Introduction
I've made a conscious decision to keep my applications—Net-Bar and Echo Music App—completely free and open source. This isn't just about being generous or following a trend. It's a strategic choice based on where I am in my development journey right now.
In this post, I want to share the three core reasons behind this decision. Whether you're a fellow developer, a potential user, or just curious about the open-source philosophy, I hope my perspective resonates with you.
My Projects
1. Net-Bar - Network Monitoring Tool
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/iad1tya/Net-Bar
Net-Bar is a network monitoring application that I've built to help users track their internet connectivity and network performance. It's designed to be lightweight, efficient, and user-friendly. The idea came from my own frustration with existing network monitoring tools that were either too complex or too basic.
This project has been instrumental in teaching me about:
- Real-time data processing and monitoring
- System-level programming and network protocols
- User interface design for utility applications
- Performance optimization for background processes
- Cross-platform compatibility challenges
By making Net-Bar open source, I'm inviting other developers to examine my code, suggest improvements, and potentially contribute features I haven't thought of. Every pull request is a learning opportunity.
2. Echo Music App
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/EchoMusicApp
Echo Music App is my attempt at creating a modern, intuitive music player that focuses on user experience and audio quality. Music apps are incredibly competitive, but I wanted to build something that reflected my own preferences as a music listener.
This project has pushed me to learn:
- Audio file processing and playback systems
- Building intuitive media player interfaces
- Playlist management and music library organization
- Media metadata handling and parsing
- Creating smooth, responsive animations
- Local storage and data persistence
Echo represents a more ambitious project for me—one that combines technical challenges with creative design. Making it open source means I can get feedback not just on the code, but on the entire user experience.
Reason #1: I'm Still in My Learning Phase
Let's be completely honest here: I'm still learning how to be a good developer. While I've made significant progress and I'm proud of what I've built, I know I'm not at the level where I can confidently say my code is production-ready or follows all best practices.
What Being in the Learning Phase Means
Being in a learning phase means:
- My code isn't perfect. There are probably bugs I haven't discovered, inefficiencies I haven't optimized, and edge cases I haven't considered. Charging money for something I know has room for improvement feels dishonest.
- I'm experimenting constantly. I try new approaches, refactor entire sections, and sometimes break things in the process. Free and open source gives me the freedom to experiment without worrying about angry customers.
- I need feedback more than revenue. At this stage, constructive criticism from experienced developers is worth more than money. Open source invites that feedback naturally.
- I'm building my portfolio. These projects demonstrate my abilities to potential employers or collaborators. Open source shows not just what I can build, but how I think and solve problems.
The Learning Benefits of Open Source
By keeping my apps open source, I gain several learning advantages:
Community Code Reviews: Other developers can look at my code and point out where I'm doing things inefficiently or incorrectly. This is like having free mentors who help me improve.
Exposure to Different Approaches: When contributors submit pull requests, I see how other developers would solve the same problems. This expands my thinking and shows me techniques I might not have discovered on my own.
Real-World Problem Solving: Users report bugs and request features. This teaches me to think about use cases I hadn't considered and to debug issues in environments I don't have access to.
Documentation Practice: Writing clear README files, contribution guidelines, and code comments forces me to think clearly about my own work and communicate it effectively—a crucial skill for any developer.
Version Control Mastery: Managing an open-source project teaches me advanced Git workflows, branch management, and collaborative development practices that will serve me throughout my career.
Learning Without Pressure
Perhaps most importantly, keeping my apps free removes the pressure that comes with paid products. I don't have to worry about:
- Support obligations for paying customers
- Legal liability for bugs that cause problems
- Refund requests when things don't work as expected
- Maintaining backwards compatibility for users who paid for old versions
- Meeting deadlines for promised features
This freedom allows me to focus entirely on learning and improving, which is exactly where I need to be right now.
Reason #2: I Don't Know How to Sell Things
This might sound like a simple problem, but it's actually quite complex. I have absolutely no idea how to market, sell, or monetize a software product. And honestly? That's okay, because it's a completely different skill set from development.
The Skills I'm Missing
To successfully sell a software product, I would need to understand:
Pricing Strategy: How do I determine what my app is worth? Do I charge a one-time fee or use a subscription model? What price point makes sense for my target audience? Should I offer tiered pricing with different feature sets? I don't have answers to any of these questions.
Payment Infrastructure: Setting up payment processing isn't trivial. I'd need to:
- Choose a payment processor (Stripe, PayPal, etc.)
