Startup Assembly Banks On Paid, Open-Source Style Development

enbody writes A year-old startup, Assembly, is built on the premise of creating products using open-source style development, but structured in a way that you get paid for your contributions. Open-source development is well-known in the Slashdot community, as are a variety of ways to earn a living around open-source, such as support. What is new here is being paid as part of the development, and not just for coding — your contribution might be as project manager or sales. A nice description with video showed up today on the Verge. Of course, the devil is in the details, but they have products so someone in Slashdot land may be interested. (Bias warning: I know one of these guys.)

Comments

Re:How much does it pay?

[BarbaraHudson]

Based on reading their terms of use, etc., in the majority of cases it will be zero.

Searching the whole site, I was unable to find a single example of a successful "assembly." Not good after "a year of operation."

Also, under their Terms, they can sell your project out from under you at any time:

selected App Ideas will further be developed by the Community and may ultimately be commercialized, produced and licensed or sold by Assembly

... and ,,,

THE COMPANY RESERVES THE RIGHT, FOR ANY OR NO REASON, TO .... (IV) SELL OR LICENSE A SOFTWARE PRODUCT, AND/OR ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RELATED THERETO, TO ANY THIRD PARTY.

There goes any illusion that you're in control.