Deriving economic profits from writing FREE software?

Hi,

At my leisure, I write free software. One of these programs is the usenet
moderation bot STUMP. Right now I am writing another free program. I feel
perfectly comfortable with the idea that I will not CHARGE money for these
programs; for one, I am a beneficiary of a multitude of excellent free
programs written by others, and just as well i realize that selling them 
would be more of a hassle than it is worth.

My another pet idea is that programming is poetry, and therefore a
person who only writes commercial software is almost surely going to
lose whatever gift in programming that he had from God.

However, aside from the psychic benefits, I would like to somehow derive
an economic profit from being a freeware author. So far, I feel that the
status of the author of a popular package does sound good on a resume, but
it is as far as I could get.

Does anyone else feel the same way? Has anybody come up with a way to 
cash in on the free programs that he writes? 

Thank you.
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                |  @___oo   (                                        )_
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     ) /^\) ^\/ _)        =__       Anything is good and useful if    )
     )   /^\/   _)          (_                                        )
     )   _ /  / _)            (                                        )
 /\  )/\/ ||  | )_)            (_       it's made of chocolate.       )
<  >      |(,,) )__)             (                                     )
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In <slrn6c0bra.sic.igor@manifold.algebra.com>, on 01/16/98 
   at 10:11 PM, igor@algebra.com (Igor) said:

>Hi,

>At my leisure, I write free software. One of these programs is the usenet
>moderation bot STUMP. Right now I am writing another free program. I feel
>perfectly comfortable with the idea that I will not CHARGE money for
>these programs; for one, I am a beneficiary of a multitude of excellent
>free programs written by others, and just as well i realize that selling
>them  would be more of a hassle than it is worth.

>My another pet idea is that programming is poetry, and therefore a person
>who only writes commercial software is almost surely going to lose
>whatever gift in programming that he had from God.

>However, aside from the psychic benefits, I would like to somehow derive
>an economic profit from being a freeware author. So far, I feel that the
>status of the author of a popular package does sound good on a resume,
>but it is as far as I could get.

>Does anyone else feel the same way? Has anybody come up with a way to 
>cash in on the free programs that he writes? 

Not much. Biggest boost from writting free software (other than the fact
of having the software) is to one's reputation capital. If one was
intrested in entering into a new field of programming (commercially)
having a few programs under one's belt never hurts.

Shareware is not a bad alternative. Thoses who like your programs and are
intrested in supporting your efforts are usally willing to spend a couple
of bucks. I wouldn't plan on quitting your day job but if your code is
popular it can help offset expences.

Another approach is to do what Phil did with PGP. Freeware to individules
and pay for business use. This depends on whether there is a business need
for your programs or not.

Get a job at a University. :)

If you really had somthing intresting that you were planning on doing you
may be able to get some type of research grant.

I think that you find that most freeware/shareware authors hold down a 9
to 5 job to pay the bills and write their code on the side.

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: If at first you don't succeed, work for Microsoft.

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Bill Stewart wrote:

> At 10:11 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Igor wrote:
> >However, aside from the psychic benefits, I would like to somehow derive
> >an economic profit from being a freeware author. So far, I feel that the
> >status of the author of a popular package does sound good on a resume, but
> >it is as far as I could get.
> >
> >Does anyone else feel the same way? Has anybody come up with a way to
> >cash in on the free programs that he writes?
> 
> There's the standard shareware model - ask for $25.
> There's the Cygnus model - charge money for support.
> There's the Netscape/McAfee/etc. model - free for personal use,
>         charge money to companies that use it.
> There's the Eudora model - basic version free, bells&whistles extra.
> There's the advertising-banner model - the software/service is free,
>         but usage hits an advertising banner in some way that
>         filters money back to you.

There's the Intel model - give away software to sell new hardware.
There's the Linus Torvalds model - people pay you to speak at conferences.
There's the w3c model - pay money if you want it now, or wait and get it for
        free next month.
There's the book model - give away the software and sell the documentation.
There's the PGP model - give it away until it becomes popular, then sell it.

...and then there's the Microsoft model - give away 'free' software and
   charge for the OS to run it...

