Earning with Open-Source Hardware

General
, ,
1

Whenever I talk to people about the open-source hardware movement, one question I am often asked is how they can earn from it beyond just pursuing it as a hobby. Recently, I looked into how contributors in the open-source software community earn from their work, and it is clear that many of them have access to paid opportunities.

This raises an important question: Where are the paying opportunities or gigs in open-source hardware?

2

The short answer is, like for FOSS, with services.

1 Like
3

I would think that companies and organisations that support and develop open solutions as their primary business model (see Arribada - https://arribada.org) are safe places and harbours for developers wishing to earn a salary, or work as freelance consultants on FOSS, whilst giving back in their spare time to projects they believe in.

1 Like
4

Yes. You are right, do you know any organizations or websites that offer this?

5

Thanks a lot for this reply and the website.

6

You may want to take a look at this list Jay - GitHub - kunovsky/paid-open-source-projects: A list of open source software projects that will pay you to contribute

2 Likes
7

One way is to become a vendor/manufacturer of open-source hardware. At the Open Science Shop (a network of open science hardware vendors/manufacturers) we have just published how to get set up as a new vendor:

There’s also a directory of current Open Science Shop vendors here:

2 Likes