Lazarus

Miscellaneous => Jobs => Topic started by: ajosifoski on November 22, 2013, 08:10:04 am

Title: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: ajosifoski on November 22, 2013, 08:10:04 am
I know this is sensitive question but let me start first.

Till now (2013-nov-22) $674 working on one project via odesk.

Also have ~dozen opensource applications on sourceforge (my signature) for which I did'nt receive any -> zero <- donations  till now.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: marcov on November 22, 2013, 10:31:39 am
I've held 3 fulltime senior programmer jobs during the last 10 years (and still), where during all job interviews, the fpc/lazarus experience was key.

In one, very funny case, they asked about experiences with Indy (it was a Delphi job), and I was able to guide them to my website where I showed the initial  Indy ports of Indy9 and 10 for fpc/lazarus and my name on the contributors list on the Indy site :_)

As for your SF experience, you seem to create small potatoe programs for end-users, while SF is mostly visited by programmers. I really wonder how you expected anything else there. (regardless in what they were programmed).
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: felipemdc on November 22, 2013, 11:21:19 am
Where do you live? I'd recommend a traditional job.

I won't be going into numbers, but I make money with fpc/lazarus so it is possible.

The problem of Pascal obviously is the low usage in comparison with the 3 kings C++/Java/C#, which translates in less job openings but at the same time in less competition too. Funny enough my main job involves programming in Pike, a even much less popular language than Pascal ... so you can make money with any language. They don't actively search for Pike developers, since .... well there are none to be found. They just sent me a C++ programming exam instead. The thing is that if you want to make money with a particular technology you might need to relocate.

Quote
Also have ~dozen opensource applications on sourceforge (my signature) for which I did'nt receive any -> zero <- donations  till now.

It's really hard to make money from free applications ... my best success so far is putting Google AdSense ads on a page which explains the program. If a lot of people (let's say 200) visit the page daily, then you can make a small amount of money with ads, like US$300 yearly.

Other approaches which I tried like donations and ads directly in the program bring almost zero income.

I see now that almost all of the most famous open source apps in sourceforge are bringing in recomendations of chrome or whatever in their installer: http://sourceforge.net/blog/today-we-offer-devshare-beta-a-sustainable-way-to-fund-open-source-software/

It think it might be worth a try ... I wonder how much money this would make. And nearly everyone is doing it nowadays, winscp, filezilla, etc, etc, so its not like the app will get rejected because of it.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: chrnobel on November 22, 2013, 11:26:44 am
I think you shall use another approach.

I do a living, where I am making programs by request, and do some IT services in conjunction, supplying my customers with a solution.

For being able to do that I have a toolbox (just like any other artisan) where the most important piece of tools is Lazarus.

But tools without skills have no value, and vice versa.

So to put it simple, it is not possible directly to tell how much money I have earned using Lazarus, but I know for sure that it would be very difficult for me to make a living without.

Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: ajosifoski on November 22, 2013, 11:51:54 am
Where do you live? I'd recommend a traditional job.

I see now that almost all of the most famous open source apps in sourceforge are bringing in recomendations of chrome or whatever in their installer: http://sourceforge.net/blog/today-we-offer-devshare-beta-a-sustainable-way-to-fund-open-source-software/

It think it might be worth a try ... I wonder how much money this would make. And nearly everyone is doing it nowadays, winscp, filezilla, etc, etc, so its not like the app will get rejected because of it.

New suggestion. In new forum make it Location with * must be filled.
Suggestion-2. In new forum create visible large message (large font)-> Please post your question also on stackoverflow with tag Lazarus.
(our goal is to beat there  cobol for now, than fortran then.. Let it be His (John 1,1-3) will.)
see  our delphi brothers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/delphi
see us: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/lazarus
Best  search:  (union) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/delphi+or+lazarus+or+pascal+or+freepascal

At this moment there are 484 tags for cobol _and_ 396 for lazarus.

