I am a freelance developer and added footnote to my invoices explaining I donate 1% of the amount to an open-source project used for the assignment. I ask them to propose the projects they prefer but almost no one does.
My assumption would be that the people handling invoices are just not involved in that kind of stuff. At least when you're dealing with 'bigger' clients with their own billing departments.
I really like the idea but maybe talk to your direct point of contact at the client instead?
I donate about $150 to Canonical any time I download Ubuntu - but I'm pretty sure this is a flawed approach.
After all, if I install a package, which depends on something which depends on something which depends on a library for left-padding strings, it's unlikely the library author sees a cent. And each of those levels doesn't just have developers - they have package maintainers, people doing bug triage, people maintaining test infrastructure - and the tools those people use.
Unfortunately I think this would be very difficult to resolve - as the problem of fairly distributing donations would have a very large political element.
Canonical themselves are only developing a tiny fraction of even their default suite of software anyway.
If you want to contribute to open source software in general, Software in the Public Interest is probably the best general fund to stick your money in, since they provide financial support to several distributions, LibreOffice, FFmpeg, Postgres, Xorg, etc.
Also, set your amazon smile donations to go to them, since they are a non-profit!
There's no indication in the questionnaire of who is actually running it, what is being done with the data, whether results will be published and where, etc. Does anyone have more info? Right now, this just looks like a black hole.
I really think there's an opportunity to make it easier for companies (large and small) to pay for work on open source projects. The complexities I see (as someone who has done it often):
* Knowing who (as an individual or an organization) you can give money to to reliably perform the work. So working out a way of managing this would be huge e.g. I want a feature added to Postgres, who the hell do I speak to? Are they reliable? Is their contribution likely to be accepted upstream?
* The tax/employment logistics can be painful, an intermediary could make that simpler. For large contributions you often have to support multiple people, and this becomes logistical complex VERY easily
* A lot of folks who make their living being supported to work on open source are scornful or outright malevolent towards the things that corps need (e.g. invoicing, statement of work, liability protection)
I made a one-off donation of $150 and now Patreon $20/month to Ondrej Sury(.org) (who does php/apache packaging for Debian & Ubuntu) which I use for a web hosting business.
I also Patreon to Jon Oxer for superhouse.tv (mainly for his YouTube videos) he's quite involved around various open hardware projects and open source in Australia - maybe not quitenyour traditional definition.
There is one thing I'm not sure anyone has talked about yet. When a corp entity 'donates' or provides funding for a specific feature, they will usually want a timeline for the completion of it. I personally feel there is a distinction between being 'paid' for a feature, and 'funding' a feature. Where the funding route is still in spirit of the project. Sadly it seems that a lot of open source projects even if used widely are still powered by 'spirit' rather than anything else.
Apart from having a framework/service for funding open source projects, we need about the people who develop the dependencies used in those projects.
Project maintainers should have the ability to 'forward' part of the received donation to other projects - without which the project wouldn't have been possible.
Which contributors, which dependency and how much to share - these questions are best answered by the project maintainer(s) - they can forward zero or all the funds and make the process automatic, so when a donation is received, the system automatically redistributes it to other accounts, as configured by the maintainer.
For example, it's possible to gather some metrics of the usage of libraries from a running process (with strace, google perftools, source maps in javascript...).
It can be a process used by a real user or autotests from the project.
A software could monitor those probes and allow the user to reward the dependencies that:
Weird the title changed from "ask hn: do you" to "open-source funding/suppor questionnaire"? And didn't notice the link before but I guess it was there.
The questionnaire seems to be missing "desktop (GUI) apps" and probably "mobile apps" in "What you'd pay for?" section.
Also, the "time/effort" was weird for me; I don't feel it matches "funding" which sounds like money to me — or I didn't understand what it's intended to mean.
Some general thoughts:
On a related note, personally I don't like paying until I tried an app. But then OSS apps often ask for payment only just before/after downloading. I think a deferred approach is one of the reasons which helped me pay (donate) for the single OSS app for which I've done so yet: Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/). While the main reason was that it really struck me that it's an awesome, polished and easy to use app (especially for non-technical users in my family) while I was downloading it to n-th computer one day, it also shows some non-obtrusive but visible encouragement in its GUI (a big heart icon — feels encouraging, not nagging) reminding to consider donation.