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, Anonymous wrote:

> Bill Stewart wrote:
> 
> > At 10:11 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Igor wrote:
> > >However, aside from the psychic benefits, I would like to somehow derive
> > >an economic profit from being a freeware author. So far, I feel that the
> > >status of the author of a popular package does sound good on a resume, but
> > >it is as far as I could get.
> > >
> > >Does anyone else feel the same way? Has anybody come up with a way to
> > >cash in on the free programs that he writes?
> > 
> > There's the standard shareware model - ask for $25.
> > There's the Cygnus model - charge money for support.
> > There's the Netscape/McAfee/etc. model - free for personal use,
> >         charge money to companies that use it.
> > There's the Eudora model - basic version free, bells&whistles extra.
> > There's the advertising-banner model - the software/service is free,
> >         but usage hits an advertising banner in some way that
> >         filters money back to you.
> 
> There's the Intel model - give away software to sell new hardware.
> There's the Linus Torvalds model - people pay you to speak at conferences.
> There's the w3c model - pay money if you want it now, or wait and get it for
>         free next month.
> There's the book model - give away the software and sell the documentation.
> There's the PGP model - give it away until it becomes popular, then sell it.

There's the FSF model - give it away and ask for donations, but offer
	expensive "bundles" that are bought by enlightened companies and/or
	enlightened Dilberts at un-enlightened companies.
There's the Red Hat model - give it away on an ftp site but charge for a
	nice package with manual and support.
There's the Aladdin model - give away old versions but the latest is non-free.
There's the GNU ADA model - form a corporation to develop free software, and
	sell support contracts.

If you are interested in hack value and benefits to humanity, you are
probably best off avoiding the proprietary and shareware software models
(the two which will generally get you the most money, incidentally). But
this does not mean that you cannot write commercial software that is free;
see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html>.

It is worth noting that freeware does not necessarily have to be free of
charge; the important thing is that it be _freed_ software, or "libre"
software -- as opposed to "gratis" software.


> ...and then there's the Microsoft model - give away 'free' software and
>    charge for the OS to run it...

At 10:11 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Igor wrote:
>However, aside from the psychic benefits, I would like to somehow derive
>an economic profit from being a freeware author. So far, I feel that the
>status of the author of a popular package does sound good on a resume, but
>it is as far as I could get.
>
>Does anyone else feel the same way? Has anybody come up with a way to 
>cash in on the free programs that he writes? 

There's the standard shareware model - ask for $25.
There's the Cygnus model - charge money for support.
There's the Netscape/McAfee/etc. model - free for personal use,
	charge money to companies that use it.
There's the Eudora model - basic version free, bells&whistles extra.
There's the advertising-banner model - the software/service is free,
	but usage hits an advertising banner in some way that
	filters money back to you.

There are probably a lot more ways to do it as well, but it's a start.
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

On Sun, Jan 18, 1998 at 10:27:10PM -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:

> There's the standard shareware model - ask for $25.
> There's the Cygnus model - charge money for support.
> There's the Netscape/McAfee/etc. model - free for personal use,
> 	charge money to companies that use it.
> There's the Eudora model - basic version free, bells&whistles extra.
> There's the advertising-banner model - the software/service is free,
> 	but usage hits an advertising banner in some way that
> 	filters money back to you.

Does anyone have any economic studies (or stories) which compare
the effectiveness of these approaches?

-- 
Steve

At 10:27 PM -0800 1/18/98, Bill Stewart wrote:
>At 10:11 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Igor wrote:
>>However, aside from the psychic benefits, I would like to somehow derive
>>an economic profit from being a freeware author. So far, I feel that the
>>status of the author of a popular package does sound good on a resume, but
>>it is as far as I could get.
>>
>>Does anyone else feel the same way? Has anybody come up with a way to
>>cash in on the free programs that he writes?
>
>There's the standard shareware model - ask for $25.
>There's the Cygnus model - charge money for support.
>There's the Netscape/McAfee/etc. model - free for personal use,
>	charge money to companies that use it.
>There's the Eudora model - basic version free, bells&whistles extra.
>There's the advertising-banner model - the software/service is free,
>	but usage hits an advertising banner in some way that
>	filters money back to you.
>
>There are probably a lot more ways to do it as well, but it's a start.


Ah, but these are all chump change models.

How about:

There's the Mosaic model--develop a product with university funds, watch it
catch on, and then help found a company and make a quick $20 million or
more.

(A model also loosely paralleled in the founding of Cisco and Sun.)

And, quite seriously, the most important thing "shareware" does is to
establish one's credibility as a programmer. Many of the Mac shareware
programmers made almost nothing off of the paltry donations, but the
elegance of their products led to job opportunities and, even better,
startup opportunities.

(Lloyd Chambers, at PGP, Inc., for example, if I haven't confused him with
someone else.)

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
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