Ask HN: How would you monetize jQuery? Coffeescript? GHC?

[cjtenny]

If you were developing a new language/library/tool that you wanted to release as open source, and that has no real business being SAAS, how would you try to make a living off of it, or at least support the time you spend? Plain old donate button? Crowdfunding for additional feature development? Restrictive license for commercial use? I'd like to hear about some success stories for such projects, the relationship of the strategy to the type of project, and the results of testing various strategies in the field.

[electrichead]

It is an interesting question. I'd like to see what HNers think about it. Personally, I would think that offering dev services or tutoring (sencha, red hat, SPServices, etc.), restrictive licensing (Green sock, sencha again, neo4j) would be more likely to self-sustain than payment offerings (donations, crowdsourcing, etc). I guess a good company to watch is famo.us since they are currently making the rounds after being funded.

[wikwocket]

I think offering code as open source and then charging for support is very typical. E.g. MySQL, Red Hat, etc. But that is probably only profitable after a ton of people are using the software in question.

If you are releasing a new thing, you won't have an existing install base, so probably better to charge for licenses. After you get a fanbase, you can crowdfund your version 2.0 or related material.