[Discuss] Open source, apps, and money

[sweetser at alum.mit.edu (Doug)]

Hello:

I have started to work on an analytic animations app, doing mockups
using BalsamicIQ.  First decide what exactly I want to build, how it
behaves, before coding (once/week devo blog at
visualphysics.tumblr.com).  At this time, it is a one person show.
Despite the solo nature of the work, I am paying for a hosted jira
site.  I figure I might as well get used to the process of writing
down what I want and getting it done at the start instead of later.

With other open source projects I worked on, it was clear from day one
there was no money to be made from the effort.  I was not charging for
downloading from http://sourceforge.net/projects/quaternions/.  If I
could charge $100k per download, I would be a millionaire by now.
There are only two web pages that link to that project (found by doing
a search via line:url), and both are from sourceforge.net.

Using the multimedia Java framework processing available at
processing.org, I hope to someday build an app.  I will then have to
figure out how to put those up on google play, and with processing.js,
perhaps a way to see it work on apple iOS devices.  A minimum of a
year to get to such a spot if I ever do.

Once there, it is clear it is easy to charge for the software created.
 Some thirty percent goes to the gate keepers, but I could set the
price as low or high as I like ($0.99 sounds reasonable to me, and I
could have a free cripple as is often done).  So long as there is one
developer, the bounty all goes to me.  I might be able to buy a lunch
after a few years.

Once there is 1) money and 2) more than one person, things would
appear to get so much more complicated.  Say one guy contributed one
little block of code one time and leaves.  Said code is then part of
every subsequent release.  Along with README and changelog, must there
be a MONEY file?  I know that the GPL does not mean the software can
be used for free, but how does one make that clear?

As Cyndi Lauper used to sing, "Money changes everything".  I bet open
source would be much less open if charging for software  were easy
from the start.

Doug