From other somewhat interesting approaches, Aseprite (https://www.aseprite.org/) is actually GPL IIUC, but it provides the binary only with payment — thus more convenient (esp. for non-technical users, who I assume are majority of the targeted users group, i.e. artists) — although you can still just download and compile the sources for free. I'm very curious to what extent it's actually working for the author!
Moreover, I felt quite nice about itch.io's (http://itch.io/) approach, where a publisher can pick a "payment-optional" model. But as written above, I'd prefer to be gently reminded in-game from time to time (@leafo? whaddya think? feature idea for Refinery?). Also, I didn't really find a good enough game for me on itch yet, for which I'd feel like paying, unfortunately.
Finally, I think it'd be easy for me to pay for OSS games (dunno about other apps?) which would be parts of a bundle (ideally on gog.com; maybe Humble Bundle too, but as much as it started the bundles trend in awesome way, I feel it's fallen in quality and open-ness for me at some point in the past). I'm already paying for bundles, so if an OSS game got in there, I probably wouldn't even notice I can have it for free (nor I would complain later if I noticed, I believe). Though if it'd be explicit, I think I'd pay anyway (custom? convenience?).
P.S. Now that I think of it, seems what I describe here is kinda variation of "in-game/in-app purchases". Hm, maybe they could be also linked to some specially tricky features of an app, e.g. using some feature would also display non-obtrusive info "this feature was really tricky/took much love to implement/and is unique on market — a donation as act of gratitude would be an awesome gesture of appreciation!" obviously with an easy link.
Also, I think receiving a code enabling personalized label/annotation "Paid for by $DONATING_USER" could be a really cool bonus touch.
+1 to "desktop (GUI) apps". I've been maintaining one project since 2009 and from what I've seen, it's pretty rare for desktop applications to receive proper funding. They're generally not a great target for corporate funding and they often end up being very incomplete as developers run out of spare/interested time. It doesn't help that for the GUI side of desktop applications there can be a huge amount of time spent on trying to get the UI/UX right.
I've even tried to fund some work on the open source application I maintain, but I haven't been able to get anywhere close to minimum wage for it. Other open source applications in the same space seem to have the same issues with crowdfunding.
A while ago I did a concept study called http://opensourcebay.io to create a marketplace for open source services. This approach in my mind provides the most viability for maintainers/service providers and for people who inevitably need services/training/features. Unfortunately I did not have the initial traction nor the resources to continue on this path.
[+] [-] cimm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lars_francke|9 years ago|reply
I really like the idea but maybe talk to your direct point of contact at the client instead?
[+] [-] williamdclt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelt|9 years ago|reply
After all, if I install a package, which depends on something which depends on something which depends on a library for left-padding strings, it's unlikely the library author sees a cent. And each of those levels doesn't just have developers - they have package maintainers, people doing bug triage, people maintaining test infrastructure - and the tools those people use.
Unfortunately I think this would be very difficult to resolve - as the problem of fairly distributing donations would have a very large political element.
[+] [-] zanny|9 years ago|reply
If you want to contribute to open source software in general, Software in the Public Interest is probably the best general fund to stick your money in, since they provide financial support to several distributions, LibreOffice, FFmpeg, Postgres, Xorg, etc.
Also, set your amazon smile donations to go to them, since they are a non-profit!
[+] [-] pjmlp|9 years ago|reply
But I also agree, if those authors don't get a regular stream of income, it is very hard to make a living, specially from native desktop applications.
Very few home users care for books or trainings.
[+] [-] jldugger|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willnorris|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaspm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Joe8Bit|9 years ago|reply
* Knowing who (as an individual or an organization) you can give money to to reliably perform the work. So working out a way of managing this would be huge e.g. I want a feature added to Postgres, who the hell do I speak to? Are they reliable? Is their contribution likely to be accepted upstream?
* The tax/employment logistics can be painful, an intermediary could make that simpler. For large contributions you often have to support multiple people, and this becomes logistical complex VERY easily
* A lot of folks who make their living being supported to work on open source are scornful or outright malevolent towards the things that corps need (e.g. invoicing, statement of work, liability protection)
[+] [-] BuuQu9hu|9 years ago|reply
https://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_support/
Debian has a list of consultants, many of them are Debian developers:
https://www.debian.org/consultants/
In addition there are a bunch of general and specialised open source consultancies, some examples:
http://www.credativ.us/ https://www.igalia.com/ http://collabora.com/ http://codethink.co.uk/ http://catalyst.co.nz/ http://www.sysmocom.de/ https://www.savoirfairelinux.com/
[+] [-] whit537|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whit537|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lathiat|9 years ago|reply
I also Patreon to Jon Oxer for superhouse.tv (mainly for his YouTube videos) he's quite involved around various open hardware projects and open source in Australia - maybe not quitenyour traditional definition.
