Sweet. microPledge solves two problems of these problems:
1) The pay-half-now-half-later thing is solved by our staged releases. The developer can say "I'm 50% done, can I please have half my pledge money?" And he'll get half his money if the pledgers are okay with his progress (if they're not, he might only get a portion of his money till they are happy).
2) The share-the-burden thing -- especially if you're talking big pledges. You could have your $10,000 split across 5 people/companies (or more, of course).
The Credibility Thing is a good point, and something we're very conscious of. We're going to be very open about who we are and where we live. And (very soon) we're also going to look into getting our money flow audited annually by a company like Grant Thornton.
P.S. Just wondering if you have a contact email/website somewhere? Didn't see one on your profile page.
I think it's a good idea for the developer to get some money upfront. A developer might take time off their day job to complete the project. They're more likely to do that with some cash in hand. Perhaps that's solvable by them saying "I'm 1% done, please send half the pledge".
I'm just a developer/sysadmin guy who frequently has the task of spending money on behalf of the companies I work for, usually on contract. Occasionally the best available option is to sponsor development. In my case I've basically dealt with the open source developer as a private sub-contractor.
Which actually brings up an interesting point. For various reasons some companies won't want others to know they're sponsoring outside development. You should consider giving sponsors the option of having their pledge remain non-public. Maybe even anonymous to the developer, which is an interesting thought.
1) The pay-half-now-half-later thing is solved by our staged releases. The developer can say "I'm 50% done, can I please have half my pledge money?" And he'll get half his money if the pledgers are okay with his progress (if they're not, he might only get a portion of his money till they are happy).
2) The share-the-burden thing -- especially if you're talking big pledges. You could have your $10,000 split across 5 people/companies (or more, of course).
The Credibility Thing is a good point, and something we're very conscious of. We're going to be very open about who we are and where we live. And (very soon) we're also going to look into getting our money flow audited annually by a company like Grant Thornton.
P.S. Just wondering if you have a contact email/website somewhere? Didn't see one on your profile page.