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I have been thinking about how to fund free software development for years and the best solution I have been able to come up with so far is... First, as stated
by robalni 3y ago
I have been thinking about how to fund free software development for years and the best solution I have been able to come up with so far is...
First, as stated in this article, the problem is the asymmetry.
Normally you need to pay to use a service and the service provider needs money in order to continue.
But in software development, the developer needs money to continue but the user doesn't need to pay to use it.
This problem of asymmetry has already been solved all around the world.
The citizens in a country can use a lot of services because they pay tax.
This works because the government patches the asymmetry by filling in the gap of the missing money flow, using money that they collect from everyone who wants to be a part of this system.
There is just one difference with software development: software is global, so we can't use any existing tax system.
What we need is a global system that collects money from everyone who wants to participate in the system.
The money could be collected by the software developers, similarly to how some of them already accept donations.
When they get a payment, they register it in a global database that keeps track of who has paid.
This database can then be used by anyone who wants to enforce this system by requiring that people have paid a software developer in order to be able to do certain things.
The question then is how many people would be willing to make this requirement.
- jagged-chisel 3y agoEnforcement is the bigger problem, I think.
- robalni 3y agoI don't know exactly what you are trying to say here, but as I said, the question is whether enough service providers want to make paying a developer a requirement for the things they control, so that enough people think paying is worth it.
- andyferris 3y agoI think the same argument applies to research, which is currently nationally funded. The issue is that policy makers haven't seen the value in the same way (yet).
- robalni 3y agoIf we make it a national system: - For any requirements to be a part of the system, you can't pay a developer in one country and be accepted as part of the system in another country. - Developers in one country will not get money from users in another country. - Why wait for policy makers? The sooner we get something working the better.
- vedranm 3y agoAssuming this is feasible, how would you make sure the collected money ends up funding the right projects?
- robalni 3y agoThat's a good question. There would have to be a list of approved developers you can pay because otherwise people could just pay themselves and register that payment in the system. I can think of two ways to update this list: - Some trusted maintainers of the system can add developers who want to be added, making sure they are real developers who have already done real work. - People could use their money to vote for developers to be added.
- pabs3 3y agoThere are governments doing this already, for example Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund or NLnet's EU-funded grant programs. https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#grants https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#grants
- mistrial9 3y agothat is a fine idea but, perhaps it has not sunk in mentally, what a large percentage of "business" operates by intercepting and controlling funds and access to a system. In the positive way this provides legal guarantees within the business community, and brand development to fund marketing and such; in the negative it is just how it sounds, added costs, less efficient, gate-guarders and hoarders and slow-walkers all around. In that situation the progress dramatically slows down, and control is a battle. You are suggesting to "create from thin air" a new entity that will almost certainly do all the bad parts, and may or may not do the positive parts, and has control to gate-keep for whatever reasons.