[+] [-] whit537|9 years ago|reply
https://gratipay.news/gratitude-gratipay-ef24ad5e41f9
[+] [-] jjm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delegate|9 years ago|reply
Project maintainers should have the ability to 'forward' part of the received donation to other projects - without which the project wouldn't have been possible.
Which contributors, which dependency and how much to share - these questions are best answered by the project maintainer(s) - they can forward zero or all the funds and make the process automatic, so when a donation is received, the system automatically redistributes it to other accounts, as configured by the maintainer.
I've worked on a design spec for such a system some time ago: https://github.com/boomhub/design
I'd gladly resume work on it if anyone else feels like this is the good way to go. Just start by creating an Issue :).
[+] [-] vmorgulis|9 years ago|reply
For example, it's possible to gather some metrics of the usage of libraries from a running process (with strace, google perftools, source maps in javascript...).
It can be a process used by a real user or autotests from the project.
A software could monitor those probes and allow the user to reward the dependencies that:
- use less CPU or energy
- use less memory
- contains less bugs
- ...
[+] [-] Midiv0k|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whit537|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brilliantcode|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fundamental|9 years ago|reply
If it's another crowdfunding website what makes it different and more likely to succeed compared to others?
[+] [-] lathiat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akavel|9 years ago|reply
The questionnaire seems to be missing "desktop (GUI) apps" and probably "mobile apps" in "What you'd pay for?" section.
Also, the "time/effort" was weird for me; I don't feel it matches "funding" which sounds like money to me — or I didn't understand what it's intended to mean.
Some general thoughts:
On a related note, personally I don't like paying until I tried an app. But then OSS apps often ask for payment only just before/after downloading. I think a deferred approach is one of the reasons which helped me pay (donate) for the single OSS app for which I've done so yet: Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/). While the main reason was that it really struck me that it's an awesome, polished and easy to use app (especially for non-technical users in my family) while I was downloading it to n-th computer one day, it also shows some non-obtrusive but visible encouragement in its GUI (a big heart icon — feels encouraging, not nagging) reminding to consider donation.
From other somewhat interesting approaches, Aseprite (https://www.aseprite.org/) is actually GPL IIUC, but it provides the binary only with payment — thus more convenient (esp. for non-technical users, who I assume are majority of the targeted users group, i.e. artists) — although you can still just download and compile the sources for free. I'm very curious to what extent it's actually working for the author!
Moreover, I felt quite nice about itch.io's (http://itch.io/) approach, where a publisher can pick a "payment-optional" model. But as written above, I'd prefer to be gently reminded in-game from time to time (@leafo? whaddya think? feature idea for Refinery?). Also, I didn't really find a good enough game for me on itch yet, for which I'd feel like paying, unfortunately.
Finally, I think it'd be easy for me to pay for OSS games (dunno about other apps?) which would be parts of a bundle (ideally on gog.com; maybe Humble Bundle too, but as much as it started the bundles trend in awesome way, I feel it's fallen in quality and open-ness for me at some point in the past). I'm already paying for bundles, so if an OSS game got in there, I probably wouldn't even notice I can have it for free (nor I would complain later if I noticed, I believe). Though if it'd be explicit, I think I'd pay anyway (custom? convenience?).
P.S. Now that I think of it, seems what I describe here is kinda variation of "in-game/in-app purchases". Hm, maybe they could be also linked to some specially tricky features of an app, e.g. using some feature would also display non-obtrusive info "this feature was really tricky/took much love to implement/and is unique on market — a donation as act of gratitude would be an awesome gesture of appreciation!" obviously with an easy link.
Also, I think receiving a code enabling personalized label/annotation "Paid for by $DONATING_USER" could be a really cool bonus touch.
[+] [-] fundamental|9 years ago|reply
I've even tried to fund some work on the open source application I maintain, but I haven't been able to get anywhere close to minimum wage for it. Other open source applications in the same space seem to have the same issues with crowdfunding.
[+] [-] mack1001|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mack1001|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BuuQu9hu|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] whit537|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] froztbyte|9 years ago|reply
I didn't find enough relevant data out there, so I decided to get some.
[+] [-] froztbyte|9 years ago|reply