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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?"
I'll go ahead and ask the MBA question. What's the competing commercial product? How much does it cost per year? How much will a theater chain save with your solution? Quantiffy those answers into a simple NPV model and pitch it to execs at theater chains.
"(...) Now we want to continue and to add more professional features, but alas this requires more funding. (...) Now, we searching for alternative solutions like sponsoring. Is there someone out there who can help us to keep the software free?"
...there's no commercial value in the project, but you still want to add features just for the hell of it? That's cool, but don't expect to get paid for it. What's the future of the project if you do not recieve funding? Abandon it so others can pick it up if they want to? Close the source (assuming you have all the copyrights)?
I'm sorry, but if you're looking to get paid for it, you need a project someone is willing to pay *for*. If there was such a sponsoring foundation, I would suggest they use it to replace some central software many people use, like IE/Outlook/Office/Photoshop etc. I would consider spending it on such a niche system like tickets to be a very strange choice.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"Hey, can you help me find someone who will give us money to give free help to people charging admission to shows?"
Running a movie theatre is a low-margin business -- typically one loses money on the tickets and needs to make it up elsewhere (concession stand, ads, etc). If one can get the software to run the business (ie. by paying an open source project to add the features needed to make it adequate for one's needs) for less than the cost of comparable commercial solutions -- well, then you're ahead.
It makes sense, then, that someone with a vested interest in not giving money to the commercial vendors of such software will find such a project as this interesting, and potentially a worthy recipient of (some level of) funding. Ideally, you'd want to target folks who are heavily hit by the pricing model of the commercial competitors -- say, those who own a number of theatres, or those whose theatres have multiple entrances or ticket booths if that's how the commercial software is priced -- or those who need features the commercial competitors don't currently provide.