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I wanted to contribute but I am a single freelance developer, I don't have the amount of money shown on the sponsorship options. I would be great to have a USD
by soapdog 13y ago
I wanted to contribute but I am a single freelance developer, I don't have the amount of money shown on the sponsorship options. I would be great to have a USD 50 option there.
- danielsiders 13y agoThanks-- we definitely plan to explore ways for individuals to support the project.
- yapcguy 13y agoIf open source projects had always required $50,000+ to get started, we might not have GNU/Linux today. Why can't you start the project first and then ask for donations later? Are you saying that unless you guys get paid you're not going to work on the project?
- FooBarWidget 13y agoYou will not nearly get as much money if you ask for donations later. Certainly not enough to pay for your cost of living. People have the tendency of thinking "hey I can get this for free, and I can get this TODAY. hm those developers are cool. maybe I'll donate some day" Then they download and use the thing. 97% forget about donating and never return. Of the remaining people, they donate maybe $100 or something.
- thejosh 13y agoproof?
- joshcrowder 13y agoHuman observation. How many open source applications do you use that you have paid for?
- thejosh 13y agoThat have tried to raise money later?
- joshcrowder 13y agoRegardless if they have raised before or after.
- zwily 13y agoFooBarWidget (who you replied to) is actually Phusion, the maker of Passenger (the very popular Rails app server). I think they have some very strong anecdotal evidence. Up until recently Passenger was completely free, with donation options. Now they have an Enterprise offering - which we are happily paying for. I suspect the Enterprise licenses are orders of magnitude more than the donations ever were.
- Titanous 13y agoWe answered this in the FAQ: We will still build it, but development will take much longer and the finished product will be less polished. We're experimenting with a model that allows us to work full-time on a project for long enough to make it a viable production system.
- progrium 13y agoFor now, the best way you can help is to try and sell your organization on sponsoring a larger amount. We can help you if they're interested. :)
- oellegaard 13y agoI think I know a company that would be interested, but I noticed something on the page: "Please consider giving a little extra if you are also requesting additional features." -> Does this mean you get to be a part of deciding features if you donate?
- danielsiders 13y agoWe'll definitely take feature requests from sponsors seriously. The biggest limiting factor is how much time we can afford to spend on development. Anyone who substantially helps out with that gets a bigger voice in prioritizing the order we develop the reach features.
- DigitalJack 13y agoYou are leaving money on the table.
- efuquen 13y agoI don't think the point is to "profit" as much as it is to fund the project. Notice these aren't "customers" but sponsors. Maybe the mindset of "money is being left on the table" isn't quiet the right one for this sort of project ...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- vinceguidry 13y agoSeriously. When I first went to the website and read the description, I was like, "why isn't this already funded? They're only asking for $75K." Now I know why.
- jenius 13y agoI upvoted this, but want to also add my opinion in writing that I strongly second this opinion. The company I work at is definitely interested and might be able to contribute, but I'm also strongly interested as an individual. I have a lot of projects that would greatly benefit from having a tool like this available -- especially one that's open source -- and I would be more than happy to donate, but the sponsorship options are super high as previously noted.
- danielsiders 13y agoWe've added a "fill in the blank" contribution option to the form.
- soapdog 13y agoThanks, just contributed! :D