getting paid for developing free apps

Question

How do I get paid for developing an app that is free to the public.

Answer 1

Put paid advertisements on it.

Answer 2

Advertising.

Answer 3

Work for a company that produces Open Source software.

Answer 4

You usually don't until your project is big enough to bring in hits. Then you make revenue off of advertising (on your site or in your product) or big companies buy the project (i.e. Qt / Novell).

But typically free software is free. You may land a job if you're good enough and people recognize you but without a truly unique idea for your software, you're likely to have users find a non-advertisement enabled alternative if they can.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility to profit off of free software, but it's no walk in the park.

Additionally you can open up donations for your project, but typically those are given under the stipulation that it goes towards making the product better.