Stirling PDF on Cloudron

[marcusquinn]

@froodle Amazingly difficult to get paid for vast amounts of effort that helps the world, eh!

There's been quite a few discussions around this forum about getting open-source projects financially sustainable. Excuse my not linking, but I'm sure you'll find my posts on the subject around the place, as well as some examples I found along the way that I think have good open-source + paid-addons/setups monetisation strategies that seem to work well.

I'm certain from what you've done already there's more to come for you on that front. Have a search around here and keep an open mind for ideas to monetise, as it is important to everyone you are sustained and rewarded when people use your product to improve their own days.

[LoudLemur]

@marcusquinn said in Stirling PDF on Cloudron:

Amazingly difficult to get paid for vast amounts of effort that helps the world, eh!

I looked at this a while back. At the time, I thought the best way forward was to have a ruling that government money for software could only be spent on open source / Free Software projects. The currently used, proprietary systems would have to be purged and replaced to start things moving well.

[robi]

@marcusquinn said in Stirling PDF on Cloudron:

@froodle Amazingly difficult to get paid for vast amounts of effort that helps the world, eh!

Try https://www.ethicalads.io

[froodle]

@robi I'd always feel awkward with adverts with open source. If I ever implement something like this I'd have to be opt in. Has bad conatations with tracking etc and anti OSS (even though the site you linked looks awesome for what they stand for)

I have considered a business version with premium features but it's hard with licensing with code reuse and ideally I'd want all features on both and not limit the FOSS.

I considering something like adding a 2 concurrent Web client limit for OSS maybe

Shall see where it takes me... ethically I might just keep it open forever
It's nice hearing people cancel adobe subscriptions because of it

[marcusquinn]

@LoudLemur Yeah. That's not gonna happen, as too many people in the government jobs using them as springboards to the companies they direct spending to. Seen it 1st-hand and shamelessly gleefully.

[robi]

@froodle said in Stirling PDF on Cloudron:

It's nice hearing people cancel adobe subscriptions because of it

There's you killer slogan and sales pitch.

Just make it very easy for people/corps to pay you.

[froodle]

@robi any recommendations for payment methods outside of PayPal and github sponsers? / ways to advertise it I'm quite curious how others approach it. This is my first proper FOSS

[marcusquinn]

@froodle Probably Paddle, as they are then the merchant of record. Or LemonSqueezy.

EspoCRM has a pretty good FOSS + Paid model that keeps both types of user very happy. Give away the framework, sell the implementation/content.

[Neiluj]

@froodle Could Open Collective be relevant / of interest here?
https://opencollective.com/
I only know of them from contributing once and the little I read about them.

[aessen]

@froodle So great to see the developer on here. I will certainly toss my support your way. This is a project that needs all the support it can get. I also followed your GitHub account.

[jdaviescoates]

@Neiluj said in Stirling PDF on Cloudron:

@froodle Could Open Collective be relevant / of interest here?
https://opencollective.com/
I only know of them from contributing once and the little I read about them.

Yes, I agree! @froodle should absolutely create a collective on Open Collective! It was created exactly for this, is open source itself and they have exciting plans to Exit to Community (see https://opencollective.com/e2c )

See also https://liberapay.com/ (can't hurt to be on there too)

[robi]

@froodle @Neiluj and @jdaviescoates beat me to it. Well done!

[froodle]

@Neiluj reached out to them

"We don't accept projects hosted under personal profiles. Our mission is to support groups rather than individuals. Have you considered moving it to a separate GitHub org? This helps to signal that this project is a collaboration instead of a personal undertaking."

I'll have to think about how best to do this and pros and cons

[jdaviescoates]

@froodle said in Stirling PDF on Cloudron:

@Neiluj reached out to them

"We don't accept projects hosted under personal profiles. Our mission is to support groups rather than individuals. Have you considered moving it to a separate GitHub org? This helps to signal that this project is a collaboration instead of a personal undertaking."

I'll have to think about how best to do this and pros and cons

I'd guess that is just the policy of their default Open Source Collective fiscal host https://opencollective.com/opensource

Note there are many other fiscal hosts on Open Collective who likely have less arduous policies (saying that, I'd guess it probably does make sense for you to be hosted by the Open Source Collective)