Is Diaspora the Future of Free Software Funding?

Glyn Moody writes "Diaspora, the free software project to create a distributed version of Facebook, has been much in the news recently — not least because it has raised $170,000 in just a few weeks. But what's also interesting is the way they've raised that money: through a series of graded rewards for pledges of financial support. This is an approach adopted by some forward-thinking musicians: for example, Jill Sobule funded her last album in the same way, garnering $75,000 in pledges from fans. Is this a model that could be applied to other free software projects, or is it just a one-off?"

Comments

Re:this is the part that blew my mind:

[Rogerborg]

And dude, they'll totally get around to open sourcing that real soon now, 'cause, man, they're all about the open source and shit, so just get all out of their faces and chill, bro.