Hello Everyone,
I am an amateur programmer and I would like to make alot of my stuff open-source. How do I officially do that? Do I need to go through some legal channels to officially register it as open source, or do I need to simply say in my source code that I wish it to be open source?

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Open-source software doesn’t have to be free. The two go hand-in-hand very well, but open-source licensing like the GPL only stipulates that the source code be made available at no additional cost not that the software can’t be sold commercially.
For free open-source software, covering their expenses happens in a number of ways. You can buy copies of various Linux distributions, usually for premade disks and possibly a printed manual, pay for support, or contribute in the form of a donation. Sometimes the developers themselves will pay for operation costs out of their own pockets.
Most people contributing to free open-source projects do so simply because they like doing it.

Explain how vendors make a profit from open source software

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My husband asked me this question last night while looking at a really cool software release. So I began to wonder myself. Do the coder’s make money? Will they eventually charge for its use once people love it, or sell the rights and then charge current users? Just curious if anyone knows.
Thanks–

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Kind of like blog software, but more fitted to a magazine style.

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Is it just a hobby thing or a resume thing for them

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How can open source software companies make money?

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I was wondering for several years how come Free and Opensource work, I’m also a big fan of php and mysql but how come people who developed those make a profit out of them (example: php and mysql). people who develop these should have something in return or how can they survive?

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I really like using open source software (OSS). However, often times there are no binaries, precompiled installation programs or the executable program itself. Instead the sources, the files that contain the module files or the source codes, are provided with a few files called “make files”. How do I use a “make file” or compile the source codes for OSS?

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I’m talking about good applications or web-based software like CMSs – how do they make money if the item is free or open source… How do they stop people ripping them off or taking the project in the wrong direction? what license should I get to make the most out of something I hope to write?

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