How to fund an open-source project?

[Eleanor McHugh]

In the recent thread on Ruby VMs I mentioned my newly launched =
RubyGoLightly project [0], currently a bit of non-compilable vapourware =
forked from Marc-Andre Cournoyer's TinyRb codebase. Whilst Google's =
public release of Go is directly responsible for my taking the plunge on =
this, the general idea is something I've discussed privately with a =
number of people in the community over the past couple of years.

Part of the goal of this project is to get Ruby working in the Google Go =
environment as I believe the concurrency model it offers will allow =
implementation choices which are either unavailable or poorly supported =
in C or C++, and which would be unusual in Java. However my real =
interest - and this may or may not be feasible - is to help move Ruby =
into the real-time arena.

It's potentially a big project and I'd like to be able to work on it =
full-time so as to make reasonable progress in the coming year but I'm =
completely clueless about how to raise sponsorship or even whether =
that's practical. Does anyone with greater experience of driving an OSS =
project have any advice they're willing to share on this or any related =
topics?


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
[0] http://github.com/feyeleanor/RubyGoLightly

 

[Gregory Brown]

It's potentially a big project and I'd like to be able to work on it full=

-time so as to make reasonable progress in the coming year but I'm complete=
ly clueless about how to raise sponsorship or even whether that's practical=
Does anyone with greater experience of driving an OSS project have any ad=
vice they're willing to share on this or any related topics?

When it comes to grassroots efforts, I guess my "Ruby Mendicant"
project stands out:
http://majesticseacreature.com/mendicant/

But I think that the environment is different these days, and I
struggled to get funding for the Unity project, even though I thought
this was a cool project as well:

http://pledgie.com/campaigns/4640

I did end up doing at least as much work as that $270 paid for, but
the project got sidelined due to having to pay the bills with other
persuits...

So I guess what I'm suggesting is that it might not be worth it to try
too hard to do this grassroots with the way things are lately. Even
with my success story of Ruby Mendicant, I was living at a subsistence
level off of the donations and needed to take on occasional
contracting work to supplement.

Better to go try to get yourself hired by Engineyard or something... :-/
Or save up some money and take a few months off.

At any rate, I'm happy to discuss this further if you're still
interested in the idea of getting community sponsorship. But
realistically, it'd be best to find a company willing to pay for your
work, as much as I hate to say that.

-greg

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

It's potentially a big project and I'd like to be able to work on it full-time so as to make reasonable progress in the coming year but I'm completely clueless about how to raise sponsorship or even whether that's practical. Does anyone with greater experience of driving an OSS project have any advice they're willing to share on this or any related topics?

Is progress more important, or hacking on it?

If the former, do what other OSS projects do, find volunteers, and share
the workload. That should be comparatively easy, but requires a lot of
public relation work which can be quite Non Fun. Then there's the
collaboration tools that'll be required, and you can find yourself doing
managerial stuff full time instead of, well, doing the fun bits.

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

On 18.12.2009 00:19, Eleanor McHugh wrote:
=20

full-time so as to make reasonable progress in the coming year but I'm =
completely clueless about how to raise sponsorship or even whether =
that's practical. Does anyone with greater experience of driving an OSS =
project have any advice they're willing to share on this or any related =
topics?

=20
Is progress more important, or hacking on it?
=20
If the former, do what other OSS projects do, find volunteers, and =

share the workload. That should be comparatively easy, but requires a =
lot of public relation work which can be quite Non Fun. Then there's the =
collaboration tools that'll be required, and you can find yourself doing =
managerial stuff full time instead of, well, doing the fun bits.

Naturally I'm also looking for collaborators but I'll admit to being =
something of a lone wolf as I'm used to working solo on ambitious but =
underfunded commercial projects. It's not that I don't trust other =
people to pull their weight, just that it's a luxury I've never had!

