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Gone Digital
October 6th, 2010, 01:49 PM
I know this is proberly a stupid question, and if it is, I'm sorry.

Can money be made in Linux? from what I see many people expect "Linux" to be Free, if someone made a piece of software for Linux, would people buy it?, how about a GUI with a difference? would a different GUI to the standard gnome sell?

Thank You

rbishop
October 6th, 2010, 01:58 PM
It all depends on what kind of a salesmen you are. If you are a good salesmen you can sell water to a drowning person.

Realistically though you will probably sell some but not many copy's of your program. My thing with using Ubuntu is that I can get 99% of the programs I need without having to pay for them(i.e. Office, Photoshop, etc). This is the main reason that I switched from Windows to a linux variant.

Paqman
October 6th, 2010, 02:02 PM
There's not a lot of money in desktop Linux, because it's not widely used by enterprise. Servers however, are a different matter. Lots of money to be made in the Linux server market.

Of course, Mark Shuttleworth would probably disagree with me, and i'm quite happy to eat my words if he can pull it off. Others have tried and failed before him though.

mamamia88
October 6th, 2010, 02:17 PM
Red Hat is still around.

Grenage
October 6th, 2010, 02:22 PM
A GUI alternative to Gnome would be one hell of a venture. At the moment, it's a much safer bet to aim for an application or game. Think World of Goo; cross platform and very successful.

I don't expect things to be free; I've bought many Linux applications.

Dougie187
October 6th, 2010, 03:00 PM
A GUI alternative to Gnome would be one hell of a venture. At the moment, it's a much safer bet to aim for an application or game. Think World of Goo; cross platform and very successful.

I don't expect things to be free; I've bought many Linux applications.

+1 I think there is a decent amount of money to be made. Though it depends on the quality of the software. Of course, cross platform is a lot easier to make money on.

amauk
October 6th, 2010, 03:07 PM
If you maintain the spirit of open source and Free software (free as in freedom), you'll do fine.
Plenty of people are willing to pay for genuinely decent software / services

It's when you try to restrict people (closing your source, DRM, license agreements, failing to accept community involvement, etc.) that people start complaining

There's loads of threads around (on here, and elsewhere) dealing with commercial companies working with Linux & FOSS

Just 2 examples
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1435256
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1068792

forrestcupp
October 6th, 2010, 03:08 PM
if someone made a piece of software for Linux, would people buy it?Maybe. People around here go crazy about buying little games made for Linux just to show their support.



how about a GUI with a difference? would a different GUI to the standard gnome sell?

Thank YouGnome has been in development for 13 years and KDE has been in development for 14 years with a lot of developers working together. They've had all of that time to work through problems and to add a lot of polish. I don't think you're going to come up with a desktop environment that is so much better than what's out there that people are going to want to pay for it. Especially since we have 14 years of standards for compatibility that have been set.

The truth is, if making money is what you want, why would you venture out in a world where most things are already free? You need to stick with Windows, Mac, and iPhone stuff if you want to make money.

Gone Digital
October 6th, 2010, 03:49 PM
Thank you for everyones reply, I wonder, instead of asking for money for a programme, maybe people might donate money or complete a free offer so the developer could me a little bit of money to cover hosting costs?, I think it's nice to have a nice website to go with a nice programme :)

amauk
October 6th, 2010, 03:57 PM
Again, as long as you don't work against the community, chances are the community will bend over backwards to support you

The developer of Ardour was able to quit his day job, and live off of the donations received (both from individuals and from commercial companies) because he created a superb software program that people began to depend on, and kept to the principles of FOSS

melwin.a3
October 6th, 2010, 04:01 PM
canonical made money by supporting ubuntu and selling music.....do u konw that....selling GNU GPL licienced software at 1$ to 9999999999999 Billion dollar depends upon ur ability....

more info got gnu.org and read rms essays

Paqman
October 6th, 2010, 04:09 PM
maybe people might donate money

Definitely. A lot of Open Source projects have a little Paypal button on their site. There's also options like Flattr. If you build a good app that people use, they will donate. I know some devs manage to live off their donations, although that's the exception rather than the rule.

Shompol
October 6th, 2010, 04:22 PM
I know this is proberly a stupid question, and if it is, I'm sorry.

Can money be made in Linux? from what I see many people expect "Linux" to be Free, if someone made a piece of software for Linux, would people buy it?, how about a GUI with a difference? would a different GUI to the standard gnome sell?

Thank You

Loads of money can be made with Linux. If I start a business, it will be built around Linux. But there are a few caveats.

1.Assess who your target audience is. Do they have or willing to install Linux (or Linux emulator)? How much is your program worth to them, are they willing to shell out for it.

2.Consider making something that works cross-platform. Web, perl, python are perfect.

Good example: you sell a custom box as a server or survelliance system. This works regardless of what customers have on their PC.

Bad example: You make a general purpose electronic organizer software. With 1000's of free organizers out in the wild, no one will be willing to pay for yours.

juancarlospaco
October 6th, 2010, 07:50 PM
We need to fill a Bug Report on English language due to "Free" word is too ambiguous

:D

aysiu
October 6th, 2010, 08:16 PM
My two cents:
How does open source make money? (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/how-does-open-source-make-money/)