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OSS Funding through Fundable
John Pratt writes "FredCK, developer of the popular FCKEditor, recently raised $600 from supporters through Fundable to port his open source HTML editor to Safari. Fundable is a new site that lets groups of people pool money for specific purposes, like software features. Unlike generic donation dropboxes (such as PayPal buttons), if a group's targeted collection isn't reached after 2 or 4 weeks, everyone gets a complete refund." Newsforge has a piece discussing the site as well.
So it's like Linux Fund except that the users get to donate money directly to projects?
It's actually kind of neat how various funding options have begun appearing. Writing OSS software is a thankless job that takes hundreds (sometimes thousands) of man-hours. I'm curious if there's a possibility in the future of software developers being employed full time on user funded projects.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Under The Hood
the FCKEditor website had the same numbers as everyone else.... Newsforge and Fundable list it as 700/600, but the website lists it at 800/500....
- AMW
Glad I'm not the only one to read FCKEditor as FUCKEditor. OK....back to work.
Should have called it FCKable
Didn't the guy who wrote SASSER get arrested for running over at least one of the listed OSes?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
the official fck website doesnt list fundable.org as a donation channel. I just see paypal and monkeybookers.
The idea of fundable.org is good, especially since paypal is so miserable to work with, but when dealing with large money transfers, I would expect to know what kind of financial backing they have, and how reputable they are. I dont see any of that information on the page.
I must say though, posting a donation link on the slashdot main page is a tad bit of advertising for my taste, even if the project is good (which it appears to be)
video game, ecchi, bbs and classic computing fans unite to eat sushi
so now i can make a Human Fund for real? or at least justify handing these out at Christmas, and have a backup if someone gets wise...
Great, it sounds like a good deal, you donate 50 bucks and you get it back if they don't reach their goal of 1000 bucks.......
but do you get your money back if they never put the feature in, or if the feature is buggy, or if the just take forever to implement it????
Why did past projects fail? I think the main reasons are usability, lack of collaboration and the dot-com-crash. Wiki-like functionality is essential to allow specifications to evolve, and there needs to be a very simple and obvious process of pooling funds and finding projects to donate to.
A brief look suggests that Fundable, while simple and slick, is not yet optimal for the purposes of funding open source projects -- it appears to lack collaboration on specifications, milestones, a process for applying to implement someone else's suggestions, fine grained categorization and sorting, etc. (correct me if I'm wrong on any of this) That it succeeds for some projects regardless shows that there is a vacuum for a portal like this -- not just in open source development. It would give those who cannot contribute code a way to nevertheless help to "scratch their itches" in the open source software world.
This should be a bonded escrow house. If its not, you'd be a fool to trust them with your money. Also, they should offer escrow services (Where the money is not disbursed until it passes some test). --Michael
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I must be out of the loop, cuz I've honestly neither heard of it, nor heard of anybody using it.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Although I don't know the details of Fundable, the idea is great. One person contributing a little money towards a project usually doesn't help the developer much. It's the sum of many people that helps. However, there's a problem -- if not enough people donate, then your donation may have gone to waste. With this method, you can donate and feel safe that either 1) Enough people wil donate to make a difference or 2) You get your money back.
This kinda reminds me of another website whose name eludes me at the moment, but they have a similiar system applied to signatures, and agreeing to do something e.g. confront an organization about an issue.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
The concept, while unique, is quite simple. Anyone who has a product or service to sell, or needs monetary support for a charitable cause, or who wants to organize a group purchase, posts their requirement on Fundable.org. They specify the number of contributors needed and the amount of money required from each. They also specify a deadline by which to raise the needed capital. Fundable.org holds all contributions until the total amount requested is received, or the deadline is reached. If, by the deadline, the amount contributed is less than the required amount, the project is scrapped and the contributors receive a full refund.
So, all they do is collect money (and earn interest on said money) and watch a date. They don't care that the software is actually delivered and/or works (which is somewhat smart because they collect interest up until the deadline regardless and they aren't responsible for the quality or even the delivery of said product). I think we finally found that #2!
1. Collect money for someone
2. Collect interest on said money up until a deadline and either give the money back or give it to the person who set up the fund depending on amount.
3. Profit!!!
After implementing the interface, my project compiles fine, but the money is just not coming it when I run it.
Any thoughts?
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
This could be really useful for buying the code to open source projects, especially older applications, or stuff from companies that are dying.
This might've been really useful for getting Blender at the time. I'm just saying it could work well for this stuff.
It could also be used for code bounties...ie how much do you want a feature, added to an OSS program.