- Implement secure payment handling
- Handle different currencies and payment methods
- Manage subscriptions, renewals, and cancellations
- Deal with failed payments and dunning
- Understand tax implications and compliance
Marketing and Customer Acquisition: How do I get people to even know my app exists? Marketing involves:
- Creating compelling landing pages and sales copy
- Understanding SEO and content marketing
- Running advertising campaigns
- Building an email list and nurturing leads
- Creating demo videos and screenshots
- Managing social media presence
- Getting press coverage or reviews
Customer Support: Paying customers expect support. This means:
- Setting up a support system (email, chat, ticketing)
- Responding to inquiries promptly
- Troubleshooting problems across different platforms
- Managing expectations and handling complaints
- Creating documentation and FAQs
- Potentially offering refunds when things go wrong
The Opportunity Cost
Here's the thing: learning all of these business skills would take time away from learning to code better. Every hour I spend figuring out payment processing or writing marketing copy is an hour I'm not spending improving my development skills.
Right now, I want to focus on becoming a better developer, not a better marketer or salesperson. Maybe in the future, these business skills will become important. But today, they're a distraction from my primary goal.
Avoiding Premature Monetization
I've seen many developers try to monetize their apps too early, before they've proven the product actually works and provides value. This creates several problems:
- It limits your user base to those willing to pay before you've proven yourself
- It adds pressure to generate revenue, which can lead to poor decisions
- It distracts from product development
- It can damage your reputation if the paid product doesn't meet expectations
By keeping my apps free, I'm avoiding these pitfalls. I can focus entirely on making the best product possible without worrying about the business side—at least for now.
The Time Will Come
I'm not against monetization forever. But I believe in doing things in the right order. First, I need to prove I can build something valuable. Then I can learn about pricing, marketing, and sales. Trying to do everything at once is a recipe for doing nothing well.
Reason #3: I Want to Prove I Can Build Something Valuable
This is the most important reason, and it's deeply personal. I need to know if I'm actually capable of creating a product that people find useful. Not products that people pay for (that's a different question), but products that genuinely add value to people's lives.
The Fundamental Question
Every developer faces this question: Can I build something that matters? It's not about ego or fame—it's about validation that you're on the right track, that your skills are developing in meaningful ways, and that you're solving real problems.
By making my apps free and open source, I can answer this question directly:
- Do people download my apps? If people are willing to try my apps even when they're free, that's the first signal of value.
- Do people use my apps regularly? Downloads are one thing, but active usage is what really matters. Are people coming back? Are they making my app part of their workflow or daily routine?
- Do people recommend my apps? Word of mouth and GitHub stars indicate that people find my apps valuable enough to share with others.
- Do people contribute to my apps? When other developers contribute code, bug reports, or feature requests, it means they care enough about the project to invest their own time.
- Do people provide positive feedback? Comments, reviews, and messages from users who found my apps helpful are the most direct validation.
Metrics That Matter
When your app is free, you can measure success in meaningful ways:
For Net-Bar:
- How many people download it from GitHub?
- How many stars and forks does the repository get?
- Are people opening issues and suggesting features?
- Do people find it useful enough to contribute code?
- Are there discussions about how people use it?
For Echo Music App:
- Do people actually listen to music with it?
- What features do they request most?
- How does it compare to other music players in user feedback?
- Are there user interface improvements suggested by real users?
- Do people customize it or build plugins for it?
Building Trust and Credibility
Free and open source apps build trust in a way that paid apps can't:
Transparency: Users can see exactly what my code does. There are no hidden data collection practices, no suspicious permissions, no unclear terms of service. Everything is visible.
No Risk: Users can try my apps without any financial commitment. If they don't like them, they haven't lost anything. This lowers the barrier to entry dramatically.
Community Validation: When experienced developers review my code and contribute improvements, it validates that I'm building something worthwhile. This community endorsement is more valuable than marketing claims.
Long-term Thinking: By focusing on building something valuable first, I'm laying a foundation. If my apps truly help people, monetization opportunities will emerge naturally later.
The Reality Check
Here's what I'm really testing:
Is my idea any good? Maybe Net-Bar solves a problem that only I have. Maybe there are already better network monitoring tools. Maybe Echo Music App doesn't offer anything unique. By releasing them for free, I'll find out quickly.
Can I execute well enough? Building something is different from building something good. Free users will tell me honestly whether my execution meets their standards. They have no reason to be polite—they didn't pay for it.
Do I understand my users? The features I think are important might not be what users actually need. Open source allows me to discover what users really want through their feedback and contributions.
Can I maintain a project long-term? Keeping a project alive, fixing bugs, and adding features is harder than the initial build. This tests whether I have the discipline and commitment to see things through.
Success Looks Like This
If my apps are truly valuable, I'll see:
- Growing download numbers over time
- Active GitHub repositories with issues, pull requests, and discussions
- Users solving their own problems with my apps
- Community members helping other users
- Feature requests that show people are thinking about how to improve the apps
- Other projects building on or integrating with mine
- Testimonials and success stories from users
If I see these signs, then I know I'm capable of building something valuable. That validation is worth far more than early revenue from a product that might not be ready.
What Happens If They're Not Valuable?
And here's the honest truth: maybe my apps won't be valuable to many people. Maybe I'll discover that my ideas aren't as good as I thought, or my execution needs serious improvement.
