If an open source projects intention is to make money, they should be up front about it.
I’m no fan of open source authors who whine about not having enough money donated to them. If it’s open source it about being free. I hate hidden intentions and innuendo.
Exactly. If money is your goal, then MAKE it your goal. I really dislike the trick where projects start open and suddenly switch to closed-source ($) when a bunch of people have adopted their code. But it happens all the time…
widespread acceptence of a donation-based approach to funding open source projects
I’m not sure there is such a model. There’s certainly the Community Server model, but as Phil points out, that’s not really “Open Source”, it’s “Source Available”.
That’s the reason YOU USE open source
It’s the reason everyone uses open source, and software in general. The creators and key participants may have different goals, but it really doesn’t matter the until needs of the audience are satisfied (or, I suppose, if the only audience is yourself). As you point out, if nobody uses it, who cares? So you have to get past that bar before any of this is relevant.
It’s not THAT hard to contribute a PATCH file when the project includes the source or a debug build includes PDBs. I’ve contributed fixes to a half dozen projects in the last year or so. Projects I didn’t pay for, but projects I needed to get the job done - and bugs I needed fixed.
Fine. Create a new blog entry. Walk us through, step by step, the process for contributing a fix to DasBlog. List EVERY step, starting with finding a bug.
I think if everyone lived by the “just use it, don’t contribute back” rule, open-source as a movement would be long-dead now.
My point is that 99.9 percent of people can live by that rule, and projects can still thrive. I’m not prohibiting people from participating if they want to, but the true economies of scale come from dominance in the market-- heavy usage and standardization.
Maybe it’s a chicken and egg problem, but usage numbers will drive up that 0.01 percent number as well.
I’ve said this a few places, but it all comes down to communication. Just read these comments or a forum on GPLv3, and you’ll find the term ‘Open Source’ is not well defined. Some people are in it for money, some for glory. Some people want help, some people refuse help. The best approach is to clearly state your intentions.
It was lack of communication that killed NDoc. Consider that there is still no ‘official’ word on NDoc’s death- only an email posted to other peoples’ blogs. It’s been the same since Feb. of this year, and largely before. I’m positive if Kevin had come out on the website and clearly stated what the plans were for 2.0 and what he needed to get it done, we’d have NDoc 2.0 now.
If an open source projects intention is to
make money, they should be up front about it.
I’m no fan of open source authors who whine
about not having enough money donated to them.
Exactly. If money is your goal, then MAKE it
your goal.
Listen, if I started a homeless project to feed and clothe the homeless, money is not my goal. But should I be labelled a whiner if I ask people to contribute money to the project. Hey, you all benefit from having cleaner nicer smelling homeless people around.
There are real monetary costs and what is wrong with asking for help?
Although I am starting to understand the issue with the NDoc situation. I wasn’t involved, so I don’t know the details, but it seems like many are saying that the complaints concerning donations came after the fact. If that is true, and there were no requests for donations before the fact, then I can some of the frustration.
But I see nothing wrong with asking for contributions for a free project.
hmm… i dont understand what you’re getting at. You’re trying to say that opensource software is supposed to supply you with minimum effort?? that’s just stupid. If the “user”, as you describe him, wanted minimum effort software, then they would just buy it from the store to begin with.
Definitely. It’s almost pathological. Definitely not representative of your typical open source project.
There are real monetary costs and what is wrong with asking for help?
There’s a fine line between asking for help and begging for help. If your project is worthwhile, you shouldn’t need to BEG for help. The usefulness of the solution should speak for itself. The project should attract a large enough audience that the .01 percent factor will kick in, and you’ll have contributors.
And, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t change from open source to closed source and start charging people just because you can. See Dare’s comment on this here:
I have some bad news and some good news. RSS Bandit is built using user interface controls that are not provided by default by the .NET Framework to enhance it’s look and feel. A common practice among vendors of such user interface controls is to offer them for free to developers to gain mindshare and once these developers are ‘hooked on their product’ they withdraw the free version. This means that developers of applications that use these user interface controls will end up having to pay the vendors if they want to use newer versions of these controls. This has happened twice to me with RSS Bandit.
