I recommend taking a look at Gitcoin [0] and quadratic funding [1].
A new funding model for open source software
21–30 of 184 posts
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#22OK my project is open source. I have zero stars, zero downloads, and zero users.
How much do I get paid?
Zero? But I wrote open source code that solves a real problem. It's open source. I should deserve to get paid. Because open source software.
I don't think your funding model works.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#23I think the open source model is fundamentally flawed and enables the big corporations to profit at the cost of the little people. The large corporations benefit disproportionately from open source as opposed to the maintainers. I thing what would be useful would be a programmer's "guild". * There is a yearly due - say $100/year * When you write software, you assign a license to anyone in the programmer's guild to be…
Everything is fundamentally flawed so it doesn’t say much to state it.
But personally I think the open source model has been wildly successful.
Before open source you needed to get a job working for a company to see any really cool code.
Now you can see and play with a world class version of almost anything: a world class OS, a world class 3D rendering engine, a world class video editor... it’s awesome.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Want a new idea? Sell direction of the project. Offer roadmap milestones. Sell priority over features maybe even bug features. Sell hats/logos/branded hosting environments. Sell access to internal conversation. Sell invites to internal product Zoom meetings. Sell access to private jira boards/trello cards.
One of the projects I had in mind when writing this post is the "color" module on npm. It's a fantastic utility for reading in colors in different formats (hex, decimal, CMYK), applying transformations, and getting a modified color back (in your format of choice). For all intents and purposes this module is "done". It's extremely mature and has already implemented everything it set out to do. It has 3.3k stars and 8M…
But if there is no active development why would these projects need additional funding?
Is it just a thank you gift?
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#25It's worth looking at Tidelift (https://tidelift.com): they're making the model work with pooled corporate subscriptions that create the right incentives.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#26> That's because there's currently no way to make a donation to the abstract concept of "open source software"
This isn't absolutely true, there are the FSF and the Software Freedom Conservancy, who fund many medium-ish projects, including ones that include some small utilities.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#27I love this idea as a rework of github sponsors.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#28If you're willing to move away from your proposed GitHub route, you could try implementing it on something like Gitcoin. The "wallet" you mentioned in the article could be a smart-contract that by the end of each month (or any desired period) would automatically make the donations directly to the crypto wallets of the projects that you chose to include in your sponsor pool.
That way, you jump over some of the implementational and regulatory hurdles. There would be no intermediary, such as GitHub, paying for the transaction fees. The transaction fees necessary for using the smart-contract on a given blockchain would be paid directly by the person making the donations.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#29Seems like solution to a problem that does not exist, there are many motivations for open source projects and not all of them have generating income purpose. Furthermore, generating income via dual licensing is fairly straight forward way, assuming you have solution that is in demand and works.
Re: A new funding model for open source software
#30> That's because there's currently no way to make a donation to the abstract concept of "open source software" This isn't absolutely true, there are the FSF and the Software Freedom Conservancy, who fund many medium-ish projects, including ones that include some small utilities.
And also fund a lot of evangelists that don't code at all but spend their time playing open source cops on mailing lists, forums and tech conventions.