Open source does not make money because it is not created for this.

The best way to do something is to at least try.

Everyone knows that it is impossible to make money on open source, right?

I am thinking about this now, because Mozilla wants to diversify revenues in the next few years, but we have one limitation - all developments are necessarily published in open source. These are dozens (hundreds?) Of successful open source projects. Many have tried to earn something, some have tried very hard. The results are so-so.
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I myself am trying to launch a commercial initiative in Mozilla right now (if writing plans and sending them on air can be considered a “launch”), and I often get asked a question: can I sell something with open source code?

I have no evidence that we can (or can not) earn. But I dare to make the following statement: it is difficult to sell something that is not intended for sale.

We treat open source as the opposite of a commercial product. And yes, free licenses make it difficult to collect money from customers, although there are many successful businesses that earn good money without forcing anyone to pay.

I see an implicit assumption that makes logic difficult: the idea that if something is useful, it must be profitable. This is an unspoken and morally justified expectation, a kind of Justice Hypothesis: if something is useful, if it helps people, needs the world and gives something to other people, then there must be a possibility of monetization. It should be possible to do this daily and receive rewards for their efforts in developing or supporting this program.

We believe the world should be like this. But we all know that it is not. You can't make a living by music. Or art. You can't even make a living looking after children. I think this is largely the basis of the critique of modern capitalism: there are too many important and even necessary things that we need more than any commercial product, but it’s almost impossible to earn them.

I will not try to fix the world in my blog, just note: not all good money brings money.

But we know that there is money in the software industry. Much money! Maybe money in a closed proprietary code? If OpenSSL were closed, could it make money? If he had a paid licensing system? It seems unlikely. The license does not restrain him. It just does not look like a product intended for profit. Solving important problems is not enough to make money.

What are they paying for?

1. People will pay a little for the app; not very much, a little bit. Scaling up requires marketing and investment, which open source projects almost never had (and I doubt that many open source projects would know what to do with investments if they got them).
   
2. There is always money in advertising. Sadly If you really embed advertising, it can so offend users that they are not too lazy to repack your software by removing advertising from it. I think because of such price discrimination, the option with advertising will not survive.
   
3. Full hosting: I think a good example is wordpress.som from Automattic . How is ghost doing? These are complex solutions: you do not just get the software, you get the website.
   
4. People will pay for an individual solution. That is consulting. When applied to a software product, consultingware is obtained. Despite the criticism, many real companies are built on this. I think Drupal is in this category.
   
5. People will pay for your dedicated and constant attention. In other words: a permanent job as an employee. It seems unfair to include this option in the list, but this is such a natural development from consultingware and such a dominant pattern in open source code that it deserves a mention.
   
6. Everything related to physical devices. People recognize the value of the software and hardware complex in the aggregate.
   
7. I'm not sure how Firefox earns: whether (indirectly) on advertising, or as compensation for maintaining the monopoly.

I am sure that not all interesting ideas are listed here.

But if you have a business concept and you think that it might work, what is the source or open source? Do not we know that you need to focus on business! On the client! Software licensing seems like a foreign entity. Even the software itself is a dubious thing to focus on, separately from the business. Perhaps that is why you can not make money on open source: it distracts from the main thing. The issue is not the confrontation between open and closed source, but the opposition of open source to the business itself.

You can look from the other side: who are your customers? Classic open source software created by programmers for programmers. This is wildly successful, but it is designed for people who do not want to pay. They want to take the software and increase personal productivity (smart step, given the growth of programmers' wages). Can we sell open source to other people? Can someone else do something with the source code?

Therefore, I maintain pessimism about the fact that you can earn money on open source. And also disappointment: there are so many good open source programs, but no commercial products. This is where the mission of open source has failed, despite many successes. The software with which people really work is not free or open. It's a shame.