Yes, but it’s not the reason that Open Source projects exist.
Does an open source project really exist if nobody uses it?
If the “user”, as you describe him, wanted minimum effort software
Effort factoring in the cost of software. Maybe the truly lazy should be buying commercial software. Ironically, lazy people usually have more time than money, though.
What does the NDoc author expect? He releases a freeware opensource app and then complains that no one “donates” money to “support” the project?
Come on! This is the problem with opensource. People are convinced software should be free. Even the author of NDoc was apparently convinced it should be free, yet had the nerve to ask for donations and when he didn’t get any, shut the project down.
I tell ya what Jeff - it’s very much like raising a puppy. The thing you’re overlooking is the continual support you need to provide, as well as the overall development. I running the Commerce Starter Kit, I have had all kinds of ups/downs - very much akin to raising a puppy (and a rabbit, turtle, and some fish).
If your project is worthwhile, you shouldn’t need to BEG for help. The usefulness of the solution should speak for itself. The project should attract a large enough audience that the .01 percent factor will kick in, and you’ll have contributors.
Tell ya what Jeff - start your own OpenSource project and see if this is true. The line from the very beginning struck me about writing about something you know… and does this apply to you? Scott H runs DasBlog, I run CSK. I have close to 13,000 members in my community with well over 120,000 downloads since November 2005. We average 100 new members a day. I have received 8 donations.
Normally I like your ideas but this one is a bit off.
start your own OpenSource project and see if this is true.
I didn’t really get into it in the post because I didn’t want to come across as too negative. But since you asked, here’s my opinion on this:
People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.
(via Scrubs). Believe me, any open source project I run would be managed with that expectation in mind.
I do agree with Phil (and mouser) that it’s the responsibility of the project owner to
make it easy for people to do the right things
set expectations early
communicate well with your users
… and that’s quite a bit of work. Maybe that’s why there are a hundred failed open source projects for every successful one. And only a handful of blockbusters.
I don’t know about anyone else, but what about contributing your own Open Source project? Maybe take another one already started and port it to another platform? I’ve been fiddling with a couple projects (none seem to have gone anywhere) and even am considering a .NET/Mono version of Azureus.
But, do I do it for money? No. Do I do it for fame? No. (Well, some notoriety would be cool) Would I like donations? Sure, but not required and won’t be asked for. Help in creating this puppy? You bet. Time to do this in a reasonable amount of time and feel that I am making a healthy contribution to the project I started? No. Will I still do it and hope that in 2-3 years I’ll have at least 1 other user than me? More than likely.
It’s about taking an idea and implementing it. Whether you do it for money, the kindness of your heart, to teach others, or just have fun, it’s about just implementing your idea. Making it happen. If you get what ever kind of satisfaction out of what you are doing, wasn’t it worth it?
You all have your opinions, and all of your opinions are very valid. Don’t think I am saying yours is wrong. I’ll just choose which parts I agree with and keep them to myself, unless you can glean mine from the above.
I’ll continue to use Open Source/Shareware/Closed Source/Freeware as long as I have a need for that application. I will pay for those that require payment for them to continue their use. I may even contribute where I feel there is a true need. But, I won’t cheat a programmer/developer out of what is fairly theirs. This stems from my childhood raising of “doing to others only what you would have done to you.”
Ok, that first paragraph didn’t make much sense upon rereading it again and again; here’s a refactoring:
I don’t know about anyone else, but when considering contributing something, why not contribute a plugin or tool to work along side or in the application? It may not be directly in the application’s source, but isn’t that a contribution? What about porting to another platform or framework? I’ve been fiddling with a couple projects (none seem to have gone anywhere) and even am considering a .NET/Mono version of Azureus. I’m not a big fan of Java and think that some of the regular end users that use apps such as Azureus either: don’t like Java or don’t know just what the hell Java is other than coffee. My considerations for this porting are also taking into account copyrights. Yes, I would release the application under the same license (it’s a derivative) and include the original copyrights right along with mine. This would give the orginal author credit for having done it before, just a little different. What have I contributed? Another version of the same application on a different platform/framework. Who knows, it may become just as popular. If it is started/finished.
