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To paraphrase the problem: 'Lots of people are relying on volunteer created code running for free. How do we fund the development of useful tools and software c

To paraphrase the problem: 'Lots of people are relying on volunteer created code running for free. How do we fund the development of useful tools and software collectively?' I'm not sure what the best mechanism is, but making some group pledge on a website probably isn't it. I can't envision that any substantial fraction of people would contribute regardless if other people are helping. Instead lets restate the problem a little: '$Billions in value is built partially relying on the use of these tools. How do convince the whales that they make money by contributing?' I wonder if people from the operational side of the house could start this conversation. Business will already do something similar with legacy systems. I.E. Vendor disappears and management finds one of the developers formerly employed at the vendor and cuts them a check for help. When X critical system is at risk everyone gets their checkbook out. We need to connect the operational risk from things like heartbleed with a cost that business people will understand. I like the free software/paid support model, but clearly there could be something better.

dageshi 12y ago
The answer I think is "make it simple". Create some central clearinghouse/website the business side of these big companies can give a check too, in return they get an account, the techies/programmers from the company use said account to fill in what technologies/projects they're using, the cash gets distributed between said projects, the clearing house handles all that. I don't think it would take more than a little prodding to make a company like Google contribute to something like that, so long as it's easy.
- neilellis 12y ago
  Spot on. It’s the same as the Apple/iTunes micropayment model. I buy lots of little things from Apple because I don’t have to go through payment process each time.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Companies often want strategic influence on OSS software, as well as maintenance. This would be difficult to run through a clearinghouse. When a project is larger, it can be part of an existing OSS foundation, where there is more experience with arbitrating such conflicts between donors.
    - edraferi 12y ago
      Big donors, yes. But firms with this motivation are already involved. I think the problem is how to engage the long tail of small / medium firms that rely on OSS but aren't sufficiently engaged to try to shape them. Actually, you could get the government involved here. There could be a tax break for the first $X of contributions to open source. That would effectively make a public subsidy to OSS, directed by market forces. Pretty cool
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        FLOSS currently gets extra scrutiny ("BOLO", which usually means "no") when applying for 501c3 status. The reasoning is to avoid a situation like the following: Google has some extremely-Google-specific work they want done. Google spins up a project to do it as an external entity, and "donates" the money to make it happen. Google takes that as a tax deduction, and meanwhile the 501c3 gets all the other tax benefits a 501c3 gets (often property tax exemption, for instance). This is a fair objection, to a point - an organization whose sole purpose is to benefit a for-profit company should probably be paying property tax. I think they take it too far - "Be On Look Out" is appropriate, but it shouldn't mean "no" when projects are genuinely creating value that is broadly accessible. Your narrower program described above also solves the problem, albeit arguably in a patchier way. The money from Google that would be spent on business expenses anyway wouldn't have been taxed anyway.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I don't really think that Google's problem is the inconvenience of having to cut a bunch of checks to the people they want to support, as if they were desperately short of people with administrative skills.
rayiner 12y ago
The basic difficulty inherent in monetizing digital goods is affecting all reaches of the software industry, in a bad way. From websites being forced to rely on advertising to system software developers being forced to rely on donations or patronage--the digital goods economy is here, and frankly it's pretty disappointing. I'm not sure what the solution is, but the first step I think is to admit that you've got a problem. Supply chains in the physical goods world aren't a piece of cake by any means, but at least they are predictable. If you make an SSD, you buy flash from Micron and a controller form Marvell, etc. You just buy it. That simple "money for product" transaction allows the incentives to line up. If it was possible to make money selling SSL libraries the same way it's possible to make money selling flash controllers, the world might be a better place.
- ploxiln 12y ago
  polarssl sold commercial licenses, before they were bought by ARM
- virmundi 12y ago
  Honestly I think the answer is micropayments. Large companies should get together to fund the creation and running of a centralized payment system with no fees. They could move tiny sums of money around to developers. Apps could charge $0.05/month to $1/month to monetize themselves. The user would be given a trial period and then asked to pay. The way I see it, Google, Amazon, Walmart and others would create a small firm of about 10 people. The central processing system could probably handle real traffic with as little as 20 production servers. All tolled, the company would cost probably 10 mill a year. The benefit is that the founding companies would save in transaction fees their contribution to the new monetary commons. If Amazon didn't lose 3% to credit card purchases, they would save billions a year. At that point what is 10 mill to keep that going? Hell, if I'm off by an order of magnitude, 100 mill a year is still cheaper than the fees.
  - bagels 12y ago
    How does cash enter and exit this system? Software doesn't quite solve that part yet.
jerf 12y ago
You might want to take a quick cruise around http://patreon.com http://patreon.com . It may shake your confidence in that pronouncement. I'm a patron for far fluffier things right now.
- edraferi 12y ago
  I really like patreon. It lets me support things I care about in a flexible, accountable way.
ScottBurson 12y ago
I built a site for crowdfunding of OSS based on these two observations: (a) businesses have the most money to spend (as you point out), and (b) most money spent on software development goes toward maintenance and continued development of existing systems. I admit I haven't done as much as I could to promote the site, but the initial reception it got was decidedly unenthusiastic. So I'm afraid I've let it rot, and will probably shut it down soon. If you want to take a look: https://bountyoss.com/ https://bountyoss.com/ Crowdfunding of OSS still seems to me like a problem that must have a solution. I just don't know what it is.
- buovjaga 12y ago
  > Crowdfunding of OSS still seems to me like a problem that must have a solution. I just don't know what it is. I'd say with 3rd party platforms the solution is marketing. Look at patreon.com that is mentioned in this thread. It grew from Youtube vloggers. These people know how to get attention :) As a 3rd party FOSS funding platform, you have to provide exceptional quality service and added value. FOSS projects already have their "Donate" pages. You have to convince them and their users that your service is somehow superior. Hence, you need to build a super valuable network of funders through marketing of some kind, be it viral or direct.
  - edraferi 12y ago
    I found Patreon when artists I liked announced their participation. The marketing can simply be "hey <big OSS project>, make a profile and put a banner on your site!" Of course, that's.... marketing.

