I am (unsuccessfully) trying to fund a year of OSS work – where did it go wrong? • Hacker News Board

Re: I am (unsuccessfully) trying to fund a year of OSS work – where did it go wrong?

#11

Post by mkching » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

ribasushi wrote: post #9

Eridrus wrote: post #8

I think it's unrealistic to expect 2/3 of your corporate users to pitch in $6k to support one of the many OSS projects they use. Not because it's trivial to build or anything, but expecting those kinds of rates is just setting yourself up for failure. If you really want money from them, figure out what it is they want from your library, maybe they're perfectly happy with how it is, maybe the work you're proposing is…

> I think it's unrealistic to expect 2/3 of your corporate users I didn't phrase myself with sufficient clarity (2000 chars and all): the project itself has an enormous footprint. It is essentially the ORM/SQL-generator of choice in the Perl5 ecosystem. What I meant by "I know of (and contacted) at least 34 companies" was the corporate users whose senior engineers and/or CTOs I know personally .

I think you may want to consider focusing more on concrete goals, and what funding will provide to backers.

For example, see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomchristie/django-rest... which is widely used Python library. In that campaign, it is easy to see how much time the author would be able to continue to commit to the project at various funding levels, and specific features they will implement.

Even if the commitment at a certain level is just being able to provide on-going bug fixes, this shows the value to the company rather than backing being presented as a thank-you for previous work.

Re: I am (unsuccessfully) trying to fund a year of OSS work – where did it go wrong?

#12

Post by ashimema » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 7:31 AM UTC

mkching wrote: post #11

ribasushi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's unrealistic to expect 2/3 of your corporate users I didn't phrase myself with sufficient clarity (2000 chars and all): the project itself has an enormous footprint. It is essentially the ORM/SQL-generator of choice in the Perl5 ecosystem. What I meant by "I know of (and contacted) at least 34 companies" was the corporate users whose senior engineers and/or CTOs I know personally .

I think you may want to consider focusing more on concrete goals, and what funding will provide to backers. For example, see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomchristie/django-rest... which is widely used Python library. In that campaign, it is easy to see how much time the author would be able to continue to commit to the project at various funding levels, and specific features they will implement. Even if the…

Think I agree with the above actually, making the software goals up front and centre would certainly help the case.

I realise there are a bunch of goals there, but having them nearer the top and with a one line description of what they actually mean in the grand scheme would help a corporate sponsor understand more what they are funding.

For instance, what does '(70%) Proper relationship options/conditions' actually mean. Does is make a performance boost, a productivity boost for my developers, a functionality boost (with functions we actual wan't/need), a stability boost.. or all of the above.

This might be clear to developers, but it's likely not developers who hold the purse strings. If one can point and say, this should make my developers more productive, or.. this 'should' (provided I'm making the most of it) increase the performance of my app is a much more tenable thing to put money into.

Re: I am (unsuccessfully) trying to fund a year of OSS work – where did it go wrong?

#13

Post by agj » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

To answer these questions, I think you need to be talking to these companies that you think would/should donate. Finding out what they want or need (from you or DBIx::Class et al in the coming year) is most important. Maybe their budgets are frozen until EOY, maybe you need more time to allow for purchasing, or maybe you aren't providing enough tangible benefits to justify bringing this to their management -- all questions you could uncover.

I would say that companies need more tangible benefits here, they can't justify a feel-good purchase price of $6-12k. I don't think you'll get into marketing budgets with an ad buy on your laptop. I know it's not part of the Perl community to create a website for your library, and it likely wouldn't have the impressions needed to attract any marketing interest either way, so maybe that's the wrong angle.

If DBIx::Class et al are integral to these companies, offering more options for support retainers at lower levels might justify the spend for more companies in the middle ground.

Anyways, I don't know the answer here, and I'm going through the same problems myself. I think you need push forward with all courses of action (save giving up early). Widen your pool of possible contributors, talk to those possible contributors you have a relationship with, and give it some time.

Re: I am (unsuccessfully) trying to fund a year of OSS work – where did it go wrong?

#14

Post by chrisBob » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 1:33 PM UTC

Do you have contact information for any of the people using your product? Admittedly I am at a university, not a regular business, but I don't think I could get a donation past the procurement office. If you offer to sell a support package you might do much better. A support contract is something that could get past most purchasing departments.