Sorry for the extra “rant.”
Jeff,
“People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling”
is a rather pessimistic outlook on how people are. Most of the people in the Open Source community are actually not that bad. Just busy.
People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.
Ahh Jeff, you have way with word… I haven’t laughed that hard in a while…
They are all bastards but the trick is that occassionally you get one gem in there that pushes your project to new levels. I’ve been lucky to find 3 of them (J Sawyer, Mark Schiavetta, and Chris Cyvas). But it took a lot of time working with them to know this :)
All of this said - I didn’t fool myself when we started; I knew we needed to get to the money point and soon. There are many models out there - the “Add-on” model (OsCommerce), the upgrade/version model (used by MySQL and CommerceServer even tho it’s arguable that CS is OpenSource - more “SharedSource” as Rob H calls it), and the consultant/benefactor model that Shaun W is using with DNN.
It would be interesting to read one of your Blog Studies on the economics of OpenSource and why it fails (and conversely how it can succeed). That could be your service to the OS community tell us how to stay in business!
In terms of
It’s about taking an idea and implementing it. Whether you do it for money, the kindness of your heart, to teach others, or just have fun, it’s about just implementing your idea. Making it happen. If you get what ever kind of satisfaction out of what you are doing, wasn’t it worth it?
John your point is valid. It’s why we want to keep doing this and the cold reality sucks hard when things like NDoc shut down because the well ran dry. I’m sure it was worth it for them to do NDoc, but now we all lose cause it’s gone.
I’ve been fiddling with a couple projects
When the fiddling becomes heavy orchestration (ie when your project takes off) it’s a whole new ballgame. At that point it’s not whether you’re doing it for money or not - it’s a question of survival and paying the rent as the time curve gets steeper.
I agree, at least about how money is a bad way to contribute to an opensource project, but I disagree that code is the only way to contribute. There are other things that need doing in open source, writing documentation is an obvious one. I’d say that more ppl have the capability to do that then can code.
Jeff, I wonder if part of the negative reaction that you and some others are having to this asking-for-donations thing, is the impression that the project moves into a kind of ransomware status which is always on the verge of shutting down and holding users hostage.
I talked about this a bit in my article, and why software development requires a very different approach to asking for donations, compared to something like PBS:
"… Furthermore, while you may be tempted to tell your users that if they don’t donate you won’t be able to continue coding, this is probably a very bad idea for a software developer. It’s not like a public broadcasting station, where there is no penalty for a watcher to start watching a show and then have the show go off the air. In such a scenario, predicting doom unless enough donations are received may be a viable incentive and threat. For software, if the visitors to your site get the feeling that you may stop work on and support of the software if you don’t raise enough money, that alone may be enough to scare them away.
Users don’t want to invest their time and effort learning to use your software and become dependent upon it only to have it dissapear. Because of this, you really need to adopt a somewhat unusual approach, and make a contract with your users: You will be there for them, through thick and thin, and in return you ask for some monetary support. If you can’t make a promise to support the software no matter what, then you can’t expect your users to donate, do beta testing, and file bug reports, and then risk finding themselves left out to dry because there aren’t enough people supporting you. You need to set a baseline of support you are willing to guarantee no matter what - and then you can offer further incentives for donating beyond that…"
Chris - I based that statement on looking at code at http://ndoc.cvs.sourceforge.net/ndoc/ndoc/ that doesn’t look that old. Some things are 3-4 months old, including 2.0 changes. What am I missing?
Either way, I do hope that the next developers release more frequently.