Managerial stuff definitely isn't something I want to spend too much =
time on though as I suspect just publicising this project will eat into =
my time - I'm already thinking that it's likely to be something I'll =
want to talk about at conferences next year and having done five of =
those this year I know how much time that will eat up. However I'm sort =
of crossing my fingers and hoping that for a small team the combo of =
github and wave will be enough to coordinate things. I guess time will =
tell.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Eleanor McHugh

full-time so as to make reasonable progress in the coming year but I'm =
completely clueless about how to raise sponsorship or even whether =
that's practical. Does anyone with greater experience of driving an OSS =
project have any advice they're willing to share on this or any related =
topics?

=20
When it comes to grassroots efforts, I guess my "Ruby Mendicant"
project stands out:
http://majesticseacreature.com/mendicant/

I must admit that your success with Ruby Mendicant (which appears =
atypical) was the main reason I decided to raise the topic in hopes of =
hearing both your view on how that worked out and those of some of the =
people who contributed. Also as things stand I share many of the =
problems you had at the outset: aside from the occasional argument here =
on Ruby-Talk and some geeky conference presentations I don't have a =
particularly high community profile and as I've not been involved in =
open source before I don't even have a public repository of old code =
that people can check to decide if my time's a good investment.

And of course RubyGoLightly like Prawn is an infrastructure project, so =
yet again there's no obvious business plan for building it =
commercially...

But I think that the environment is different these days, and I
struggled to get funding for the Unity project, even though I thought
this was a cool project as well:
=20
http://pledgie.com/campaigns/4640

It's certainly something the community could do with now we live with =
diverse runtimes. Whilst RubyGoLightly is light years away from RubySpec =
compliance (it's not even likely to compile this side of Christmas as =
I'm tied up with family commitments) it's my long-term hope that it =
could make it

I did end up doing at least as much work as that $270 paid for, but
the project got sidelined due to having to pay the bills with other
persuits...
=20
So I guess what I'm suggesting is that it might not be worth it to try
too hard to do this grassroots with the way things are lately. Even
with my success story of Ruby Mendicant, I was living at a subsistence
level off of the donations and needed to take on occasional
contracting work to supplement.

This project has actually landed in my lap at a pretty weird time: my =
last commercial project tanked back in February and the projects I've =
been approached about since have all been unfunded start-ups. I've taken =
on several sweat equity gigs in the past but the return on investment =
has been lousy so I'm training myself to say 'no' to the next big thing. =
So anyway, on the one hand I have plenty of time available for =
development but on the other I'm really starting to feel the pich and =
need to bring in some money, even if it's only a few hundred dollars per =
month. I estimate that around $500 pcm is my break-even, which is pretty =
low, and beyond that I can fund non-essentials such as conferences and =
replacement hardware if anything happens to my MacBook or Wind.

However because I have the spare hours anyway the work's likely to =
happen regardless of sponsorship, it's just I could end up living in a =
cardboard box somewhere whilst doing it lol

The motivator for me is that I know that if I don't develop this then =
it's unlikely anyone else will bother. I think that would be a huge lost =
opportunity as Ruby really needs a decent concurrency makeover to =
resolve many of the scaling bottlenecks in the C runtime, something =
which I freely admit I may not be the right person to deliver but at =
least I'm willing to have a go at tackling the problem. Whilst this work =
won't be directly relevant to MRI my hope is that there'll be a halo =
effect the way there's been with JRuby and Rubinius where the better =
ideas are plundered and ported to C.

Better to go try to get yourself hired by Engineyard or something... =

:-/

That's a course of action I'd rather avoid if at all possible - my =
family's quite happily settled in London and not looking to relocate =
anytime soon. Anyway EY already have two in house Ruby development teams =
so I doubt a third would hold much appeal.

Or save up some money and take a few months off.

I wish this were an option. That way I could have worked on this in =
private and if it turned out badly no one else need ever know!

At any rate, I'm happy to discuss this further if you're still
interested in the idea of getting community sponsorship. But
realistically, it'd be best to find a company willing to pay for your
work, as much as I hate to say that.

