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.

Comments

Like Linux Fund

[AKAImBatman]

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.

Re:Like Linux Fund

[AKAImBatman]

Except that LinuxFund is pretty much dead.

Indeed. After the recent Ask Slashdot story, one would have expected new life of some sort out of LinuxFund. Sadly that doesn't seem to be the case. In the meantime their account is building up hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Re:Like Linux Fund

[Alex P Keaton in da]

The feature that I really like about this is the fact that it gets refunded if the target isn't met.
I would be much more likely to donate to something if I knew that if the goal wasn't met I would get my $$$ back...
Sort of like donating money to buy someone a new heart, but then the person dies before enough money is raised, what happens to the $$$? With this system you could get your donation back.
Since it is Friday afternoon I will share a crazy yet apt analogy- It would be nice if you could do this with a third party candidate- there is one on TV, who isnt my cup of tea (his name rhymes with Matt Rocannon) who always says people tell him they would vote for him if they thought he could win- What if voting was like this funding plan ie you get byour vote back if your third (or whatever) party candidate doesn't even get close.... Yes that undermines our system and commitment, but still is interesting.

Re:Is Software Tangible Enough For This?

[th0mas.sixbit.org]

Uhm, no.

It is a donation system that happens to also have a method to return the donation in case the developer completely fails.

It's not "your software". You're donating to a group, helping them reach their goal. In the event they cannot reach their goal (by their definition, since it's their software), they can kindly refund the money.

What you're looking for is to hire a software developer (or company) to write software for you. That's not what this is. So move along.

But don't worry, you're modded up, so you have a great point.

Much needed

[Eloquence]

Similar proposals have been discussed and implemented before: CoSource, SourceXChange, the Free Software Bazaar, SourceAgency, Experts-something, ... here is a historical overview.

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.

Popular FCKeditor?

[OverlordQ]

I must be out of the loop, cuz I've honestly neither heard of it, nor heard of anybody using it.

Great idea

[phasm42]

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.

Sounds like a great way for developers...

[Ingolfke]

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.

TinyMCE

[eluusive]

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.