
A handy guide to financial support for open source - craigkerstiens
https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand
======
dessant
I have a couple of browser extensions, one of them acquired 15k new users in
the past two weeks and it is still trending on Firefox Add-ons, yet donation
links are rarely clicked, and I haven't received any contributions.

The effectiveness of asking for donations can vary a lot, and in my experience
it is not sustainable at all, unless your project is wildly popular, or it
supports the needs of an affluent and passionate user base.

~~~
unabst
I'm not everyone, but many probably feel how I feel about browser extensions.
The browser is free, and so are their extensions...

I'm fairly certain that upselling is the best approach to monetizing browser
extensions... Provide a freemium service, and have paid features. Much like
apps I guess.

But you really have to be providing a service. So it's more like the browser
extension or app is just another marketing channel.

Lastpass is a good example. Distill Web Monitor is another. I believe the
latter was acquired to be monetized.

------
rplnt
Side question about the "core" approach. Can your core be *GPL (in case it
needs/ships with GPL libraries/tools) while some "plugins/modules" would be
closed source?

Let's say you have an IRC client that is GPL (because you want to use grep for
example), but it's only a service with an API. You then make closed front-end
that utilizes it. Or other way, there would be a closed tool that the client
can use (e.g. auto reply module).

~~~
user5994461
The short version is no.

The long version is that it is unclear whether it's possible or not and it
will vary depending on what integrates with what and how. GPL is a nightmare.

Note there is a strong and justified barrage against GPL components in the
enterprise world. Assuming you are doing a "core" model because you intend to
sell it, that might be a problem.

~~~
smichel17
I'd like to bring a bit of perspective to "GPL is a nightmare [because you
cannot create proprietary derivatives]." That's the point of the GPL: to
ensure that the code remains open rather than, for example, killed by
'embrace, extend, extinguish'[1].

The GPL is a user-focused license. It sacrifices some freedom for developers
(the ability to produce proprietary derivatives) in order to safeguard other
freedoms[4] for users.

Whether that's a good trade-off is a matter of opinion, not a universal
consensus as the parent comment might lead you to believe.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

[4]: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

~~~
zaarn
The GPL is a nightmare for Legal. Compliance can be difficult for larger
corporations and as such expensive. Thusly corporations will avoid it in favor
of licenses which aren't complicated. This goes doubly for the AGPL.

In addition to that and as a side note; The GPL does not protect against EEE,
only against EEE through a fork of the source code. No license can do anything
about EEE through standards.

------
scottmotte
I'm pioneering a futuristic alternative. The user donates their CPU cycles ->
to generate hashes -> to mine crypto currency on behalf of the open source
project.

[http://opensourcecitizen.org](http://opensourcecitizen.org)

If you need a way to accept donations worldwide - without a merchant account
and without the donor even needing a credit card or bank account - it might be
worth a look.

------
zokeia
A good approach would be to license your work under GPL3/AGPL3 and charge a
fee for a commercial license.

~~~
zaarn
That approach only really works if you have sufficient adoption in
enterprise/commercial.

Doesn't really work if you target the hobbyist market, which will simply not
bother with the commercial license.

~~~
crdoconnor
>Doesn't really work if you target the hobbyist market

The hobbyist market isn't typically a great place to make money from anyway.

~~~
zaarn
Yes. But making any money is preferable to making no money from your OSS
project, no?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
It really depends. Sometimes the money is not compensated by the support
"fun".

~~~
zaarn
There is no support "fun", atleast not from my side. I do not feel like anyone
is entitled to me supporting the application unless I am specifically paid for
that. If I see such comments they will get removed and the offender banned
very quickly.

------
rplnt
One more I don't think is covered, a trademarked product. You sell your GPL'd
product, you deliver sources as is required, but only those who paid can build
full functional product because it includes components that you can't
redistribute (logos, etc).

Probably only works for very complex software, or software where non-code
assets would be important (a game).

