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FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

floss.fund

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Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#71

Post by andris9 »

myprotegeai wrote: post #67
andris9 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the exact same experience with Nodemailer, a popular open-source project I started 14 years ago. My solution was to empty the README file and set up a dedicated documentation website. Since the project is popular, the documentation website receives around 70,000 visits per month. I initially tried paid ads, but they only netted about $200 per month—not great. So, I started a commercial project somewhat related…

Thanks for sharing. It's an interesting idea, to try to trampoline it into another related commercial project. I just checked my RTD analytics, I get around 1k pageviews to `/` per month. Unfortunately I don't have a related commercial product either.

When I started with Nodemailer, my goal was to build a cool product—not to become an unpaid helpdesk employee for life. But here we are. So, I’ve been trying to monetize the project in various ways for the past ten years. I’ve tried everything (license restrictions, freelancing and consulting, paid extensions, etc.), and each approach failed for different reasons. The only strategy that actually took off was using Nodemailer’s documentation page as a referral source for another relevant paid project.

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#72

Post by simonhamp »

I am trying to submit my funding.json, it validates when I check the validator, but fails when I submit with the error: "too many lines in the .well-known list"

I have 1 line in my .well-known lists

Here's my funding.json:

https://nativephp.com/funding.json

Can someone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#73

Post by mr-karan »

jph wrote: post #25

Great idea! I'm trying it now by adding the file `funding.json` to two of my FOSS projects. Feedback welcome. Donations welcome. :-) 1. Assertables is a Rust crate that provides assert macros for smarter testing: https://github.com/SixArm/assertables-rust-crate/blob/main/f... 2. BoldContacts is a mobile app that helps people who have disabilities: https://github.com/BoldContacts/boldcontacts-mobile-app-for-... Result…

Hey, I'm from Zerodha team.

1. Regarding the validation, this error seems to be related to the provenance check mechanism in the spec. This is to prove ownership of that project/domain. The wellKnown field is designed to handle cases where the webpageUrl doesn't match the manifest URL.

2. Will definitely be passing the feedback to our team and evaluate this further!

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#74

Post by breck »

Love this! Love how you start with the BLUF (Apply now up top). Lots of great thinking here.

I think since you are starting this from scratch you can do something pretty revolutionary with your application (and far simpler, long term!). I demonstrate in the user test below.

Here's my user test: https://news.pub/?try=https://www.youtube.com/embed/4BH8DRXw...

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#75

Post by breck »

traceroute66 wrote: post #12
ignoramous wrote: post #5

To apply, the project must place a funding.json in their public code repository or at a well-known uri location on their domain: https://dir.floss.fund/submit That's already 10x more simpler than the 20 page document some of these other orgs have you fill. Looking at you Llama Impact Grants, OpenAI Cybersecurity Grants, NLNet, & OpenTechFund. --- Disclaimer: A project I co-develop was granted £3.75k in 2023 back when…

> That's already 10x more simpler than the 20 page document some of these other orgs have you fill. Looking at you I guess somebody has to point out the obvious .... First, the process is probably simpler because the donation amounts are going to be smaller. If there's only $1M per year in the bank, I somehow don't see them giving out the sorts of large sums the others you mentioned do, e.g. OpenTechFund says it will…

> Finally, sadly, the most obvious point .... a longer form helps sort the wheat from the chaff. Both in terms of cutting down the volume of applications some poor soul has to trawl over, but also helping keep the quality of applications high.

Opposite effect, actually. Longer forms get you a lot of the top 10%, but you miss out on the top 0.0001% who don't want to waste their time with people who aren't smart enough to design a brief form.

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#76

Post by pacmansyyu »

hellcow wrote: post #63

Instead of structuring this as a fund, why not a non-profit? Then you could solicit tax-deductible donations which get funneled to these FOSS projects as part of your mission. Seems like a possible way to scale this to something much larger than yourselves.

Hi, I'm from the team at Zerodha.

> Instead of structuring this as a fund, why not a non-profit?

Thank you, this is an interesting suggestion. While a non-profit structure could potentially increase donations, implementing this globally would be extremely complex.

Particularly because tax laws vary by country, which would require us to be registered as a non-profit in most, if not all countries, and comply with their jurisdiction. The administrative overhead and legal complexities of managing a truly international non-profit outweighs the benefits for our current scale. We appreciate the idea and will keep it in mind as we grow, but for now, we're focusing on efficiently directing funds to FOSS projects through our current model.

