Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Tom]

Looks like somebody took the initiatve and created a site
for that:

"We love open source, but sometimes, development goes slower than we
would like it to. We want to help improve that. We'll tell you how."

Click the arrow on the right side to see how it works:

http://www.freedomsponsors.com/

Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Lennart Borgman]

On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> wrote:
> Looks like somebody took the initiatve and created a site
> for that:
>
> "We love open source, but sometimes, development goes slower than we
> would like it to. We want to help improve that. We'll tell you how."
>
> Click the arrow on the right side to see how it works:
>
> http://www.freedomsponsors.com/

My impression is that users would be willing to pay for quick fixes
that way, but not for complicated development. If I am correct, what
would that mean for long term goals?

Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[immanuel litzroth]

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I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to pay for long term stuff,
especially if
they get to set the amount and don't have to pay until that is fully
delivered...
Hell, here is 10$ towards full usable C++ code browsing support in emacs...
Immanuel


On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 12:24 PM, Lennart Borgman
<lennart.borgman@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Looks like somebody took the initiatve and created a site
> > for that:
> >
> > "We love open source, but sometimes, development goes slower than we
> > would like it to. We want to help improve that. We'll tell you how."
> >
> > Click the arrow on the right side to see how it works:
> >
> > http://www.freedomsponsors.com/
>
> My impression is that users would be willing to pay for quick fixes
> that way, but not for complicated development. If I am correct, what
> would that mean for long term goals?
>
>

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Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Tom]

immanuel litzroth <ilitzroth <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
> I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to pay for long term
> stuff, especially if  they get to set the amount and don't have
> to pay until that is fully delivered...  Hell, here is 10$
> towards full usable C++ code browsing support in emacs...
> Immanuel

I agree. Many people would pay for features, so they can use Emacs instead
of other tools which have those features which Emacs currently lacks.

And even small contributions can add up if it's a feature which is 
wanted by lots of users (better Java/C++ support, for example),
 so that lots of people donates to have that feature.

Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Lennart Borgman]

On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> wrote:
> immanuel litzroth <ilitzroth <at> gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to pay for long term
>> stuff, especially if  they get to set the amount and don't have
>> to pay until that is fully delivered...  Hell, here is 10$
>> towards full usable C++ code browsing support in emacs...
>> Immanuel
>
> I agree. Many people would pay for features, so they can use Emacs instead
> of other tools which have those features which Emacs currently lacks.
>
> And even small contributions can add up if it's a feature which is
> wanted by lots of users (better Java/C++ support, for example),
>  so that lots of people donates to have that feature.

Who is going to decide which features it is possible to donate to?

Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Tom]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman <at> gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > And even small contributions can add up if it's a feature which is
> > wanted by lots of users (better Java/C++ support, for example),
> >  so that lots of people donates to have that feature.
> 
> Who is going to decide which features it is possible to donate to?
> 

Why should anyone decide? Who decides what packages one can develop
for Emacs? One of the main strength of Emacs is people can develop
new features for it without having to get them accepted into the
official sources. There are popular packages that are maintained 
outside of the official tree.

So donating for a feature does not mean it will necessarily be 
implemented by a member of the core team. Anyone can implement
it, so there is no need for official blessing for features.
The only thing needed is getting enough people behind the 
feature, so it collects enough donations that someone takes up
the job.

An official wishlist would be useful, though, so that there is
a single place where emacs users can submit their wishes and
see what wishes others submitted. This wishlist may need some
kind of moderation, but this moderation should only cover
merging duplicate wishes and stuff, pre-approval should not
be a requirement for a wish to get into the wishlist.

Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Lennart Borgman writes:

 > My impression is that users would be willing to pay for quick fixes
 > that way, but not for complicated development. If I am correct, what
 > would that mean for long term goals?

Look up the history of cosource.com and sourceXchange.  It's not very
encouraging.

That's not to say that there are not ways to achieve these goals, but
I think that there are good reasons to suppose that direct
micropayments from users to developers are sufficient incentive, even
if the technology for making those payments has improved since
cosource and sXc.