When I heard this shot, I felt like a kid trying to get his teacher’s attention in elementary school. I couldn’t wait to get back to my computer and post a reply.

I think Open Source community could learn a lot from the Role Playing Game community in this regard. In recent years, a number of independent developers led by people like Wolfgang Baur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Baur) who came up with a publishing process that can bootstrap a game publisher through the creation phase of a project. He calls his version the Open Design project (http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/faq) which is, essentially, a leveraged patronage system.

Patrons pay for a proposed idea up front. After getting a critical mass, the project moves forward with input from the patrons as one of the perks. After the project is finished, the patrons get a book, or game, or supplement that meets their individual desires and Baur (and his Open Design project) can then sell the finished product (or start other patronage projects based on it).

Other people try ransoms. Role Playing Public Radio has a campaign setting that it has been slowly building up using public ransoms (http://slangdesign.com/rppr/the-new-world-free-4e-dd-campaign-setting/). They post the ideas for the next installment on Kick Starter (http://www.kickstarter.com) where they take pledges until they meet their cost threshold. Then they create the supplement and release it for free to the world.

It seems to me that an open source project could use tools like Kick Starter to put a patronage price tag on various features that they could likely implement. They could put real prices on the time it would take to implement those features and then use tools (such as the private forums that Baur uses) to work with the patrons as an invested beta test and focus group. Once a feature is completed, perhaps patrons could have a discount on support (if the project offers that as its revenue model).

It may not be a direct fit and I’m not sure of all the details, but it would be interesting to see someone try it.

Ever had a look at the Buildservice? It builds packages automatically for most major linux distributions. In the works (well, planning…) are mac OS X and Windows packages

But it’s not really a street performer model. While we’ll certainly take contributions for projects in general, I think people will pay more, and more often, if it’s going to some particular pain they have.

If a project has a list of features that people want developed, along with the amounts needed to get them done, that’s a pretty powerful sales pitch. The users no longer are being asked whether they could spare some dollars for the project, but instead asked which feature they want to see first? And they vote with their dollars. (Sorry, American here). There’s a bit of psychology going on here which I think will work a whole lot better than just a “donate” button.

Firefox (despite the fact I have all but abandoned it except when I have to use windows).

Google have a huge part in keeping Firefox going – altho if Google ever stopped Bing would be in there so fast.

Openoffice (I would pay for this). (Oracle better keep this going)

I would pay for Linux Distros on CD (Just as a donation and save me a bit of time and hassle for dl and burning).

What’s missing is a marketplace for open source development. Sure, the whole Internet is basically that–but that’s an awfully big place to look, and it’s a bit disorganized.

We need an eBay for open source development, with a twist, a cross between a bounty system and a crowd-funding mechanism.

I proposed a “Funded Development” model, based on funding features you want developed. Basically, I’m planning to set up a site where people can request a feature for any open source project. Unlike crap sites like eLance or oDesk which basically farm it out to the cheapest regions for development, first crack at bidding on the project goes to the core development team. If they want to pursue it, they name their price. And then everybody who wants to see the feature can contribute any amount until it’s raised. The developers create it, and then get the pot of collected money.

So in Paul’s case, when he gets a request for a feature to be developed that’s going to take a week of hardcore development but only has a $200 bounty, he can say, “this is going to cost $2000.” And then the original requestor can put it out to get other people interested in the feature to chip in. Once there’s a pot of $2000 raised, Paul knows he can get paid for getting the work done, and as soon as it’s done and verified, he gets paid…

I’ve done a lot more thinking on how to make this work, how to build in some checks and balances (and also recruit moderators/project managers who get a cut of the transaction if the project is successful). Developers get paid to develop. Users have a single place to request features. The site acts as a neutral third party, to both ensure the developers get paid, and the users don’t pay if the feature never gets done.

That’s my vision of what’s necessary– I do need some people to help make it all work. If you’re interested, please drop me a line at john at freelock.com.

There are only a handful of projects I’ve donated too and it would be nice to have a model that allows you to be more specific with where your funds go, but you don’t have this model with charities, you send them money, and it could go directly to the cause or it could go into fuelling the planes to get there, or other office costs. Who knows?

I could see an open source project charging for access to a repository with pre-compiled packages. You pay to get in, and then you pay a monthly fee to stay in, with the understanding that updates will be published at least once a month (or whatever).

One thing we did beforehand was making a detailed plan for the things Lukas would do: mostly optimizing, but also usability work.

It’s my view that it’s better to spend money on improving, for example, the open source equivalents of VISIO and MS Office to bring the (missing from the point of view of the government department) features they need, rather than paying repeatedly for the software with no benefit for tax payers.

If my taxes payed to improve software which helped run my government, and in the process benefits me by providing that same software to me, as I’ve already paid for it’s development, then great. (What software have I received as a result of that billion pound deal the NHS did with Microsoft for example?)

repositories the way they are currently perceived do have that problem. But I don’t see why we could and should not try to change the repository front-ends to allow a financial feed-back channel to upstream. See my above post. I do really see a chance for repository-centric donation systems connected with upcoming software store approaches; as a big part of the infrastructure would be in place already then. Distributions could get a cut of the payment/donation for packaging and hosting.

It’s more a matter of will and sorting out the organisation. I think the successful implementation of such models is an absolutely central point in preserving the notion of ownership of free software amongst the growing group of non-hacker users that cannot so easily accomplish that via contributing to projects.

So let’s make that happen, folks. Or am I seeing this completely wrong?

