Hi, I've collected many monetization approaches in the "Awesome OSS Monetization" list on Github - maybe it helps you to find alternatives to donations / sponsorships:
I don't know of an example but you should talk to a license lawyer and create a new license. Basically it's similar to "normal" Dual-licenses that say the code is GPL but you can buy a MIT license from the maintainer. In this new case either the license would state that the rights are the same as GPL until the company goes out of business (and then it would switch to MIT)
Your case sounds like you could apply an Open SaaS with an AGPL License or create an OpenCore and service special functionality in your SaaS.
If the only concern of your customers is that you could have to close the company and they don't have the code/system anymore, you could create a special (Dual-)License that is GPL as long as your company exists but becomes MIT if you close your company.
I think the project has to have the funding already via donations or sponsoring - they state they can employ people "If your project has a sufficient amount of funding".
> As for the other submission, I didn't find the slightest indication that the submitter did anything wrong. If you posted your URL to another site, perhaps they saw it there and thought HN might find it interesting? Alternatively, perhaps they had 'showdead' turned on in their profile, saw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33383563 and thought it might do better with a different title? There are lots of ways that post could have been made legitimately.
If it is possible to show "dead" posts by anyone who then get "inspired" and re-post them, this could be an explanation. However, the policy of not notifying accounts that they are "banned" but their posts are still posted is a bit odd. What is the reasoning and "long game"? Can an account be un-banned or are the posts only stored and forgotten?
> It's also not clear what the alternative hypothesis is - what are they supposed to have done that wasn't legitimate? I looked at a bunch of their submissions and none of the links had been previously submitted to HN, so this isn't happening routinely.
Well, I assumed that only internal HN staff could hide and view posts, and that looked a bit suspicious - especially if the "hi-jacking" accounts are posting 24/7.
> All of your posts with that account were about one thing, which happens to be the same thing your company is selling. That's using questions as a promotional device, not asking questions out of intellectual curiosity. This was obvious enough that users emailed to complain about it.
Just because I'm interested in a specific topic does not mean that I'm "not asking questions out of intellectual curiosity". I wanted to start discussions about those topics - and if that's not allowed wouldn't that mean that nobody from Google may ask about search algorithms or nobody from YCombinator mask ask about Startups?
Thanks for the feedback - that explains the first part, although I'm not sure why asking questions every few days on a topic is promotion or spamming (other accounts post several links per hours).
However, just as I mentioned in a deleted thread started by Tomte, that "somebody else got lucky" would be a very very big coincidence - the project is roughly 3 months old and wasn't mentioned recently. That someone decides - exactly at the same time - to share the link is very strange.
Thanks for the tip. But even then "somebody else got lucky" would be a very very big coincidence - the project is roughly 3 months old and wasn't mentioned recently. That someone decides - exactly at the same time - to share the link is very strange.
The problem is not that someone postet the link - the problem is that the original link/post was hidden and exactly 1 hour later someone else postet it.