Finding Sponsors for an Open Source Project?

vertigo72 asks: "What's the best way to find sponsors for an open source project? Is there some people or foundations that give grants for the development of free software? We develop an open source (GPL) box office software: phpMyTicket. At our knowledge at the moment this is the only open source software of this kind. The program is in advanced beta stage and was already used in production environment by us and by other people. The program is rather complex and big: we support online ticket shop, box office with thermal printer and control at doors with barcode scanner. Smarty, PDF and email template engines are used. Paypal and some other gateways are supported. Now we want to continue and to add more professional features, but alas this requires more funding." "We tried to finance our development ourselves, but that didn't work. We tried support, installation and customization, and also a commercial license, but there are just not enough requests. We also had few donations (to the tune of around $50) via Sourceforge. Now, we searching for alternative solutions like sponsoring. Is there someone out there who can help us to keep the software free?"

Comments

Use fundable

[alien88]

If you know of a group of people who are interested in a feature, try using http://www.fundable.org/ to create a group action.

EG: You have 5 people interested, each person contributes $100, when all 5 people contribute the $100 then the money is unlocked and you can use that to finance the development of the feature.

Re:We really don't care for php applications

[joeldg]

am a python programmer here, but at work we use php, and can tell you from experience writing some monster sites, that php if done right, is just fine for high-end apps. usually your database is the bottleneck, not php.
python is great, but I really prefer php in it's natural environment, alongside apache.

Besides the usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides getting it posted on Slashdot, you can apply for grants from IBM's research division, and believe it or not MSR (Microsoft Research), so long as the project is able to be used by MS, and open source - e.g. BSD licensed. In the case of the latter, it has to specifically match their interests, whereas IBM are enthusiastic enough about open source to be far more liberal.

I've had one of my own projects funded as part of my PhD at MIT by IBM. I wouldn't want to let M$ funding anywhere near my code and my Gentoo Linux boxen though ;-)

Find possible clients then (client = sponsor)

[Spy der Mann]

This is, try to sell your development services to someone who needs the software you're developing. But instead of selling the software, sell the development and support. Of course you have to state that this is an open source project and that it won't be exclusive to them.

Re:what's the commercial solution

[CohibaVancouver]

Quantiffy [sic] those answers into a simple NPV model and pitch it to execs at theater chains.

Exactly. I used to work for a company who made ticketing software. It can get quite complex, i.e. drivers for thermal ticket printers, support for touch-screen kiosks, support for internet presales, scheduling, revenue recognition (recognizing revenue for a pre-sale advance tickets on the day if the show, not the day you get the money), support for gift certificates, foreign currency, split payment, taxes, assigned seating, different seating for different events, support for bar code scanners, integration with third party ticketing services such as ticketmaster etc. etc. etc., all of that in an application with a UI that a monkey could operate - And that's just off-the-top-of-my-head features I remember from three years ago...

So ultimately when you're selling software (and/or 'services') in this market it comes down to the feature set in the software and the TCO for the customer to deploy the software.

Re:Why, why, why?

[heychris]

As someone who runs a non-profit theatre, I can tell you that ticketing is necessary, but not exactly cheap. You can go with TicketMaster, and have their fees add to the cost of your ticket. If you're looking to provide affordable programs, TicketMaster's additional fees may end up pricing you right out of your target market all by themselves.

In Chicago, the big non-profits have soup-to-nuts solutions; look here for a more in-depth look at what's involved. The Chicago Symphony actually rolled their own, but most of the big institutions use software like Tessitura, Theater Manager, or other such programs. These are more like custom CRM programs that deal with specific arts management concerns, like volunteers, donors, and subscriptions. They are also not cheap, and of course, those who could most use them are least able to afford them.

To answer the original post, perhaps the project can apply for a grant, or create a non-profit group (a la Mozilla) to take care of the software. However, you're going to need organizational help to do it. Start with a local university that has an arts administration program, and they'll probably give you better pointers.

CC

Dual licensing?

[tomRakewell]

I own a business, and I love open source software. It has been very useful to me.

I have also spent the past two years developing an application to run my retail/mail order business. I have been able to phase out my proprietary ERP software, and I have asked myself... "should I open source this project?"

Unfortunately, I can't think of a rational reason to do so. Open sourcing the project would allow it to develop faster. But it would also remove my competitive advantage -- it would be like giving my competitors a well-tuned piece of software to make running their business easier.

I've spent an enormous amount of time trying to think of *rational* reasons to open source the project. I'd love the thought of waking up in the morning and reviewing patch submissions from dozens of competent programmers around the world. But wouldn't it be better to, um, hire some programmers to work on the project, and then sell licenses to use it?

It would be better *for society* if the project were open sourced. It would be better *for me* if the project were proprietary.

What kind of business model can you have that allows you to make a living off of writing open source software?

You can "sell support." If you open source a project, and it is successful, then you (the developer and creator of the project) would be undoubtedly the world's number one expert on this software. Businesses wishing to deploy this software would be willing to pay YOU the developer to help install this software. When they had a problem, they would call YOU the developer to fix it. You can charge them nice hourly rates for your consulting.

But a lot of businesses don't trust the open source software model, and I still think you'd be better off if you sold them licenses to use the software *and* sold them support.

If you have a client-server architecture, maybe you could open source one half of the project. Consider open sourcing the server portion of an ERP system. If the project were successful, you would have a huge head start over all your competitors in providing a properietary, for-profit client. But you would need to be specialists in human interface development.

Maybe you could do the reverse, and open source the client. Unlike the Microsoft model, provide a server with a very well-known public API so anyone can develop a client. Provide your client "free-of-charge" under an open source license. Submit a bunch of press releases about how your company is exploiting open source software.

Unfortunately, then you have reduced open source to nothing more than a publicity stunt.

I *hate* to say it, but the best way to really move a project like this forward might be to *close* source the project. You can certainly lowball the competition if you want, but for a mission-critical business application like this, what is really the advantage of open source? A company that earns a profit on the innovation is probably the best model for providing funding for this project.

If you want to do the socially responsible thing AND make a profit, maybe you could investigate dual-licensing. Not-for-profit arts organizations could use your software under a GPL license (and I bet there are TONS of them that would take you up on this). If a commercial for-profit MOVIE THEATER wanted to use your software, on its merits, then sell them a license. You might get the best of both worlds -- essentially for-profit businesses would be subsidizing not-for-profits. AND your developers could earn a living.

Donations vs funding

[EmbeddedJanitor]

There is a big difference between funding and donations. Funding really means getting someone to commit to paying $xxx for the software to be developed, while donations mean releasing the finished software then asking people to make micropayments etc.

I develop OSS. I was lucky in getting funding up front, but now that the software is shipping and in use there is no funding coming in for ongoing support and maintenance. I asked an OSS developer whether they get any cash from their "begging" on their web page. They say they only get a couple of hundred bucks a year from that.

At the end of the day, people don't pay for what they value. They pay for what they have to pay for. You don't pay for air.

Sometimes you can make some money out of selling non-GPL licenses to your OSS. That only works if you hold all copyrights.

Otherwise, OSS is often very difficult stuff to fund. In part this is due to the immaturity of the user base. People feel cheated if they pay for free stuff. In time, people might come to freely pay for stuff that they benefit from (like the way many people happily pay extra for organic produce: not only because it tastes better but also because it is ethical to support it).