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The 'Everyone Gets the Source Code, Donations Get You Binaries' Software Model

Posted by Soulskill on from the freedom-with-a-side-of-sustainability dept.

TroysBucket writes "One developer who is trying to fund his development work via donations has taken on an 'Everyone gets the source code, donations get you binaries' business model, where he provides installers and binaries directly only to donating users. Quoting: 'A very central goal of everything I am doing, right now, is to show a concrete [and highly documented] way that other developers can fund their own FOSS work. With that in mind One major mistake I made, right off the bat, was that I provided very little direct benefit to people who donate (no “perks”).' Has anyone seen this work well before with other projects?"

10 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Re:One caveat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    He says in the post that others can do this and that he has no problem with it.

  2. Re:One caveat. by RDW · · Score: 5, Informative

    He know, he's fine with it. From TFA:

    "Now. You'll note that all of this software is GPL'd. Which means any Tom, Dick or Harry (or any other awesome name) can build their own binaries and distribute it on their website or repository. And I have absolutely no problem with that. None whatsoever."

  3. Re:One caveat. by bmo · · Score: 2, Informative

    But that's wrong. So wrong that you failed to read this:

    >Now. Youâ(TM)ll note that all of this software is GPLâ(TM)d. Which means any Tom, Dick or Harry (or any other awesome name) can build their own binaries and distribute it on their website or repository. And I have absolutely no problem with that. None whatsoever.

    >modded informative

    And the moderator was wrong too.

    --
    BMO

  4. Re:One caveat. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    OpenBSD did(does?) a similar thing with their install CDs, and they were largely under the even-less-restrictive-on-distributors BSD license. There was nothing stopping 3rd party packagers, and they acknowledged as much. Conveniently for them, though, their user base is both fairly loyal(and thus wanted to support the project) and fairly paranoid(and thus not entirely trusting of 3rd-party install packages)...

  5. Donation? by ortholattice · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't have a problem with this business model - it seems interesting and I hope it works.

    However, I hate it when people use the word "donation" to mean a mandatory payment. A donation is a voluntary gift.

  6. Re:Works for RHEL by Curupira · · Score: 3, Informative

    Also, isn't that exactly what XChat currently does? Of course, there are a lot of unnoficial windows binaries (listed on Wikipedia and all).

  7. Re:One caveat. by synthespian · · Score: 4, Informative

    AND, if you give them @OpenBSD money, they print your name on the CD cover, which makes you look Super Cool!!!

    --
    Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
  8. PyMol by Ubi_NL · · Score: 3, Informative

    PyMol does this and its the de-facto standard in protein structure visualisation

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
  9. Re:One caveat. by synthespian · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry, I meant not the cover, the booklet. Don't want to mislead anyone aiming Super Cool status.

    --
    Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
  10. Re:One caveat. by Dwonis · · Score: 5, Informative

    In GPLv2 (perhaps not GPLv3) you can have the program open source, but keep the build scripts to yourself.

    I'm glad you took the time to read the GPL before commenting:

    The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.