awesome-oss-monetization

Monetization via Paid Support

AKA: Paid Maintenance, Paid Quality Assurances, ProServ

Payments by companies to check security issues in their OSS supply chain, ensure specific SLAs, or ensure quick fixes for business-threatening problems in the OSS. Sometimes hidden behind a third-party company (middleman) that handles the bureaucracy, quasi-employs the maintainer, and pays him money.

Requires:

• Application to be “hired” by a middleman or setup of contracts with SLAs
• Time to work on problems asap (as defined in SLAs)
• Optionally, setup of private issue tracker, communication platform(s), etc. to interact with companies

Variants & Options:

• Direct contracts: Multiple companies pay maintainer/project directly
• Contracts via Middleman: Companies make contract with Middleman and Middleman with maintainers

Platforms

• Tidelift (Middleman concept)
• tea.xyz (“guarantee security and reliability to users of open source software projects”; see also their Whitepaper in 5.4. “tea tasters”)

Evaluation

Characteristics	Value	Note
Effort to set-up	Weeks	Contracts require more time to define (one-time) and negotiate (per company)
Effort to maintain	Low	If companies or middleman is still interested only maintenance work is required
Cost to set-up	None
Cost to maintain	None
One-time Income	Low	Recurring is more common - one-time payments for emergencies maybe
Recurring Income	Medium	Middleman typically caps at salary level. Direct contracts are similar to building a startup/company to meet SLAs
Income Predictability	High	Companies or Middleman will pay for a longer time. If Middleman breaks away whole income might vanish. If multiple contracts exist one cancelling company will not endanger full income.
Full income Threshold	1	10+	One middleman or several companies;
Recipient	I
Additional Work	High	Extra work to fix bugs, develop feature, etc. - might be covered by “standby” time
Visibility	None	Companies or middleman seek out and select OSS projects
Necessity to pay	Medium	Might be necessary for companies using important projects that are essential to the business-model
Entry Threshold	Medium	Companies need contracts with many OSS projects or one Middleman
Countervalue	Work	Middleman will probably pay quasi-salary or by the hour; Direct contracts can enable selling the service multiple times
Scalability	Medium	Contracts with multiple companies possible. Middleman probably limits at one salary.
Effort for marketing	Low	Middleman will do marketing; Direct contracts might need more
Competitors	None	Other maintainers might be integrated
Software types	All	Esp. essential software that is essential to the business-model of companies

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