If I am not mistaken this is what RedHat does with RHEL.

~~~
bluGill
Most open source projects taking that path have eventually been forked when
someone created new assets under a free (as in beer) license and changed the
name. The original project is now nothing while the fork is big.

RHEL continues not because of assets but because Red Hat has people who staff
who know the ins and outs of RHEL and will fix it. Red Hat employs many kernel
developers because when a customer has a problem the customer knows an expert
will get on the problem right away. The guy they talk to on the phone is
useful, and can solve the vast majority of problems (as could any well trained
system admin), but when you get to those rare special cases Red Hat is better
able to handle them quick.

------
zaarn
Liberapay should probably be mentioned instead of gratipay since IIRC gratipay
is shutting down.

~~~
jelv
Liberapay is a fork of Gratipay and growing steady
[https://liberapay.com/about/stats](https://liberapay.com/about/stats).
Biggest projects on Liberapay are Mastodon
[https://liberapay.com/Mastodon/](https://liberapay.com/Mastodon/) and Matrix
[https://liberapay.com/matrixdotorg/](https://liberapay.com/matrixdotorg/)

------
pablanopete
Nice list! Adding [https://openbounty.status.im](https://openbounty.status.im)
to the #bounties section. Just pledged 1M to OSS development.

------
amelius
It would be nice if some example grant application letters could be included.

By the way, this guide could include a donation button serving as an example
:)

------
cavneb
True sustainable, scalable funding for open source will never come from
donations. It must be approached as a marketing win for companies. This is the
only way they can (and will) scale their funding paving the path for true
financial sustainability.

------
cdancette
Is it hard for an individual to get a non negligible revenue on platforms like
patreon?

~~~
fastball
Really depends on what you're making and who your base is.

I've seen some Patreon projects that pull down £16k a month.

------
xchaotic
"I do open source work, how do I find funding?"

Shouldn't the question be - I am doing a project - is open source a
sustainable way of keeping it alive?

~~~
ekianjo
you could have philoshophical motivations to prefer open source so the context
is valid if you start from there.

------
s73ver_
I feel that, if you're going to put a bunch of work into setting up donations
and bugging people to get them to donate and all that, just charge for your
work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with charging for your time, or with
asking for what you believe your labor is worth.

------
nwatson
Sales people get paid largely on commission for "transactions" ... it should
be possible for open or closed source software developers to be paid this way
as well.

There should be an option that pays open- (or closed-) source software
developers for business value derived, where metrics (representing aspects of
"remunerable transactions") from developed software use are gathered, and the
company using the software pays based on some formula related to those
metrics. The classic way to do this of course is to provide the software via
some metered and billed SaaS API (users pay monthly base + tiered charges per
network I/O, storage, CPU-hour, document-processed, etc., or a combination
thereof), but that can have adverse performance impacts and can introduce
larger integration headaches.

In an ideal setup, the "contractor" adapting and deploying the open- (or
closed-) source software for a particular company's use also gets a cut of the
fees, just like the originators of the software.

This structure would be ideal for smaller companies that can't afford or might
not want to pay the full up-front cost for the development and/or
configuration and/or deployment of software they need ...

* these companies don't have a lot of money to spend, but independent developers might be willing to develop (permanently- or temporarily-)closed-source software for the companies' use cases ... and to get their compensation based mostly on a "commission structure"

* the company needs might be already satisfied by existing open-source software, but the company may not have expertise in configuring, adapting, and deploying the software -- in this case the deploying expert would hopefully share their fees with the open source software originators

* agreements could sunset the "acquiring" company's exclusive use of this software so the developers can start selling the software elsewhere as closed- or open-source software

There are surely many complications to a model like this, and perhaps can
easily work only in a "high-trust" environment ... but it lets developers with
a tolerance for risk avoid the illiquid equity trap of stock compensation,
while letting companies build their service for less and issue less stock.
There are surely scenarios where this would be attractive to larger companies
as well.

I'm currently exploring starting a company that incorporates these concepts,
I'd appreciate some discussion if this interests you. (You can find
instructions to derive my email address from my profile.)

EDITS: minor clarifications

~~~
dboreham
I think you're vastly underestimating the difficulty getting people to pay for
stuff, especially stuff they can get for free.

