To be clear, I’m not looking to make any meaningful money off my own project (which is “just” a dashboard).
But if we want self-hosted software to become a real alternative to commercial services, we need people, especially developers, to care enough to build and maintain it.
Sure, AI is changing things. It’s easier than ever to build your own software, but even with AI, I wouldn’t be able to replace all the online services I use. And I doubt most people would either. Building something is one thing, maintaining it over the years is another. It’s still a serious amount of free time to dedicate to something.
What actually got me thinking about this was Heaper, a self-hosted cloud alternative that uses CRDTs. I’d really like to see it succeed because it’s doing something genuinely different from what’s already out there.
And I think those are exactly the kinds of projects we should be supporting. Software that offers real value in everyday use and gives people a reason to move away from commercial services.
But relying on donations clearly isn’t enough to sustain development for most projects. Providing a hosted version does conflict with the main idea of a service being self-hosted.
Then there are apps like Plex, which keep raising their subscription prices. At some point, you have to wonder what the financial benefit of self-hosting even is if every service comes with another subscription.
I’m not saying self-hosting always needs to be cheaper. I’m fine with paying for good software, especially if it supports the people developing it. But part of the appeal of self-hosting is having control over your own services without having to worry about a growing list of recurring bills.
Larger open-source projects can sometimes fund development through business licenses or public funding, but that doesn’t necessarily work for smaller projects.
I don’t really have a solution here. I just think we need better ways to financially support the developers building software we actually want to use, without turning self-hosting into another collection of subscriptions.
What do you think would be a reasonable way to fund these projects?
I’m the lead dev at my job. I started using a self hosted software because it was available to me without asking for budget. We used it for about 8 months and during budgeting, I decided to add this self hosted software to my teams budget because the self hosted software grew to the point where I didn’t want to manage it anymore.
You have correctly identified the core issue with open source.
Personally speaking, as inefficient as it is, I think that donations is the best way to support a self hosted open source project.
Followed by paying for licensing to be able to get support for the product.
If your project is open source any other restriction out there, you can’t really do because they can just fork and patch the software to remove the restriction.
Due to that restriction(or lack of), I’ve always personally seen most open-source projects to be more of a hobbyist or personal project then a project that someone wants to do to make money.
Use whatever channel the developer provides.
Everyone deserves to be paid for their labor, since we don’t live in a post-scarcity world.
The classic approach to this is running a business that offers hosted versions of the self-hosted technology for a price, and offers documentation for self-hosting the stack on the same page. Users click the button for what they want.
And the business offers support contracts for a price. A business can buy these so if they run into an issue they can contact you directly to help resolve the issue. Some of these support contracts go further to allow feature requests and you they pay you for new things for that business.
Not sure I’ve got the idea properly, but if so, I agree. I think offering help with self-hosting may generate decent income for a developer. Plus, give them insight into their users.
E.g. I have this idea to develop a set of neat Immich servers for friends (for free, but they buy needed hardware, say, Mac mini or something similar). As an extension of this idea, sell pre-made Immich-ready servers for general public, with the initial setup and extra support being paid. Including the donation to the original project off the money, if their licence allows selling the support. I expect it is, but haven’t investigated that further. Treat this as an example of the idea.
Obviously, this model would work for your own software. Perhaps, that’s not the fuck-you-money you can get with this, but still that may be more than open source projects get via the shallow donations that they usually get.
I have some ideas for some for-me software, which can live on any computer. So I think of deploying a fleet of SBC (Raspberry / Orange Pi or alike) servers to gift to friends, with bunch of neat services there, like Pi-Hole, etc. Plus some of made by me software, if I think the particular friend may have a use for it. The extension of this idea might be the broader audience. Won’t likely to be millions of users, but still. And who knows, one day … perhaps.
Thats not what they were talking about.
I’m going to use netbird VPN as an example.
You can use it like tailacale on their infrusturcture. Pay them to host the controller, and get slots for your machines to connect in a peer connection.
Their entire stakc is also open source and self hostable. Have your own server to act as a controller? Host it yourself 100% free.
So if you dont wanna host it, yoy pay the dev to host it for you.
Ah, yes, it’s the same thing (or a similar one), but reversed. You’re a proprietary product, which is free if you’re willing to host it yourself.
But if we want self-hosted software to become a real alternative to commercial services, we need people, especially developers, to care enough to build and maintain it.
Is it a real alternative. And not just that, in many cases it’s better. There are many good projects out there which developers care enough about to maintain that make no money at all, simply because those developers enjoy doing that, or if they see the benefit to building such software.
Sometimes they provide solutions like paid hosting while keeping the self hosted version free.
Europe is increasingly funding projects through NGOs and government foundations. If FOSS software is a public good, then we should devote public funds to it.
Some projects offer paid hosting for those who can’t or don’t wasn’t to self-host. Some (particularly mobile apps) push a paid version to stores to subsidize those using FOSS sources to download.
Universal Basic Income.
Call it wistful thinking but I still believe donations are the way forward.
But it requires a bit of a shift in both willingness and ease.
Currently donations are also distributed pretty unfair, they go mostly to the user facing side, while crucial packages remain forgotten.
I would almost suggest some kind of system where you could set aside a certain amount of money, and it would donate automatically to all your installed packages, with some kind of weighting system I suppose.
I would almost suggest some kind of system where you could set aside a certain amount of money, and it would donate automatically to all your installed packages, with some kind of weighting system I suppose.
Welp, now you know what Free Software project you should start!
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