Want  to work as freelancer, traditional is not for me.
Tnx for sharing new ideas from sourceforge, :) filezilla have ~100.000 downloads per day, but I'm skeptical.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: TurboRascal on November 22, 2013, 12:12:58 pm
Suggestion-2. In new forum create visible large message (large font)-> Please make a copy of your question on stackoverflow with tag Lazarus.
(our goal is to beat there  cobol for now, than fortran then.. Let it be His (John 1,1-3) will.)

I'm afraid that would be an unrealistic request, i.e. almost nobody would do that...
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Leledumbo on November 22, 2013, 05:25:51 pm
I'm gonna need to convert to $ first. Assuming $ 1 = Rp 10000, then I've got $ 300 so far, from one short time (2-3 weeks part time) project around 3 years ago. Since I have fulltime job, with Lazarus made tools for internal use,  I've been paid for > $ 12000, mixed with my other (main) jobs of course.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: ajosifoski on November 22, 2013, 05:40:11 pm
If I am well money situated and want to promote lazarus who knows what will do?

Just for fun
Will post every day 1 task on freelancing sites, specifically lazarus skill
some easy tasks let say $5 or $10 fixed price

Lot of people are reading posts, so, my argument that Lazarus is wanted such as cobol (which is true for now) will dissapear.

Let me back to ruby reading...
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: garlar27 on November 22, 2013, 06:46:11 pm
I'm workin with FPC-Lazarus since 5 years and 5 days. But not as a freelancer, I'm an employee.

If you want to make money with small apps, I recomend you to focus on mobile devices and games. Sell them for $1 to $5 and put them in apple store and in any other store.

You can also produce a free version and a "Platinum" version with more functions or less limitations.

The final user will not see what you used to build your app, this is the same for all languages out there.

Change your strategy. It has to be simple to pay for your app and it shouldn't be a price too high (I mean if you build "yet another cell phone flashlight", a $10 fee would be too much).

There is a lot of things you can do to have a better chance to be chousen among a thousand applications. See what other people are doing and learn from their errors and success.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: ajosifoski on November 23, 2013, 06:54:27 pm
Don't know if this will working.

Putting button somewhere in program which will redirect to some web page (even free blog  on wordpress.com) with donors list

Idea teaken from Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: BeniBela on November 30, 2013, 09:55:32 pm
How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus

400 €

on which I had to pay 10000€ tax, because Germany has flat rate social insurance fees for freelancers, almost independent of your actual income. It's an absolutely horrible country

Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: aradeonas on February 26, 2015, 03:27:21 pm
@BeniBela you are a greet developer and you tools help me and sure other people alot but I think they need new and shiny home to attract attentions like Xidel.
And for answer to question I earned nothing until now(about a year) from Lazarus because my main field is Delphi and I'm moving to Lazarus.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: jagnje on February 26, 2015, 04:57:54 pm
Hello aradeonas.

Can you explain the rationale behind move from delphi to lazarus?

Thanks. I am new to all this, that is why I am asking.

Thanks.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: aradeonas on February 26, 2015, 05:13:09 pm
Hi,
In one word because its lovely.
If I want to explain I should say:
1-Its small and fast.setup,compile or anything in Delphi is kind of slow but in Lazarus everything is fast.
2-Its free and open source,Very good reason!
3-Its cross platform.Yes Delphi works in MAC and compile for iOS and Android but not Linux and Delphi mobile apps are slow again.Also I want to write server apps and with Delphi I don't know its possible or not but Im sure its not as easy as in Lazarus.
4-Here you find really good libraries that comes form passion of their developers.Like BGRABitmap.you cant find things like this in Delphi world.
5-Its more geeky.You can do more stuff in more devices.From a server to a mini computer like raspberry pi.
6-I like the logo ;)
7-Lazarus and FPC people are kind.Im still new to this word but until now they help me a lot and I appreciate that much.

