Monetization via Employment

Payment by getting hired from a company interested in the OSS - probably for business critical parts of their products. Employment might range from 100% to 20% work on the OSS. Employers might nudge the development into a direction that benefits them but hinders other companies / their competition. Often these are normal employments as on-site or remote developer but longer freelancing contracts are possible and generate mostly recurring income.

Requires:

• Either finding a company willing to hire or be approached by one
• Negotiation of an employment contract (esp. between different countries)

Variants & Options:

• Employment: Standard employment with social security contributions (country-specific)
• Freelancing: Commissioning by the company as a legal entity

Platforms

• Deel (Handles Employment between different countries)

Evaluation

Characteristics	Value	Note
Effort to set-up	Weeks	Negotiating contract between different countries
Effort to maintain	Low	The contract could be terminated if OSS support is deemed no longer important
Cost to set-up	None
Cost to maintain	None
One-time Income	Medium	Only if freelancing for a solution / feature
Recurring Income	Medium	Probably in the range of a normal salary in the employer's country
Income Predictability	High	Depends on the contract
Full income Threshold	1+
Recipient	I
Additional Work	Medium	Might vary between 0 and 80% - depends other work for the company.
Visibility	Low	Notice on website to hire a maintainer are easy to overlook
Necessity to pay	Low	Complex contracts; Voluntary but might bring good PR to company
Entry Threshold	Low	Similar to other employees of the company
Countervalue	Work
Scalability	None	Probably one one employment possible (part-time or freelancing might be used)
Effort for marketing	High	Finding a 100% job is very hard; When working partially for company's product is easier (due to War for Talents)
Competitors	M	Another maintainer might be a competior for a (remote) job
Software types	All