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I've always looked at charging for open source as a support service. What is the developer's time worth? If one wants new features pay a fee/salary/bounty for the development.

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I used Ghost.org in a project last year and love their business model (and obviously their product).

Completely open source software, but you can pay a reasonable amount for managed hosting and support. Plus obviously it supports the devs and new development.

A simple line to separate DIYers from anyone who wants the convenience, peace of mind, or to support the project itself. Would love to see more of this.

This leads to the problem of stopping to pay once the feature you care about exists. Software is an interesting problem where you build once sell a lot. It's not economical if you sell once and give the rest for free. There are a lot of software products that I use, that I don't personally need more features for, so I would have no incentive to pay. My usefulness has been subsidized by others.

In other words, I don't think it's a sustainable way to support open source projects

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