I think if you want do company works do with Delphi but for personal,free,small,big projects choose Lazarus and FPC.
Delphi with it's very big components world is good for get jobs done but Lazarus and FPC are very good tools to make dreams real.

And don't forget these are my personal opinions ;)

Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: BeniBela on February 26, 2015, 10:49:32 pm
How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus

400 €

on which I had to pay 10000€ tax, because Germany has flat rate social insurance fees for freelancers, almost independent of your actual income. It's an absolutely horrible country

update: I have spent the last three years writing complains to the insurance provider, and they have actually refunded half of the "tax" this month
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: felipemdc on February 26, 2015, 11:12:21 pm
Quote
400 € on which I had to pay 10000€ tax, because Germany has flat rate social insurance fees for freelancers, almost independent of your actual income. It's an absolutely horrible country

wow, that's outrageous. And I thought that taxes here in Poland were high...

In Poland a sole-freelancer also has to pay a flat rate of 1200zl (300 euros) per month for social security + income tax (aprox. 15%), but if you already have a job then you only need to pay income tax of the freelancer work and no social security for it (since you already pay social security from the main job). Isnt it the same in Germany? Do you have a main job?
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: BeniBela on February 27, 2015, 12:39:02 am
In Poland a sole-freelancer also has to pay a flat rate of 1200zl (300 euros) per month for social security + income tax (aprox. 15%), but if you already have a job then you only need to pay income tax of the freelancer work and no social security for it (since you already pay social security from the main job). Isnt it the same in Germany?

That is pretty much the same.

Just somewhat higher and not including pensions.

Do you have a main job?

I did not


That was the problem
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Nitorami on March 08, 2015, 01:53:40 am
@BeniBela
Not sure what you are talking about as during my time as freelancer (in germany ! not working as programmer though) I had to pay a small fee for my health insurance, and tax every three months in advance. It was calculated on the basis of the last year's total income, and if I had no income, I could claim tax refund at the end of the year. But that was 20 years ago.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: ssliackus on October 29, 2016, 12:53:11 pm
I like that question, it indicates the value language/tools and perspectives.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Thaddy on October 29, 2016, 01:11:48 pm
I did not earn any noticeable money with Lazarus but I am quite financially independent because of Delphi related work. (I am almost 59 and pension is in place, that kind of stuff)
I did and do in the future on occasion work in FreePascal, though. Most of it is server based D6/7 originally.
My rate is depending on the project, but since it is not my  main income it is taxed at 52%,because my main income is in the 52% tax range in the Netherlands. And VAT is separate, but worked out differently.
But a tool does not pay you. It is knowledge and working ethics that pays you. In my case mostly banking software.
Often I am just payed for design, review or business consultancy and that is not tied to a tool like Lazarus.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: MISV on December 18, 2017, 11:03:37 am
If you are selling existing Delphi tools for Windows, Lazarus/LCL is the fastest way to reach Mac in many ways instead of converting to FireMonkey (i.e. VCL more compatible with LCL than FireMonkey - at least that was my conclusion some years ago - I know FireMonkey since improved with TImageList etc. but even so)

Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: turrican on December 18, 2017, 11:46:40 am
Most our company DevOps toolset is did in ObjectPascal & C#. At lest I can maintain my job.

At my personal case, I am doing videogames and other things (most on github at free). My next step is to do comercial apps (Games).
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Thaddy on December 18, 2017, 12:02:20 pm
Just for fun I calculated my total taxable income based on average over 30 years in US$ in which any form of Object Pascal is involved, which makes around $2.560.000,- which is euro 2.170.227,-
That excludes CTO jobs and consultancy. I am happy. The average is $80.000,- a year which is on par for an experienced programmer (project lead) with a (in fact multiple) University degree..

