Slashdot Mirror
Obtaining Grants for Open Source Projects?
Michael Chisari asks: "Does anybody have any leads or information about where and how to apply for grants for open source projects? I've been working on an open source social networking software called Appleseed for around two years now. The goal is to be a free, distributed alternative to MySpace or Friendster where users on separate Appleseed websites can fully interact with each other. The project is huge, and while relatively far along, I've had a hard time keeping up while maintaining the full time job necessary to pay the bills. Ideally, I'd like to get funding so that I could focus exclusively on development. I'd prefer a grant from a foundation as opposed to corporate funding. Individual donations are nice but can't always be counted on. I'm not sure where to find organizations which provide grants for free software or social networking."
Sounds like imeem - any other slashdotters out there using imeem for connecting and sharing?
Or like FOAF, the XML (RDF) dialect for describing social networks that really shows the power of Semantic Web concepts. FOAFNaut is a good example of how by combining these simple RDF descriptions with visualization technologies, one can easily create a easily and pleasantly navigable source of information. (There's some other cool examples in Springer-Verlag's Visualising the Semantic Web ). FOAF files are a cinch to create--there's already a couple of user-friendly generators--and I have no idea why the concept hasn't caught on. Well, Orkut, MySpace, and Friendster obviously won't export FOAF files so they can lock users in.
I'm very glad Slashdot posted this. I've been looking for sources of funding for a little bit now, and I'm at a loss for where to go from here. We've had a trickle of individual donations, which are great and have really helped a lot. But what I'd like to be able to do is take a few months or even a half a year and focus exclusively on Appleseed, especially since it's really starting to come together as a project.
Most of the past two years have been creating an API. Although I probably could have already found the pieces I needed already built, the advantage was that I had a consistent and custom API to work with. And the API has served me pretty well, for instance, the messaging system was written in around 3 days worth of work. Other sections were similarly rapidly developed, but there's still a lot to be done. The final product will combine photo sharing, journals, messaging, and friends list into one package.
Somebody metioned imeem as another distributed social networking project, but I don't think we're particularly in competition, since imeem isn't open source. The purpose of appleseed is to create a network of websites that all work together, and open source is a big part of making sure that anybody who wants to set up an appleseed node (even if it's just for them and a dozen friends) can do so and still maintain full interaction with everybody in the appleseed network.
This is really a project I'm very excited about, and the possibilities are endless. At some point a module architecture is in the plans, which will add the possibility of IM, P2P/torrent filesharing, social bookmark (ala, del.icio.us), social calendars and more. For me, this is where I want the web to go, and at the same time it seems like it's more of a return back to the early days of the internet, when the focus was on distributed networks which inter-communicated, as opposed to a single, monolithic location where all interaction occurs.