dageshi 12y ago

The answer I think is "make it simple". Create some central clearinghouse/website the business side of these big companies can give a check too, in return they get an account, the techies/programmers from the company use said account to fill in what technologies/projects they're using, the cash gets distributed between said projects, the clearing house handles all that. I don't think it would take more than a little prodding to make a company like Google contribute to something like that, so long as it's easy.

neilellis 12y ago
Spot on. It’s the same as the Apple/iTunes micropayment model. I buy lots of little things from Apple because I don’t have to go through payment process each time.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Companies often want strategic influence on OSS software, as well as maintenance. This would be difficult to run through a clearinghouse. When a project is larger, it can be part of an existing OSS foundation, where there is more experience with arbitrating such conflicts between donors.
  - edraferi 12y ago
    Big donors, yes. But firms with this motivation are already involved. I think the problem is how to engage the long tail of small / medium firms that rely on OSS but aren't sufficiently engaged to try to shape them. Actually, you could get the government involved here. There could be a tax break for the first $X of contributions to open source. That would effectively make a public subsidy to OSS, directed by market forces. Pretty cool
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      FLOSS currently gets extra scrutiny ("BOLO", which usually means "no") when applying for 501c3 status. The reasoning is to avoid a situation like the following: Google has some extremely-Google-specific work they want done. Google spins up a project to do it as an external entity, and "donates" the money to make it happen. Google takes that as a tax deduction, and meanwhile the 501c3 gets all the other tax benefits a 501c3 gets (often property tax exemption, for instance). This is a fair objection, to a point - an organization whose sole purpose is to benefit a for-profit company should probably be paying property tax. I think they take it too far - "Be On Look Out" is appropriate, but it shouldn't mean "no" when projects are genuinely creating value that is broadly accessible. Your narrower program described above also solves the problem, albeit arguably in a patchier way. The money from Google that would be spent on business expenses anyway wouldn't have been taxed anyway.
anigbrowl 12y ago
I don't really think that Google's problem is the inconvenience of having to cut a bunch of checks to the people they want to support, as if they were desperately short of people with administrative skills.

rayiner 12y ago

The basic difficulty inherent in monetizing digital goods is affecting all reaches of the software industry, in a bad way. From websites being forced to rely on advertising to system software developers being forced to rely on donations or patronage--the digital goods economy is here, and frankly it's pretty disappointing. I'm not sure what the solution is, but the first step I think is to admit that you've got a problem. Supply chains in the physical goods world aren't a piece of cake by any means, but at least they are predictable. If you make an SSD, you buy flash from Micron and a controller form Marvell, etc. You just buy it. That simple "money for product" transaction allows the incentives to line up. If it was possible to make money selling SSL libraries the same way it's possible to make money selling flash controllers, the world might be a better place.

ploxiln 12y ago
polarssl sold commercial licenses, before they were bought by ARM
virmundi 12y ago
Honestly I think the answer is micropayments. Large companies should get together to fund the creation and running of a centralized payment system with no fees. They could move tiny sums of money around to developers. Apps could charge $0.05/month to $1/month to monetize themselves. The user would be given a trial period and then asked to pay. The way I see it, Google, Amazon, Walmart and others would create a small firm of about 10 people. The central processing system could probably handle real traffic with as little as 20 production servers. All tolled, the company would cost probably 10 mill a year. The benefit is that the founding companies would save in transaction fees their contribution to the new monetary commons. If Amazon didn't lose 3% to credit card purchases, they would save billions a year. At that point what is 10 mill to keep that going? Hell, if I'm off by an order of magnitude, 100 mill a year is still cheaper than the fees.
- bagels 12y ago
  How does cash enter and exit this system? Software doesn't quite solve that part yet.

jerf 12y ago

You might want to take a quick cruise around http://patreon.com http://patreon.com . It may shake your confidence in that pronouncement. I'm a patron for far fluffier things right now.

edraferi 12y ago
I really like patreon. It lets me support things I care about in a flexible, accountable way.

ScottBurson 12y ago

I built a site for crowdfunding of OSS based on these two observations: (a) businesses have the most money to spend (as you point out), and (b) most money spent on software development goes toward maintenance and continued development of existing systems. I admit I haven't done as much as I could to promote the site, but the initial reception it got was decidedly unenthusiastic. So I'm afraid I've let it rot, and will probably shut it down soon. If you want to take a look: https://bountyoss.com/ https://bountyoss.com/ Crowdfunding of OSS still seems to me like a problem that must have a solution. I just don't know what it is.

buovjaga 12y ago
> Crowdfunding of OSS still seems to me like a problem that must have a solution. I just don't know what it is. I'd say with 3rd party platforms the solution is marketing. Look at patreon.com that is mentioned in this thread. It grew from Youtube vloggers. These people know how to get attention :) As a 3rd party FOSS funding platform, you have to provide exceptional quality service and added value. FOSS projects already have their "Donate" pages. You have to convince them and their users that your service is somehow superior. Hence, you need to build a super valuable network of funders through marketing of some kind, be it viral or direct.
- edraferi 12y ago
  I found Patreon when artists I liked announced their participation. The marketing can simply be "hey <big OSS project>, make a profile and put a banner on your site!" Of course, that's.... marketing.