I have to agree with some previous posters that this may not work out great for continuous OSS support, meaning paying people full-time to work on stuff, cause that requires lots of money, and you aren't quite sure what you'll get each month.
to hold a release hostage. Yes... I have the latest release of some software w/ all of the new features you want, and many of the bug fixes, but will not release it until I get $600. Then again, it's their software so it's not really hostage. Point is... this will be a very effective tool for established one-man or partly commercial project or for fixes to nagging problems in existing projects, but only when the developers use the money as an ultimatum for releasing the work.
FCKEdit is a little dirty.
Now I know why I've started getting small checks in the mail the last week.
Be sure your MyOSSProject.DonatedMoneyDeliveryAddress is set correctly.
This is the same as proprietary software: you pay for new features, bug fixes, etc. It's funny how the whole OSS movement is starting to look more and more like traditional software all of the time. Maybe this is yet another sign that selling software was a non-problem that didn't need fixing?
I don't respond to AC's.
Jonny is 8 years old.
He needs a new liver.
Help us raise $200,000 to cover the cost of the transplant and a lifetime supply of anti-rejection drugs.
Send your contribution to
"Jonny Liver Fund"
Big Bank and Trust
Yourtown, USA
--
Seriously, legitimate fundraisers DO work through banks and are transparent, but it would be nice to get our money back if poor Jonny dies before getting the liver he needs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I have just set up a account so maybe I can raise the funds needed to buy your public school Linux Lab a new box.
Help if you can
Many Brazilian kids would be very very thankful!
It actually looks like a very good model for specialist software. As someone who works for a small consultancy, I'm aware that there are many applications we would find useful that could be used by maybe twenty similar companies around the world, but would never justify the development cost for just one. And obviously no-one would buy from (or sell to) the competition. This is a possible way of developing this kind of software, though what would be ideal is some kind of trusted brokerage equivalent to the 18th century bookseller. Perhaps there's a business model for somebody there who has more spare time than I do.
Truly there is nothing new under the Sun (or under Windows for that matter).
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
It's not "First Post" but it's for the kids! :)
Last time I checked, there are incompatible changes made in Safari that have disgusted KHTML developers, especially when access to Safari requires signing NDA.
Similar idea to the Public Software Fund, only we allow for different size donations and multiple bidders for the same job. I have plans to modify the system so it allows for dominant assurance contracts.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If my initials were FCK, I'd either change my name, or avoid naming anything with my initials! In fact, didn't they used to make a t-shirt with this guy's initials on it? It read "FCK... the only thing missing is U!"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Honestly, the way to solve the funding problem is to start a search engine as a non-profit whose revenue is used to fund aka "grants" OSS projects and build an endowment. GNU could do this. Sell ads on the search engine, run and maintain it, provide cool new software.
It has been for decades. If you listen to the Woodstock album you can hear Country Joe leading 350,000 people in a cheer praising this editor.
Guess you are out of the loop :)
Take a look at the stats Actually, I only found out about the project a few months ago.
Check out the demo its actually a really cool editor. Amazing what this guy can do with javascript.
Works great as an embedded editor for a web-based content management system.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
They say they can refund all monies if the goal is not reached. But they use paypal. How are they able to refund the money without paypal taking its cut? Do they not really collect it up front? If so, how do they guarantee that a contribution is really there and not just a false promise that could fall through later on?
simple as that :)
_ ________
Arash Partow
_________________________________________
Be one who knows what they don't know,
Instead of being one who knows not what they don't know,
Thinking they know everything about all things.
http://www.partow.net/
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
When I was last working on a project that required this sort of thing I evaluated a bunch of these different content editors and TinyMCE seemed like one of the best ones to me. It, unlike most and FCKEditor, converts existing textareas like HTMLArea does. This is nice in supporting browsers in a backward compatible manor. It also seemed to be alot more responsive once the graphics for the buttons had loaded up. - my 2 cents.
---k--
</stupid>
Doesn't work for people who can't get paypal... Like me...
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
http://ippimail.com/ is primarily a charity fundraiser but we are committed to donating 10% of profits to the OS community. We are hoping that this will prove to be considerable amounts. All our work will also be Open Sourced.
Just by using ippimail (there are no donations involved) you will be channelling new money not just to the charity of your choice but to Open Source as well.
Get a free email address at http://www.ippimail.com and support your favorite charity without it costing you a penny.
Donorge is another open source service for funding projects.
It uses Drupal for its web site and infrastructure (Drupal's web site is down at the moment, so try later).
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Google for "threshold pledge" system; this funding method has been described before (I don't know if the hits for "threshold pledge" are the first mention of the idea either).
Bravo to fundable.org for making it happen!