---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Shlomi Fish <shlo...@shlomifish.org> Date: Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 11:49 AM Subject: Fw: Question about how to make a living from open source To: shlo...@gmail.com
Begin forwarded message: Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 11:48:01 +0300 From: Shlomi Fish <shlo...@shlomifish.org> Cc: "linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il" <linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il> Subject: Re: Question about how to make a living from open source Hi Tzahi, On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:15:40 +0300 tzahi ml <tzahi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi All, > I am in need of assistance. > > I am currently working as a freelancer coding stuff in a company. > However, although I am making good living, this does not scale much (and > promotion is out of the question :) ). > > Anyway, I am looking for ways to scale. > I've written about some business models for web-based publishing here: https://plus.google.com/+ShlomiFish/posts/MRLntf3xu5Y Some of them have correspondence to open source. See: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Alternative profitable business models for Web-based commerce. This is a list of 5 business models for web-based commerce that do not require depending on advertising: 1. Collect donations or ask for money for public appearances in advance - see https://plus.google.com/+ShlomiFish/posts/GUpTuA6641x . 2. The Flickr model - charge people for a premium model. 3. The Bandcamp/Humble-Bundle model - pay what you want (people can be very generous). 4. The cloud model - pay for hosting or a MMORPG account (World-of-Warcraft/etc.) or whatever. 5. Pay to liberate - collect money to make a CC-by-nc-sa work CC-by/etc. 6. Sell merchandise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNZove4OTtI . 7. One can also set up non-intrusive ads like those provided by http://projectwonderful.com/ , but I doubt they'll be profitable. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Another suggestion I can give you is to work a lot on publicity, social networking, etc. - both in real life and in Internet-based social media venues. See: http://www.reddit.com/r/Objectivism/comments/2c1fue/the_importance_of_human_networking/ A chauffeur with whom I stroke a conversation at a McDonalds restaurant close to Heathrow airport in London told me he now gets most of his customers from social media outlets such as Facebook or Twitter. The newfound possibilities from real-life and electronic social networking are very much reflected in stories here: * http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Buffy/A-Few-Good-Slayers/ There are plenty of online communities for various topics on the Internet. Find some of them that you are interested in and contribute to them. There are Reddit subreddits, wikis (Wikipedia, Wikia wikis, etc.), IRC channels on Freenode/etc., Facebook groups and pages, Twitter feeds, mailing lists, etc. and you should be able to contribute to some of them. The greatest threat for any business is obscurity. You may also wish to invest some money in buying ads, commercials, promotions or whatever - nothing wrong with that and this money may be well worth it in publicity. Finally note the Carpe Diem / "He who saved one man has essentially saved the world entire principle" - don't try to maximise your audience immediately. Invest time in each and every friend and recipient: * http://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html#carpe_diem Finally, I should note that your English does not sound idiomatic (although I admit I heard much worse). You should work on improving it. See my advice for how to do that here: * https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hackers-il/conversations/messages/5143 Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Beginners Site for the Vim text editor - http://vim.begin-site.org/ God helps them that help God help them. — http://shlomif.livejournal.com/66017.html Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ What does “Zionism” mean? - http://shlom.in/def-zionism Harry: Mr. Mumford, I hereby propose my friend, the beautiful Hermione. Hermione: Ahem… actually I kinda have a bad hair day today, so I think your assistant should be the beautiful Harry (Potter!) here. Harry: Very well, I shall be the beautiful assistant. — http://is.gd/zsmond Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . -- ------------------------------------------ Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Chuck Norris helps the gods that help themselves. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
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