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#77

Post by ocdtrekkie »

simonhamp wrote: post #72

I am trying to submit my funding.json, it validates when I check the validator, but fails when I submit with the error: "too many lines in the .well-known list" I have 1 line in my .well-known lists Here's my funding.json: https://nativephp.com/funding.json Can someone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?

So my best guess is that even though the validator succeeds, the actual submission is pulling the GitHub page for the well-known instead of its raw content. The problem is you also can't really fix this yourself: The raw file is hosted at raw.githubusercontent.com which wouldn't match your source URL.

Hopefully they will fix their submission tool. I did see one project submitted successfully by having domain.com/github point to their project URL, which the submission accepted, but that causes certificate errors.

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#78

Post by breck »

mr-karan wrote: post #73
jph wrote: post #25

Great idea! I'm trying it now by adding the file `funding.json` to two of my FOSS projects. Feedback welcome. Donations welcome. :-) 1. Assertables is a Rust crate that provides assert macros for smarter testing: https://github.com/SixArm/assertables-rust-crate/blob/main/f... 2. BoldContacts is a mobile app that helps people who have disabilities: https://github.com/BoldContacts/boldcontacts-mobile-app-for-... Result…

Hey, I'm from Zerodha team. 1. Regarding the validation, this error seems to be related to the provenance check mechanism in the spec. This is to prove ownership of that project/domain. The wellKnown field is designed to handle cases where the webpageUrl doesn't match the manifest URL. 2. Will definitely be passing the feedback to our team and evaluate this further!

Aloha! I think there's something novel you could do here that would catch on like wildfire. Here is me coding up the basics:

https://youtu.be/4BH8DRXwVRw?t=317

Feel free to connect via email if you want to chat more breck7@gmail.com

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#79

Post by jph »

mr-karan wrote: post #73
jph wrote: post #25

Great idea! I'm trying it now by adding the file `funding.json` to two of my FOSS projects. Feedback welcome. Donations welcome. :-) 1. Assertables is a Rust crate that provides assert macros for smarter testing: https://github.com/SixArm/assertables-rust-crate/blob/main/f... 2. BoldContacts is a mobile app that helps people who have disabilities: https://github.com/BoldContacts/boldcontacts-mobile-app-for-... Result…

Hey, I'm from Zerodha team. 1. Regarding the validation, this error seems to be related to the provenance check mechanism in the spec. This is to prove ownership of that project/domain. The wellKnown field is designed to handle cases where the webpageUrl doesn't match the manifest URL. 2. Will definitely be passing the feedback to our team and evaluate this further!

Thanks for the reply. It turns out the current JSON file approach can't prove ownership of the project nor the domain, so perhaps there's a gap in my understanding or your team's understanding...? Feel free to contact me about this a because I believe in your mission: joel@joelparkerhenderson.com

Some options that I use successfully with other donations services and funding services...

- A unique token per project published in a project file

- A unique token per domain published in a DNS TXT record

- A verification of the project's existing setup, such as using GitHub API access or OAuth

- A forwarding to the project's existing funding link, such as using a project's GitHub sponsors link

- A heuristic with the person's existing payment links, such as contact info being identical on GitHub and Venmo

- A challenge/response, such as verifying a small random payment

- A dedicated KYC process such as with a background checking service.

Re: FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

#80

Post by specproc »

traceroute66 wrote: post #12
ignoramous wrote: post #5

To apply, the project must place a funding.json in their public code repository or at a well-known uri location on their domain: https://dir.floss.fund/submit That's already 10x more simpler than the 20 page document some of these other orgs have you fill. Looking at you Llama Impact Grants, OpenAI Cybersecurity Grants, NLNet, & OpenTechFund. --- Disclaimer: A project I co-develop was granted £3.75k in 2023 back when…

> That's already 10x more simpler than the 20 page document some of these other orgs have you fill. Looking at you I guess somebody has to point out the obvious .... First, the process is probably simpler because the donation amounts are going to be smaller. If there's only $1M per year in the bank, I somehow don't see them giving out the sorts of large sums the others you mentioned do, e.g. OpenTechFund says it will…

I worked in non-profit funding for many a year, and in the more traditional charity space, there's zero -- even negative -- correlation between grant value and effort.

It's also not just about the initial (typically multi-stage) application, but then the reporting and compliance requirements, the random donor requests.

This sort of thing is often objectively worse for smaller funders, but also relatively worse with smaller amounts of money as it's harder to resource for people to deal with the crap. Grant money ain't free.

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