this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
96 points (76.4% liked)
Open Source
31190 readers
238 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Fundraising is skill, and it needs to be learnt, I have looked at a fairly large chunk of open source project that are successfully funded and i think that is what sets them apart.
I think it is important that users should have a very clear understanding of how you are doing, if you need X money to keep doing this, there should be a pop up saying you need X money on the software and it should be very hard to miss on the website and read me.
Will some people not like that? probably but you can't please everyone and you shouldn't let a vocal minority determines how things happen.
What kind of industry or type of solution do those projects solve? That can be a big factor too.
At that point, you've become a business. So yeah, you need skill to fundraise.
I think opensource software should always be dual-license. One FOSS for personal use, and an aggressively limited license for commercial use.
Fuck the companies, they will always take and never give anything back. They won't give you money anyways, so might as well shut them down.
I mean if you want to live off your work, then of course you're a business.
Or if you want to get money without all the fundraising hassle, get a salaried job.
Basically you want to work in open source on whatever you want, not have to listen to users, not have to find funds, and still be paid for it?
If what you bring has an immense value, like nodejs where pretty much all the internet runs on it, you shouldn't have to scrap by or need fundraising skills.
or a non profit, and not surprising running a business or a non profit requires the skills to manage a business or a non profit, iirc the software freedom conservatory and maybe the SPI say the can help with fundraising, but you need to be modest and consider you might benefit from learning from other people.
That's just factually wrong, for example most of the contribution to the linux kernel are from companies, blender development fund is a good case study for this (see how much each corporate sponsors pays)
It was a hyperbole that companies never give back, but for every company that donates, how many don't?
If the companies would give back even a fraction of what they generate by using FOSS, then it would be viable for a lot more people to be a FOSS developer.
Very much. Thunderbird are receiving like 6M on donations. They simply know how to market and subtlety but assertively advertise their donation requests.