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:"Prior Art"

[eldavojohn]

How is this different from the model used for NPR pledge drives?

The key difference seems to be that you are paying for something specific to this project. In NPR, you're paying for some future costs of running it but also by and large shows that are already filmed and done. You're helping keep the access up and running. In Diaspora and Sobule's cases, you're paying for the coming work. You're really funding the creation of this project. Both are pledges for the future but in this case you are instrumental in creation, not accessing what's already created. I suppose locally produced shows may enjoy your money but you're not attached solely to that project when you contribute. And you're often rewarded with non-personal items. A duffel bag? A coffee mug? An old DVD of WWII? Old crap they have laying around? Red Green signatures? (Note: I would actually enjoy the Red Green signature)

Diaspora has to ship 4,241 CDs, 3,267 bunches of "cool disaspora stickers", 2,488 t-shirts and then all the hosting and phone support in the remaining groups which isn't anything to sneeze at either. It's all personalized to the Diaspora project and you're a part of that project now.

That's my interpretation anyway.

Other Projects

[LBArrettAnderson]

I realize that this article isn't really about diaspora itself, but I feel it's an obligation to point out that there are other, more promising and further along (nearly finished), projects out there, such as Appleseed, that have the same goal, and aren't being run by people with almost no experience.

Re:Other Projects

[Rogerborg]

To be fair, the Diaspora guys are now fully experienced and demonstrably successful at their core competency: marketing vapourware.

this is the part that blew my mind:

[circletimessquare]

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-open-alternative/

That's the equivalent of a significant angel round of funding in the internet startup world, and their fundraising on the Kickstarter crowdsourced funding site has another 19 days to go.
It's also an impressive for a project proposal from four students who say they aren't going to start coding until they graduate from college this summer. And a testament to how strongly that a growing number of people want an alternative to a centralized and dominant social networking site.

they haven't started programming it!

"hey, i got a cool idea, wanna give me $115K?

holy the awesome power of media coverage batman

Re:this is the part that blew my mind:

[LBArrettAnderson]

Indeed. I don't understand why people keep giving them money. Give your money to a project that has actually been started (and actually close to being finished), like appleseed - http://appleseed.sourceforge.net/ .