Hi folks, author here. Want to respond with a few things.
First, thanks for your support. The project has received the blessing of so many of you and dozens - over 60 - of you have jumped in to contribute code to make Caddy awesome. Really appreciate it, since I can't do it alone! The Go and infosec community has really been amazing.
As I say in the post, this is not a business plan. I'm not relying on this to earn a living. BUT I am a starting graduate student and if I am going to continue maintaining Caddy on the side of graduate school, it will need your support.
I know "free software" is a loaded term (cheers to rms) but in this post I hope it's obvious that I'm not talking about "free as in freedom" -- this post is about cost/economics. Caddy is still Apache licensed.
Also: Several people have donated to the project (and Arroyo Networks sponsors it) because they believe in free and automatic privacy for the Web, and they want Caddy's focus on UX to permeate to other software products. Even backend servers can have good UX. This is a cause that I feel passionate about and am happy to do for you, time/funding permitting. (I hope Caddy will help people see how easy security/privacy can be for the Web, similar to how Signal does it for SMS and Keybase for PGP.)
In the end, I wanted to raise awareness of an issue, that even "free as in price" open source projects have a cost, in time and talent that's invested by the developer. "This is just open source."
Really glad you're thinking about this, and making it explicit, buuuuut...
Why not dual-license, or look at the Fair Source license? The "donate please" button is just going to be ignored, like Sublime's donate nag screens.
Make it so at least big companies who have open-source policies will pay for a non-GPL license or support etc. You don't have to publish the history containing Apache 2, republish, and write all new code with AGPL-3.0.
> The "donate please" button is just going to be ignored,
I'm sure the "donate please" button will be mostly ignored, but putting a "pay what you want" before the download button will not be.
Way back when, I wrote a windows IME for typing Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks (https://www.pinyinput.net) and for years just had a "Donate" button on the site.
In the first 6 years of release, I could count on two hands the number of donations it received (despite tens of thousands of downloads).
Then I changed the site so instead of having both a download and a donate button that it just had a "purchase" button and a "pay what you want" field with a suggested price of $5, with $0 allowed if you want.
It's still essentially the same setup as before - you can download it for free or you can make a donation, but now by explicitly asking, every day or two someone makes a "purchase" - sometimes only a dollar, sometimes $5, once even $50.
Sure, with this setup, Caddy probably won't make as much as if they offered paid support plans, however they will almost certainly make more than they did with just a "donate" button up the top of the page.
Ubuntu does something similar, but since they work on many things they let you decide how to split things up. What's interesting to me is that they show a cost comparision at the bottom, such as $5 being the same as the cost of a pint of beer. This really helps the user realize something like "I buy a pint at the bar without thinking, why can't I give the same amount to software I use every day?"
> The "donate please" button is just going to be ignored, like Sublime's donate nag screens.
Do people ignore when Sublime tell them to buy a license?
I might not be representative but I bought next time I had money and it asked.
Also, if possible I would be happy if you don't go AGPL, I'll be happy to pay without like I do for Elementary and Sublime Text. As long as I can pay an amount that is small enough that I don't have to discuss it at home or with my boss ( ~ < $40 at my current salary / position) I'm happy to support projects I like. For projects I use a lot I do nag my company to buy a support plan.
I don't use your service at the moment, as I have nothing I need hosted. But if I did, what would you consider a reasonable payment amount? i.e. your "If all of our subscribers paid this, we would cover our costs."
Hard to say, since I don't track its usage in the wild... I only know the number of hours put into the project. But I think you're right, it would definitely be helpful to have that number on the page. I'll see if I can come up with an accurate estimate, or maybe suggest what people normally contribute after a little more time has passed.
Looking at alternatives to a fully deployed organization with a support structure. Consider slack. Elixir-lang.slack.com is a great example of a dev project with an active slack community. Have you considered starting a slack group for Caddy - maybe charge a small stipend for access? It will help develop the community, provide a support venue (with a cadre of people helping each other), and provide some sustenance for the project.
I'm not sure if Gittir supports gating access like you mention, but I think some of the other suggestions here might even be more promising. The advice by patio11 comes to mind:
"You should sell something."
This something should be a substantial product offering; something more than access to an "exclusive club hangout room."
First, thanks for your support. The project has received the blessing of so many of you and dozens - over 60 - of you have jumped in to contribute code to make Caddy awesome. Really appreciate it, since I can't do it alone! The Go and infosec community has really been amazing.
As I say in the post, this is not a business plan. I'm not relying on this to earn a living. BUT I am a starting graduate student and if I am going to continue maintaining Caddy on the side of graduate school, it will need your support.
I know "free software" is a loaded term (cheers to rms) but in this post I hope it's obvious that I'm not talking about "free as in freedom" -- this post is about cost/economics. Caddy is still Apache licensed.
Also: Several people have donated to the project (and Arroyo Networks sponsors it) because they believe in free and automatic privacy for the Web, and they want Caddy's focus on UX to permeate to other software products. Even backend servers can have good UX. This is a cause that I feel passionate about and am happy to do for you, time/funding permitting. (I hope Caddy will help people see how easy security/privacy can be for the Web, similar to how Signal does it for SMS and Keybase for PGP.)
In the end, I wanted to raise awareness of an issue, that even "free as in price" open source projects have a cost, in time and talent that's invested by the developer. "This is just open source."