I’ve posted many times about XBMC; about how to add it to your Ubuntu repository list and how to fix a installation error and more; And some of you might be wondering why post about free things, simple: because there are ways to profit from (free) open source software like XBMC.
Linux is open source and free as we all know, though did you know that corporations are making huge profits from it? You might have heard of Red Hat, or even Kubuntu and you surely know about Firefox; all of these are open source (which means you can see the source code which runs them), they are all given away from free (as in beer) and yet they still make a profit! How? Well, that’s not really a mystery though it does require you to think outside the box.
One of the things you can do is offer service! You cannot directly sell open source software, because of the license, though you can profit by offering technical support and other services like Red Hat does! There are plenty of places to read about profiting from open source software in general out on the internet or in print, but here I’ll focus in on how you can profit from XBMC.
I’ll cover some of the possibilities and a few of the big no-no’s (legally and ethically).
First and foremost, you need to know what open source is and means. Open source software are programs which all of the code is available for anyone to download, see, use and modify. This software is also generally free to download and use for personal use. I emphasize personal use here, because there are several open source licenses which allow free use for you and I, but if you are a corporation you’ll have to pay.
There are many types of open source licenses. The most prominent being the GNU General Public License (GPL), Mozilla Public License (MPL), and the Creative Commons license (cc … ‘cc’ here does not stand for closed caption). There are plenty others, all with their own in’s and out’s, you can get more complete lists here and here. In general though, most of these license types will allow you to see the full source code, edit it and redistribute it as long as you do several things; primarily that would be to:
- Give copyright mentions to the original code
- Do not sell the code (original nor modified)
- You code/product keeps within the license boundries, thus you can re-distribute it without legal issues.
- Do not claim it as your own, especially if it’s not.
- You’re new code is also under the same (or similar) license and thus probably also open source
There are many more restrictions depending on the license used. You will have to read about it to find out the exact specifics.
So what license is XBMC under? XMBC is current under the GPL license, and thus free though the GUI (for the XBOX version) is and can only be compiled using Microsoft XDK (this is the software used to compile code for the Xbox). This means you are free use, compile and play with the base source code all you want, though if you want it also to run on the Xbox you’ll need special licenses and programs for that. For now, let’s ignore the XDK issue.
As we established XBMC is open source, so how can you profit from free stuff? There are many ways and the possibilities are endless if you get creative. The first thing that comes to my mind is WordPress. “Now wait a minute,” you might think, “what does WordPress BLOGing have to do with XBMC?” Well, they are both free open source projects are they not? And other people are making money using WordPress aren’t they? I do not mean creating blogs, affiliate marketing or anything like that. I mean that they actually make money by making stuff FOR WordPress users. Lets take a look at a few WP ‘businesses’.
Lets start out with the ever popular and debated “Premium Themes“. What is a premium theme? These are themes which are almost zero bugs and are professional made. Most are probably better than ones you can find for free, though not all. As there are plenty of awesome free themes and some even better free premium themes. There are also plenty of places to get premium themes such as Templatic, Theme Forest and WpRemix. So, do you have an idea now about XBMC?
This first idea is simple. You can create “Premium” themes XBMC. You provide a service on top of the open source platform which many business have done already (think Red Hat Linux). The idea is to sell the design and theme graphics as a package and give them XBMC as a download. Or even package the theme into XBMC already and let them download that.
What if you are bad at design or just don’t want to design? Well, think along the same lines: Service. What you want to be doing is providing your users/clients with a useful service. What kind of service? That is up to you, but you can go the Red Hat way and provide “professional” customer service. What does this mean?
This can mean that you provide software support, installation, setup services or any one of many possible services. I’m just trying to open your mind up to many many possibilities! Lets say you are bad with people and do not want to deal with end users and all their issues, how about programming?
Programming for XBMC is a bit tricky. Why? Because of the open license, but it’s do-able. How? You can create professional plugins or extensions and offer those for sale. Since you will be using the XBMC api greatly, I am not 100% sure you can sell your plugins. But if you can, why not? Make a really great plugin, and I mean really awesome and sell it. Or if you are unable to sell the code directly because of the GPL try offering software support for your plugin 
Ready for a twist? You can offer a free version of the plugin and a ‘professional’ paid version! This is now gets really creative and can actually be a bit complicated. Let me explain as there are several ways to do this. One way is to make two versions of the plugin. One version can be considered a free/trail version and the paid professional version is NOT, I repeat NOT, based on the free version but is different and ‘better’ code with more cooler features (for example).
In order to make the two code versions work (legally) you will have to have the two programs be written separately (more or less) so that the code is different and generally not based upon one another. It can be a bit tricky but it can be done.
The other possibility is to dual-license your code! Though with GPL is can be difficult to do, though if you do that you are home free (within some restriction). What is dual-licensing? This, in essence, means that your code will be released under two licenses at the same time. This allows it to be free and paid at the same time.
These are just a few possibilites which you can do with XBMC. There are plenty of other ideas. You can possibly do something like what Boxee did (Boxee by the way is based off of XBMC), and sell a physical product which has open source software running it. Or you can even sell brand name items (assuming you have rights to that brand name).
Speaking of brand names, there is nothing legally stopping you from taking the XBMC code base, changing it around to fit your needs and creating a brand around it (like Boxee). Then you can easily sell a heck of a lot of ‘things (like cups, t-shirts, mouse pads …) related to your product. Of course you still won’t be able to sell the code 
.
Here are some things you should NOT do with the XBMC code:
- Sell the open source code
- Take it and call it your own, because it’s not.
- Rewrite the code, repackage and sell that.
- Change the license of the code
- Attempt affiliate marketing and spam people using the code
- Spam people using the idea of open source XBMC as a hook
- Abuse the open source nature of XBMC to steal their ideas
- Compile is illegally using a ripped version of the XDK
I hope this gives you a nice quick idea of what you can do with XBMC for profit. Just remember, XBMC is not yours so give credit where credit is due. Good luck with your open source profiting ventures!
For your reading entertainment, there are some great places to read about open source and business and some information about XBMC and licensing:
- Open Source, The Profit Move
- How Grey Is Your Valley: Making Money From Open Source
- Making Money From Open Source
- Google Search for: Profiting From Open Source
- Boxee main site
- XBMC Discussion Forum Topic About Licensing
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Correcttion; since XBMC source code is only licensed under GPL you can not choose to dual-license it, only the original copyright owner (the XBMC developers) can do so, and in the specific case of XBMC the developers have specificly stated that they will not be releasing the code to anyone under any other license than GPL, so even if you make modificiations to the XBMC source code you still have to release all your modifications as GPL. You yourself contridict yourself when you first suggest to dual-license and later state that it not OK to change the license.
You could however dual-license a new library that you own the copyright for and load it dynamically. Better yet create a separate deamon backround applications that run in the background and service XBMC with content as then you could choose to release that separate application under any license you choose or even keep it closed source if you like, that is what what Boxee and Voddler does to keep part of their software closed source.
You are correct, I did contradict myself. I guess I went off on too much of a tangent, my fault. Thank you for bringing that to light for me. I am not a great writer, though I hoped I could open up peoples minds with these ideas.
I plan, in a future article, to clarify many points and fully expand on each topic. I am very grateful for your words of wisdom. I’ll also make it a point to highlight your correct to my original article. Thanks again!