Not all software needs to be for-profit.

Simple utility stuff I believe should fit in this category. Things like a text editor.

The profit comes from elsewhere, larger more complex systems.

Of course someone can TRY to profit off a text editor, but unless it solves complex enough problems (like a full blown IDE, but even then...).

The issue is there is intense demand for it, and ALSO easy supply. If someone attempts a profit driving rugpull, another will pop up in it's place.

I am still using Dendron because it meets my needs, but I'm always half tempted to replace it, and I'm fairly confident I could come up with something that meets my own needs in a day or two, and it would likely also be valuable to countless others. I just keep assuming that someone else will spend that day or two, and my pain points with Dendron are not that bad for me to spend the time.

Feels like a lot of apps that launch these days have an open source core app and a subscription based platform.

The subscription based platform with automatic cloud hosting and other quality of life features, whatever those are depending on the app.

Although there's a bunch of 100% open source projects and developers that get enough donations to make it their full time job just off of that. Not that it's the way to go if you want to get rich, but it's still very much a real thing.

Do you not sponsor projects that you get value out of?

I'm not saying you have to, but you asked how they get compensated and there's nothing stopping you from giving them money.

It's easy to forget that you get a lot of value out of something and not give back. If you end up getting a good paying job with your programming experience just buy your favorite projects "a beer" one a month, or once a year. God knows it's better spent there all the subscriptions we have like Netflix or Spotify. Cheaper too.

Also, if the projects are big enough you can usually get tax credit. If you work at a decently sized company they also usually do some charity matching.

That's yet to be decided :D

For the first time, I put a sponsorship button. Will see if it works.

Given the explosion of open source released projects I've seen over the past six months, I believe developers are getting compensated by the tool they are building for themselves creating real value for them.

I have a problem, I spend a few days building a tool that solves the problem, it works pretty well for me, and I release it to let others get value from it. They make tweaks to it, perhaps improve it, and I get value from those enhancements and bugfixes.

Are you asking how the open source ecosystem works in general?

In my experience, if the dev wishes to be compensated in dollars, they also sell a commercial license, cloud services, etc.

The same way they do now?

I don’t mean to be condescending but it feels like if this were an important question it would have halted OSS development decades ago.

get a job