Hi,
NotTheCHEAT wrote:Those examples may be making some money, but are they making real money?
I'm not sure how many people Yellowtab currently employ, but they are currently looking for another 6 employees, so I assume they are the larger of the 2 OS projects. The SkyOS project lists 6 people on their "The SkyOS Team" page, but I'm not sure who is or isn't paid (or how many beta releases, tee-shirts or posters they sell).
NotTheCHEAT wrote:It's not that it's impossible to make money with a hobby OS, it's just that it's highly unlikely, and extremely difficult, because the market is already dominated by two or three giants (literally; even linux makes money for some people). You never even hear about those other OSes except online. Besides, if they're making money, is it really a hobby OS (I guess I was stupid to call it that myself)?
"Making Money" can mean many different things. Selling the OS itself is only one option, selling membership (where only members can download the OS for free), accepting donations, charging for support, selling merchandise, getting a research grant, selling my own time as a programmer (e.g. if company X really wants feature Y or a device driver for Z), selling my time as a lecturer or guest speaker ($1000 per "talk"?), giving the OS away for free and charging for some specialized applications, selling source code licenses only, selling a book (Minix, MMURTL), etc.
Of course for some of these options the OS itself could be (or would need to be) open source. I'm not sure what the most effective method (or methods) will be, or how much each method will effect my other goals, like getting users to use the OS. I just don't want to limit my options until I need to.
Cheers,
Brendan