HACKER Q&A
📣 rlv-dan

Is it unethical to monetize open source software with a “pro” version?


I am thinking about monetizing my open source software (GPL3). These are windows utilities, so typical open source monetization schemes (paid support, commercial hosting, etc) are not suitable. The only way I can think of is to have a pro version with additional features. The "pro" version would be proprietary. Pro features would also be quite specific (i.e. the free version would support most use cases). But I'm not sure this is ethical? (As a side note - if I can earn money from this I might be able to quit my job and devote more time to open source development...)

  👤 strangecasts Accepted Answer ✓
FWIW it seems fair to me: as long as the existing versions stay under GPL3, you're not stopping people from extending your utilities, you're charging for your implementation of those particular features.

Elastic [1] and Gitlab [2] both operate with a similar model of offering free, open source versions of their software with additional paid-for enterprise features.

[1] https://www.elastic.co/blog/doubling-down-on-open

[2] https://about.gitlab.com/install/ce-or-ee/

👤 NTroy
No, that is not unethical at all.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it can get hate or complaints from the community, but at the end of the day, a lot of amazing open source software wouldn’t be available today if they weren’t able to be monetized in some way.

A lot of times, open source software wouldn’t be able to get actively developed, be able to afford security audits, quickly patch bugs, etc. without a paid person/group working on it, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It is up to you, however, to decide how you’d like to raise funds. Some projects (iRedMail) provide a “Pro” version, others offer advanced support/installation (Canonical), and even others just look for donations. If you’re curious about how to proceed, I recommend checking out https://opencollective.com/discover for great examples.