Money Money Money: Making software, in a rich (wo)man's world

Free software advocates talk about two types of "Free": Free as in freedom, and Free as in beer. While Free (as in freedom) software is unquestionably better for users and developers alike, Free (as in beer) software doesn't pay the bills.

Talk to any prominent open source developer, and amongst the success stories, you'll also hear some consistent troubles - that they've got great ideas and grand plans, but no time to execute; that they're about to burn out due to the pressues of maintaining their project; or that they've had yet another mailing list discussion with someone who doesn't understand they're a volunteer. All of these problems stem from a fundamental disconnect: the discrepancy between the clear demand for a software product, and the ability to convert that demand into time needed to service that demand - and that means money.

So is there a way to pay the piper? Or is open source doomed to eek out an existence at the edges of "a real job"?

Transcript

1. Money Money Money! Writing software in a rich (wo)man's world Dr Russell Keith-Magee DjangoCon AU 2015
2. Money Money Money! Writing software in a rich (wo)man's world Dr Russell Keith-Magee DjangoCon AU 2015
6. PyXero
7. Vested interests as a producer
8. Vested interests as a consumer
9. Absent of any other constraints, given equivalent resources, the free software approach produces vastly superior engineering outcomes than the closed-source approach.
10. Absent of any other constraints, ‛given equivalent resources given equivalent resources“, the free software approach produces vastly superior engineering outcomes than the closed-source approach.
11. The moral high road is littered with the corpses of our allies
12. OpenSSL
13. GnuPG
14. Capistrano
15. “ "Hi I'm an engineer at a well-funded company and we need this feature can someone implement it for free?" -- Every FOSS mailing list. ” Christophe Pettus (@xof)
16. How do we pay the piper?
17. Free software: Dream vs Realty
18. Engagement
19. A thought experiment
20. Project or Product
21. Projects
22. Products
23. Pragmatic Freedom
24. Patches welcome
25. Blaming the user
26. 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month
27. Cathedral and the Bazaar
28. Homesteading the Noosphere The Magic Cauldron
29. Use value vs Sale value
30. Use value vs Sale value
31. Use value vs Sale value
32. Merchandise
33. Documentation
34. Training
35. Productizing
36. SaaS
37. SaaS
38. Access to developers
39. Access to software
40. Certification and Guarantees
41. Certification and Guarantees
42. Undermining your value proposition
43. Undermining your value proposition
44. Undermining your value proposition
45. Cost to the community
46. Indirect cost to the community
47. Indirect cost to the community
48. Land mines
49. A question of scale
50. A question of scale
51. Horses for courses
52. Do you have to sell something?
53. “ "How to make money from open source" is like "How to make money from clean water" or public education or science. ” Pieter Hintjens (@hintjens)
54. Crowdfunding
55. Django Migrations Multiple Template engines django.contrib.postgres Django Rest Framework
56. Bug bounties
57. Bug bounties
58. Working income
59. Working income
60. Grants Fellowships Patreon
61. Django Fellow
62. Blood from a stone
63. Corporate sponsorship
64. OpenStack
65. node.js
66. A cautionary tale
67. A cautionary tale
68. Venture funding
69. Magic beans
70. Developing a patronage culture
71. Developing a patronage culture
72. Resource needs
73. Red Cross
74. Red Cross
75. Facilitating patronage
76. Making it easy to spend money and receive money
77. Wordpress
78. Wordpress Ecosystem
79. Wordpress Ecosystem
80. A controversial proposal
81. What if...
82. Running the numbers
83. Standing on the shoulders of giants
84. Development grants
85. Free passes
86. Naysayers
87. Tragedy of the commons
88. Learn from the MPAA and RIAA
89. Make it easy to do the right thing.
90. Silver bullets
91. Difficult conversations
92. russell@keith-magee.com @freakboy3742 cecinestpasun.com