Favorite strategy to monetize open source?

I've been able to obtain some funds through paid binaries. Basically the major other options are: selling support, hosted instances of web software, patreon/subscription models (long buildup period before there's noteworthy income), paid work on individual features/bugs (formal contracts work better than bounty models), and general 1 time donations (typically very little income).

It's hard to make a lot of cash in open source. It can be done, but 'success' is likely not going to be what happens in the end.

You know, I have actually seen many open source projects charging money to get you the binary. And since most of the userbase were non-tech people, they would either watch youtube video on how to use "./configure and make" or just pay and get the readymade binary. I don't remember exactly which app was this, but it was a mac app. Hope that helps

I would check out linux mint and vue.js, they seem like pretty good role models.

The book Working in Public has a good section about funding models for open source.