Enthusiasticly, OolongBrothers

great to have you comment here. One thing that was on my mind already when listening to the FLOSS-Weekly episode with you and Jono was: Wouldn’t it be the most natural thing to have a donation system built into places like the Ubuntu Software Center? I could imagine that this would be a great place to raise awareness of FOSS project financing amongst users. It could be made dead easy to donate to any project using one account associated with the software management application. When distributions and software conservancies would work together on a system like this this could have a huge impact on the advancement of free software.

Of course I am looking at Canonical here, them spearheading the whole software store idea in Linux currently. It would be for their own best. E.g. perhaps also the best argument Canonical could make to win over the “nay-sayers” in the whole commercialisation discussion.

Cheers and greetings,

OolongBrothers

This forces distribution to occur mostly via repositories, which in turn pretty much rule out any kind of direct charge model.

Because:

“…people have a strong tendency to assume that software has both value characteristics of a typical manufactured good. But both these assumptions are demonstrably false.”

“…maintenance…makes up the vast majority (more than 75%) of what programmers get paid to do. Accordingly, most programmer hours are spent…writing or maintaining…code that has no sale value at all.”

“…the theory that the sale value of software is coupled with its development or replacement costs is even more easily demolished…the price a consumer will pay is effectively capped by the expected future value of vendor service“.

“…software is largely a service based industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry.”

• From The Cathedral and the Bazaar by E. S.Raymond.

Basically charging per sale for software is one of the worst problems with existing commercial software development. A subscription model is a far more accurate representation of the costs involved with producing software, and furthermore it has the critical bonus (particularly relevant to the Free Software world) of keeping user needs aligned with development priorities – something that it increasingly rare in traditional development systems.

Therefore the direct charging model is rightly unpopular, and especially so amongst FOSS users and developers.

The current subscription model provides the ideal interaction with users and development; with user needs and what is implemented. Paul has freedom to fix and add what best reflects the requirements of Ardour users, and everyone benefits (including companies who sell products reliant upon ardour) from this fact, and the nature of the code remaining GPLd.

As awareness of ardour increases, as it will exponentially (especially after v3 is released) the number of subscribers will also increase. The current annual sponsership method via paypal, which I have used for nearly a year, seems to be providing a good income despite the currently tiny number of Ardour users.

As more individuals, studios, schools and all sorts of other organisations use Ardour, I very much doubt that insufficient funds for Paul’s salary will be a problem in the near future.

The unreliable nature of the current donations system no doubt has problems for Paul, and cannot currently provide him with an ideal level of financial security. However, the situation is improving regarding awareness and uptake, and it really doesn’t seem worth risking subordinating project goals to the needs of a few commercial sponsers to get a small cut of their revenue streams to shore up project income at this critical stage in the project’s history.

Ardour is heading for ‘world domination’ of its market, and this will be a phenomenal benefit to all kinds of people in all sorts of ways. A subscriptions model of funding will provide Ardour with unparalleled freedom and focus to fulfill this role. Its current lack of commercial agreements is one of the projects’ greatest strengths, and I hope that this continues to be the case.

this ones certainly the difference between good dedicated support and a project falling off the rails.

i’m quite aware of the ardour project, and appreciate paul’s creative attempts to finance his development, he certainly sets an example to others running the same marathon.

ardour is however, effectively in a different league to many projects – it fills a hole required by many industries which at some point need to record and mix-down audio, and who often demand a high price for their services. professional DAW software is usually costly to begin with so the bar is already raised.

i think the task of raising revenue becomes more difficult as a software targets more niche areas of production – the same issues exist for proprietary software and successful products often demand high license fees.

drawing the interest to a concept beta, which might allude to a product, but only scratch the surface is very difficult, few people will see the potential to get it over the hump which might make the prototype actually useful. this kind of thing would usually be the product of someone tinkering, or the rare in-house development of a company prepared to let the r+d trickle out to the opensrc community (usually if their use for the product is fleeting or non-existent).

to get a project over the hump that comes from likely burnout of creative design and prototyping is something that really needs to be discussed. i feel that there are many great projects that have fallen prey to this slump, which don’t meet the expectations of the user or don’t find the developers whose imaginations might engage with the initial design.

i think this is why linux users haven’t seen a derivative to adobe packages like flash(authoring) and after effects – and to a greater extent, community development of a professional video/composting environment (cinelerra is by and large a one man operation and tends to suffer from this fact, blender is designed with 3D in mind and comes from proprietary origins).

one thing i think paul davis does exceptionally well is communicate directly to his users, and explain the difficulties of their demands, contrary to this i think the ‘bounty model’, might be failing for lack of transparent communication, users need to be made aware of the overhead costs in time and money of their feature requests before the notion of donation is pushed. i think this would allow the developers to be able to survey better what users are expecting and how they wish to work, and users would see what the development costs of a said feature would be and then perhaps reprioritise their demands. a good system that encourages users to help sculpt the tools they are helping to pay for would surely be twice the incentive to contribute money and ideas. (is this an open-src project in itself?/are there successful open-src marketing/distribution models?)

i really want to see ideas put back on the map, innovation is the key to new approaches to computing, and we in the opensrc community should be contributing far more to the perceived status-quo, there are many liberating factors to not having a company agenda, and new radical ideas should be an outcome. as a long time user of linux for mulitimedia its been refreshing to see so much autonomy in some excellent fringe products, i really hope that we can find a revenue model that matches this ideology and competes against (or challenges) greater powers.

on closing, i just want to mention amazons quite horrendous global contributor workforce, the mechanical turk, which is almost inside out to the opensrc software model – getting users to participate in menial tasks for a pittance (mostly to alleviate boredom). what it does do well is distribute resources, perhaps there is something to be learned?

dmotd (dmotd at gee em ex dot net)