It should actually be a bit lower, it is not an exact science, before we lost the guilder it averages at 88.000 guilders, which is just about $40.000,-
Also note that in the Netherlands pension schemes are not calculated towards your income: for tax purposes tax on pensions is deferred to pension date.
So actually it should be much higher... :D since I have that huge bounty that I get when I am 67.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: turrican on December 18, 2017, 12:24:01 pm
Just for fun I calculated my total taxable income based on average over 30 years in US$ in which any form of Object Pascal is involved, which makes around $2.560.000,- which is euro 2.170.227,-
That excludes CTO jobs and consultancy. I am happy. The average is $80.000,- a year which is on par for an experienced programmer (project lead) with a (in fact multiple) University degree..

It should actually be a bit lower, it is not an exact science, before we lost the guilder it averages at 88.000 guilders, which is just about $40.000,-
Also note that in the Netherlands pension schemes are not calculated towards your income: for tax purposes tax on pensions is deferred to pension date.
So actually it should be much higher... :D since I have that huge bounty that I get when I am 67.

That's awesome  :) How old are you? If I can ask you this question
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Thaddy on December 18, 2017, 05:05:01 pm
Too old?  59.90
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: jbmckim on December 18, 2017, 06:06:48 pm
Excellent Thaddy.  We are about the same age.  My attention span is apparently shorter.  My background does include pascal (I worked in it when it was the HP3000 system language) but also includes Basic, Fortran, c, c++, VB.Net and C# - I will also confess to an Excel project here and there and I may...just may...have written some documentation from time to time.  I was a manager for awhile as well but I try not to admit that in public.  I suppose that lack of focus is why I ask so many questions and why I count on people like you to answer them and am grateful that you do. Congratulations and thank you for contributing to my being able to keep the last shreds of mental health I have left.  ;)
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Bram71 on December 18, 2017, 07:04:21 pm
I can't give exact figures because i mostly supply complete software + hardware solutions.

I'm self employed since 92 and have always used Delphi till D7 after witch i switched to Lazarus around 2010. Software only projects i did include Point of sale, Rental and accounting software.

All i can say is that Lazarus has been an essential tool for my income for years now and that my income is on par with Dutch "standards" for a senior developer (> 40k € per year).

Suddenly feeling guilty now not having donated (yet)....  :-[
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: scons on December 18, 2017, 11:30:41 pm
Not exactly on topic but maybe it could be interesting for those who develop new things, convert delphi to Lazarus things, or maintain things to offer their services on Patreon too to earn a $. Just a thought.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: lainz on December 18, 2017, 11:40:10 pm
Not exactly on topic but maybe it could be interesting for those who develop new things, convert delphi to Lazarus things, or maintain things to offer their services on Patreon too to earn a $. Just a thought.

Good idea. I'm making a new set of controls, but maybe instead of making something new slowly... keep updating BGRAControls that is already good, adding new features and fixes, and maybe some people likes that and want to contribute instead of buying a new set of controls...
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: scons on December 19, 2017, 10:28:27 am
@ lainz
If you think about it, the bounty system is a good idea, for sure, but sometimes newer Lazarus users, or younger people do not have a big budget to spend, but if there is a possibilty to share costs, it might be doable for them. Plus the Patreon system does allow you to do a 1 time donation or a subscription which you can stop at any time. The main goal of the system is to create an ongoing funding for creators. You can do even things like: when this amount of donations is reached, I will create ...

There are many things I can think of, just a few examples:

For example, you would like $100 for your new set of controls, which might be too much for a certain user to spend to develop.
But if there are 15 users who have interest, that is $6.7/person which makes the treshold to get on board a lot more interesting. Or if the user could spend this amount, he can now split it over several projects ... which is a good thing too of course.


Of course these are just a few examples, and some (most) of these things already exist, but can be outdated, or will be at some point.
Now the Lazarus system is maintained by volunteers, which is great and they do a massive job (kudos to the team), but who says they and/or other people who are clever enough to do the things mentioned above would be harmed to get a little sponsoring for that ?

