> If you make your project open source, your goal should be maximizing people using it, not maximizing how much you profit from it.
Dangerous ground telling people what their goals should be. There is no reason a person shouldn't try to maximise their profits from open source strategies. The Linux example is not a strong one - lots of the kernel devs are for-profit and Linus Torvalds made a fortune [0] - likely linked to his involvement in Linux. With benefit of hindsight it is hard to see how he could have better optimised for profit.
The key insight for commercial OSS is that maximising profit does not necessarily mean maximising your paying userbase size. 10 users paying $10,000 a month easily trumps 1000 users paying $10. And going OSS as a commercial strategy (eg, Red Hat's classic model) gives competitive advantages if you can lever it - no risk of being undercut by a cheaper software package, ability be very selective in who you offer support to and an obvious strategy for wheedling in to new markets.
In the initial rush where computers were being changed out every 5 years (pre 2003 era), having software to sell was where the advantage was. Now the industries are starting to mature and that is no longer as obvious it once was. The money seems to be in support and ongoing relationship fees, which are very amenable to OSS.
So basically, if someone's goal is to maximise profits they should consider making their software open source. Especially if they are breaking in to an incumbent's market.
The question is not whether the author made a fortune, but whether they were upset that tremendous more value was captured by others. I’m sure Amazon has made way more money on AWS last year by leveraging Linux than Linus has in his entire life. Now the analogy is exactly 1-to-1 compatible: Amazon offers Linux as a service, Amazon offers MongoDB as a service. If you want another analogy: more value was captured by Github (and Microsoft) from Git than Linus. Again, from offering the software as a service.
It is fine to try to leverage the properties of open source to make profits, just don’t be surprised when it doesn’t, on its own, do so. That is what is meant by my first statement: “open source will absolutely help you gain traction, it will not necessarily help you capture value”. As such, if you use open source, the goal best served is gaining users. Don’t be surprised when it doesn’t make you a ton of money.
Dangerous ground telling people what their goals should be. There is no reason a person shouldn't try to maximise their profits from open source strategies. The Linux example is not a strong one - lots of the kernel devs are for-profit and Linus Torvalds made a fortune [0] - likely linked to his involvement in Linux. With benefit of hindsight it is hard to see how he could have better optimised for profit.
The key insight for commercial OSS is that maximising profit does not necessarily mean maximising your paying userbase size. 10 users paying $10,000 a month easily trumps 1000 users paying $10. And going OSS as a commercial strategy (eg, Red Hat's classic model) gives competitive advantages if you can lever it - no risk of being undercut by a cheaper software package, ability be very selective in who you offer support to and an obvious strategy for wheedling in to new markets.
In the initial rush where computers were being changed out every 5 years (pre 2003 era), having software to sell was where the advantage was. Now the industries are starting to mature and that is no longer as obvious it once was. The money seems to be in support and ongoing relationship fees, which are very amenable to OSS.
So basically, if someone's goal is to maximise profits they should consider making their software open source. Especially if they are breaking in to an incumbent's market.
[0] https://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celebrity-business/...