But that's okay. Actually, it's better to learn that now, while the apps are free, than to charge money for something that doesn't truly deliver value. If my apps fail to gain traction:
- I'll learn what doesn't work and why
- I'll get feedback on how to improve
- I'll understand user needs better for my next project
- I won't have disappointed paying customers
- I can pivot without financial pressure
This is the beauty of the free and open-source approach—it gives me permission to fail, learn, and improve without the consequences that come with charging for an unproven product.
Additional Benefits I've Discovered
Beyond my three main reasons, I've found other unexpected benefits to the free and open-source approach:
Portfolio Building
Every line of code in my GitHub repositories is visible to potential employers, collaborators, or clients. They can see:
- How I structure projects
- How I write documentation
- How I handle bug reports and user feedback
- How I collaborate with contributors
- My coding style and problem-solving approach
- My growth over time as I improve the codebase
This is infinitely more valuable than a resume that just lists skills. It's proof of what I can actually do.
Networking and Community
Open source has connected me with developers I never would have met otherwise. Contributors, users, and even people who just star my repositories become part of a network that can lead to:
- Job opportunities
- Collaborative projects
- Mentorship relationships
- Learning from more experienced developers
- Friendships with people who share similar interests
Contributing to the Ecosystem
I've benefited enormously from free and open-source software throughout my learning journey. Almost every tool I use to build Net-Bar and Echo Music App is open source:
- Programming languages and frameworks
- Development tools and editors
- Libraries and dependencies
- Learning resources and documentation
By making my apps open source, I'm contributing back to this ecosystem. Even if my contributions are small, they're part of a larger community of developers helping each other.
Freedom from Commercial Pressure
When you charge for software, you create certain expectations and pressures:
- You need to prioritize features that will attract paying users, not necessarily features you find interesting or challenging
- You might have to compromise on your vision to meet market demands
- You have to think about competitor pricing and positioning
- You have to maintain a certain level of polish and reliability
By keeping my apps free, I can build what I want to build, experiment freely, and focus on problems that interest me personally.
What the Future Might Hold
I want to be clear: keeping my apps free and open source forever is not necessarily the plan. This is where I am now, not necessarily where I'll always be.
Possible Future Paths
Path 1: They Stay Free Forever
If my apps become valuable community projects with active contributors, they might evolve beyond my individual control. In this case, keeping them free and open source makes sense indefinitely. The value to me would be the reputation, experience, and connections gained.
Path 2: Premium Features Model
Once the core apps are proven and stable, I might develop premium features or paid versions while keeping the basic versions free. This "freemium" model rewards early users while creating a revenue stream for advanced functionality.
Path 3: Consulting and Support
Some open-source projects make money not by charging for the software, but by offering consulting, customization, or support services to businesses that use the software.
Path 4: New Paid Projects
These apps might always remain free, but the skills and reputation I build could lead to new projects that are commercial from the start—projects I'll be better equipped to monetize because I'll have proven myself first.
Path 5: Donation or Sponsorship Model
If the apps become popular enough, I might set up GitHub Sponsors or Patreon, allowing users who find value in the apps to support development voluntarily.
The Key Principle
Whatever path I eventually take, the principle remains: prove value first, monetize second. I'm not opposed to making money from my work—I just believe in earning the right to charge by building something genuinely valuable first.
Conclusion: A Strategic Choice for Where I Am Now
Keeping Net-Bar and Echo Music App free and open source isn't about being overly generous or following some idealistic principle. It's a strategic decision based on my current reality as a developer:
I'm still learning, and I need the freedom to experiment, fail, and improve without the pressure of paying customers. Open source provides feedback and learning opportunities that would be impossible to get otherwise.
I don't know how to sell, and learning business skills right now would distract from my primary goal of becoming a better developer. There will be time for monetization later, once I've mastered my craft.
I need to prove I can build value, both to myself and to others. Free and open source removes all barriers to measuring whether my apps actually help people and solve real problems.
An Invitation
If you've read this far, I invite you to check out my projects:
Net-Bar - Network Monitoring Tool
https://github.com/iad1tya/Net-Bar
Echo Music App - Modern Music Player
https://github.com/EchoMusicApp
Try them out, star them if you find them useful, report bugs if you find problems, or contribute improvements if you're so inclined. Every interaction helps me learn and improve.
Final Thoughts
This journey is just beginning. I don't know if Net-Bar or Echo Music App will become widely used projects, or if they'll remain small tools that help a handful of people. I don't know if I'll eventually monetize them, or if they'll always be free.
What I do know is that right now, this approach—free, open source, focused on learning and value creation—is exactly right for where I am in my development journey.
Maybe someday I'll write another blog post about transitioning to a commercial model. But that's a future problem. Today, I'm focused on building, learning, and proving that I can create something worthwhile.
And that's enough.