On the other hand, this might (and I say this carfully) take some developping work out of the hand of other main developpers so they get more time to do other things ...

It would be good for Lazarus in general too. The main goal of Lazarus should be maintained of course.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Thaddy on December 19, 2017, 10:56:56 am
All i can say is that Lazarus has been an essential tool for my income for years now and that my income is on par with Dutch "standards" for a senior developer (> 40k € per year).
It should be around 5000 to 6800 euro a month + 13th (sometimes 14) month + Holiday allowance at 8% over 12 months according to most calculators. If you work as self-employed add - at least - 25 -30% for pension scheme, health insurance (as in: what happens if you can not finish a job, not the normal health insurance) and social security. People tend to forget that.  So you should allow for a minimum hourly tariff of around 50 euro given 220 working days a year. Currently I am closer to 120, but that's not programming but consultancy. And I don't work 220 days, but max 60 due to health issues.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: SymbolicFrank on December 19, 2017, 01:05:56 pm
I have never done large projects in fpc/Lazarus. Some in Delphi. When I do have a job, I'm mostly programming in C++/Java/C# and informal project lead.

I use Lazatus/fpc for demos, tools and small servers. Things that are not major projects and should be done in a few days or so.

I don't have any formal higher education, so getting a job is hard, and it pays on average ~2600 Euro a month. My co-workers, who do have the education can get jobs easily and they earn much more money, but most of them cannot design or write a decent program.

In a few months I'm out of a job again and I'll start a Lazarus project to see if I can make money with it.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Thaddy on December 19, 2017, 01:26:11 pm
It is region dependent. My quotes are accurate for the Dutch market only (and some years in London and Miami). But they are accurate. And it is an average over 30+ experience.
Nobody works for 2600 full-time, be it dollars or euros or pounds, in the regions I mentioned. With the education I mentioned.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: SymbolicFrank on December 19, 2017, 02:36:46 pm
You know I live in the Netherlans, so...

Yes, education.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: Thaddy on December 19, 2017, 03:20:36 pm
No, that's not all. But I am sure the figures I mentioned are correct.
It is also the basis on how I would hire, experience and some proven knowledge.
Note you have to know a helluvalot more - than just being able to screen draw - when you go professional.... And if I were you: if you are developing in Object Pascal I would demand a raise. A considerable raise.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: SymbolicFrank on December 19, 2017, 04:08:35 pm
And if I were you: if you are developing in Object Pascal I would demand a raise. A considerable raise.
Well, they hired some young, C# ASP.NET guys and they fire me. Those new people have been working on selecting the right graph component for the last three months. Those are very slow in WPF when you use a MVVM. And they really don't get it.

I could have written a whole graph library in that time. But I was only hired to keep the ancient C++ app alive for one more year. They expect the new software to be ready in a few more months.

Those new guys have no idea what I'm talking about. But the managers understand them better.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: SymbolicFrank on December 28, 2017, 09:41:30 pm
Those guys were appalled by the slow speed (around seconds-per-frame territory) with WPF, so they switched again, this time back to plain Windows Forms. And, of course, the first thing they did was design / set up yet another complex view model model, this time MVP.

I wonder how long it takes them to realize that they are yet again in SPF territory, and how they will react this time. And if they finally get it.

I did tell them a few times, and dropped lots of hints. That's the main reason I have to go: the new IT manager told me that I shouldn't be so negative and sarcastic.  :o

And as the completion of the above project "won't take long", they are rushing to get me to finish the fixes to the old project, so they can release it and be done with it. And me.
Title: Re: How much money you've earned till now using Lazarus
Post by: lainz on December 28, 2017, 09:54:28 pm
I earned USD 12 with donations on Patreon =)

I do mostly open source software with Lazarus. And also some assistance to paid apps (controls and high dpi), I earned some more but not USD, money from my country (ARS).

I'm relatively a new programmer in terms of "working" with it.
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