How does lichess earn profit, or does it even earn profit??

chessISbest123

I know it has a patron but very less people become patrons....And that money they gather from donations probably won't be enough to maintain fast servers and pay staff + developers. Tell me if I am wrong lol

petri999

I dont think developers are paid. seems to have survived quite long with this model. and event grown quite a bit.

chessISbest123

Hmmmm idk tbh why would developers work for free (unless they are EXTREME chess lovers lol)

Neil--Dandekar

There are patrons which donate money to lichess.org
Lichess also has a swag store, which sells you clothes are other merchandise.
Lichess has lichess coaches which earn many dollars per hour and it also gives lichess some money.. So lichess is not a complete nonprofit organization because the coaches are not free to take coaching from.. Instead they are too much costly...

There are patrons which donate money to lichess.org Lichess also has a swag store, which sells you clothes are other merchandise. Lichess has lichess coaches which earn many dollars per hour and it also gives lichess some money.. So lichess is not a complete nonprofit organization because the coaches are not free to take coaching from.. Instead they are too much costly...

sheckley666

The main developer Thibault is a paid employee.

You know Linux, Firefox, LibreOffice? Many good programs are written by people for free. They write it for fun and idealism. Free software has much to do with free speech and free exchange of ideas and thoughts.

The main developer Thibault is a paid employee. You know Linux, Firefox, LibreOffice? Many good programs are written by people for free. They write it for fun and idealism. Free software has much to do with free speech and free exchange of ideas and thoughts.

drmrboss edited

https://lichess.org/blog/U4skkUQAAEAAhIGz/why-is-lichess-free#:~:text=Let's%20see%20how%20much%20it,amounts%20to%20%24170%20per%20month.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CGgu-7aNxlZkjLl9l-OlL00fch06xp0Q7eCVDDakYEE/edit#gid=0

https://lichess.org/blog/U4skkUQAAEAAhIGz/why-is-lichess-free#:~:text=Let's%20see%20how%20much%20it,amounts%20to%20%24170%20per%20month. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CGgu-7aNxlZkjLl9l-OlL00fch06xp0Q7eCVDDakYEE/edit#gid=0

rulojuka edited

No need to guess. It is public in https://lichess.org/patron there is also a link to the costs spreadsheet there.

The small version:

It does not earn profit. It is a non-profit organization
It pays a full-time developer salary to one person
The servers do not cost that much (around $5k) that is, in part, because all of the software is very well written
All other things cost around $10k and everything is covered by patrons and donations mostly

About why develop without getting paid, here are some of the reasons:

To become better at programming
To increase her portfolio
To gift the world with this amazing chess service (the source-code is awesome - and open/free too)
To get more people into chess

You can see 169 contributors to this lichess repository that probably never got paid: https://github.com/ornicar/lila/
You can see other millions of people that to that here: https://github.com/explore (albeit a lot of people DO get paid to write open source software)

And finally, because some people don't need money to do work. They only need money to do work they rather not do, but must be done or, more frequently, work that other people want to be done.

No need to guess. It is public in https://lichess.org/patron there is also a link to the costs spreadsheet there. The small version: - It does not earn profit. It is a non-profit organization - It pays a full-time developer salary to one person - The servers do not cost that much (around $5k) that is, in part, because all of the software is very well written - All other things cost around $10k and everything is covered by patrons and donations mostly About why develop without getting paid, here are some of the reasons: - To become better at programming - To increase her portfolio - To gift the world with this amazing chess service (the source-code is awesome - and open/free too) - To get more people into chess You can see 169 contributors to this lichess repository that probably never got paid: https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ You can see other millions of people that to that here: https://github.com/explore (albeit a lot of people DO get paid to write open source software) And finally, because some people don't need money to do work. They only need money to do work they rather not do, but must be done or, more frequently, work that other people want to be done.

petri999

@chessISbest123 as an hobby. I am SW engineer and I do not hbby of writing free SW but I have loads of friends who do. And chess world that is obvios as have things like Stockfish adn Leela Chess Zero. Original first inteet chess server (ICC) was written as open software - i.e as an hobby - in 1992. Much of that still lives on in ICC and FICS. You can easily see that they are same codebase as you use same client programs on both. It is a rather common hobby and why not.

Your network blocks the Lichess assets!