Comment Open Source Project to fund Open Source Projects? (Score 2, Insightful) 365
Here's a bit of an email exchange with Ton of the Free Blender Fund:
--- Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> > Any knowledge of such efforts out there?
>
> You mean of other projects getting open sourced this
> way?
> Nope, I guess it's the first. :)
>
> -Ton-
Sorry to bug you via email, as I know you may be a little busy with tasks right now ;) but I was thinking that the process you are going through now with the Free Blender project could be formalized as a software application similar to how SourceForge formalized open source development, or maybe even as an added feature of SourceForge.
Donators want to know that their donations are going to a good cause and are being used properly and honestly. The Free Blender site convinced me that it was a good cause and that it was run by honest people who meant well. Also, I assumed the financial records are open to peer review, so I felt safe in donating funds.
For specific, well-defined causes such as the Free Blender project, it was easy to see how my donating a few bucks, along with thousands of others doing the same, accomplishes a good thing. There are many other good open source projects out there that could really benefit from a similar funding model.
Any thoughts?
I'm going to post this to the relevant /. discussion.
More thoughts:
The free and open source software communities can take advantage of the scale of the communities to easily fund worthy projects. Though I can't always help directly with development for interesting projects, I can easily spare $5 for a good cause.
Anyone else out there thinking along the same lines?
--- Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> > Any knowledge of such efforts out there?
>
> You mean of other projects getting open sourced this
> way?
> Nope, I guess it's the first.
>
> -Ton-
Sorry to bug you via email, as I know you may be a little busy with tasks right now
Donators want to know that their donations are going to a good cause and are being used properly and honestly. The Free Blender site convinced me that it was a good cause and that it was run by honest people who meant well. Also, I assumed the financial records are open to peer review, so I felt safe in donating funds.
For specific, well-defined causes such as the Free Blender project, it was easy to see how my donating a few bucks, along with thousands of others doing the same, accomplishes a good thing. There are many other good open source projects out there that could really benefit from a similar funding model.
Any thoughts?
I'm going to post this to the relevant
More thoughts:
The free and open source software communities can take advantage of the scale of the communities to easily fund worthy projects. Though I can't always help directly with development for interesting projects, I can easily spare $5 for a good cause.
Anyone else out there thinking along the same lines?
