employee of a company shares an infringement with the marketplace or the creator

My assumption: the reason serious companies will pay is that they don't want to make silly mistakes like license infringement for which they can be sued. If they want to use your lib/tool/etc, because it will speed up their development or help they make money in any other way, they will choose to pay you these $100 per year. If you gain a few (dozens, hundreds, thousands) clients like this, you're able to build a solid source of income, and since they buy a license on a subscription basis, it's likely you will keep the clients for the next year

Basically, yes for now. Also your software becomes visible on the marketplace and you can have a single point of sale on your profile at the marketplace

There are further plans, but I'm still trying to get some funding/help to have a time to continue development