Monetize OSS_

Geert Theys

Open source in the age of AI: charge for the service, not the code. Maintenance is the last moat.

Open Source AI Interviews Scorecards

I love building open source software and using it. In the age of AI, more and more software will be written by people with AI — mostly running on managed backends that someone else makes money from. Only the interface changes. We can do it differently: open source on top of services we host ourselves — ask money for the service, not the code.

Maintainer interviews

I interview open source developers about how AI is changing the way they monetize — what's working, what stopped working, and what they're trying next.

Interviews start soon — read the essays →

“Everyone wants the code. Nobody wants the on-call. Charge for the on-call.”
— a maintainer, eventually

Scorecards

Which open source projects are actually maintained? Scorecards ranks thousands of projects by maintenance health — commit activity, release cadence, issue and PR response, CI, tests, docs. Refreshed nightly from the GitHub API. Not stars.

Browse the scorecards →

Screenshot of scorecards.monetize-oss.com

Blog

Essays on how to make money from open source in the age of AI — why nobody will pay for code anymore, eight ways to make money from open source, and why maintenance is the last moat.

Read the blog →

Illustration from 'Why Nobody Will Pay for Code Anymore'

Illustration from 'Maintenance Is the Last Moat'

Illustration from 'The 8 Ways to Make Money from Open Source'

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