Realistically the main company likely to want to sponsor this kind of =
work is Google, only they've always been dismissive of Ruby so I'm not =
sure they'd be interested. It's certainly something I'll look into =
though as they have a London office.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
http://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanormchugh

 

[Roger Pack]

I estimate that around $500 pcm is my break-even, which is pretty

low, and beyond that I can fund non-essentials such as conferences and
replacement hardware if anything happens to my MacBook or Wind.

What is pcm?

Anyway I don't know if my previous email got lost [I don't see it
anywhere].

Greg's idea for mendicant was a pretty good one--ask for donations, get
corporate sponsors to match or to sponsor you out right. The kicker
with something experimental like this is to convince people "why it's
the next best thing."

Besides that, google SoC might work, if you can find a student to work
on it. Or some type of research funding grant, or get a full time job
with somebody that gives you 20% time for research, like I guess Google
does (do those companies exist?)

-r

 

[Robert Klemme]

Also as things stand I share many of the problems you had at the
outset: aside from the occasional argument here on Ruby-Talk and some
geeky conference presentations I don't have a particularly high
community profile and as I've not been involved in open source before
I don't even have a public repository of old code that people can
check to decide if my time's a good investment.

Although I can't remember having seen any code of yours I definitively
appreciate your postings here. Your community profile might be better
than you believe.

My 0.02 EUR: why not invest half a day and write up a project outline
with enough detail so people can get a clear impression of your vision,
put it on a website and provide a means to collect funding commitments
(maybe something with a google docs hosted form could work)? You could
even keep individual names private if people wish so, which might be the
case for various reasons.

Warm regards

robert

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

Managerial stuff definitely isn't something I want to spend too much time on though as I suspect just publicising this project will eat into my time - I'm already thinking that it's likely to be something I'll want to talk about at conferences next year and having done five of those this year I know how much time that will eat up. However I'm sort of crossing my fingers and hoping that for a small team the combo of github and wave will be enough to coordinate things. I guess time will tell.

Well, while I won't be able to give presentations at conferences (mostly
due to lack of funds precluding travel heavily), I'm willing to
volunteer time to handle more managerial tasks, if you feel the need, or
don't want the hassle.

Feel free to contact me off-list.

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

On 20.12.2009 02:28, Eleanor McHugh wrote:

Although I can't remember having seen any code of yours I definitively
appreciate your postings here. Your community profile might be better
than you believe.

Agreed. I fondly remember Eleanor's and my exchange back in an ADA
discussion on ruby-talk.

My 0.02 EUR: why not invest half a day and write up a project outline
with enough detail so people can get a clear impression of your vision,
put it on a website and provide a means to collect funding commitments
(maybe something with a google docs hosted form could work)? You could
even keep individual names private if people wish so, which might be the
case for various reasons.

If nothing else, a project outline would be a great step in convincing
others that this is a worthwhile project, so that contributors of code,
time, and maybe even money invest their assets.

After all, Linux started off as a weekend project to learn about the
80386 architecture by some Finnish student.

The problem, as it is, is that any sort of income generated for
RubyGoLightly and by extension, Eleanor, will take a long time, if there
is no corporate sponsorship.

On the other hand, the rise of social networking has made spreading the
word, and networking, easier than ever.

 

[Rick DeNatale]

Although I can't remember having seen any code of yours I definitively
appreciate your postings here. =A0Your community profile might be better = than
you believe.

Raising money on your own for software projects, open source or not,
is hard, particularly when the audience is programmers.

My buddy Kent Beck has a rather impressive community profile amongst
the Java and Smalltalk communities couldn't seem to make his work on
jUnit max pay off.

In my own case, I've been working on ri_cal
http://github.com/rubyredrick/ri_cal in my (sometimes too much) free
time for a year now, gotten very good feedback on it, but so far the
pledgie campaign http://pledgie.com/campaigns/4360 has yielded just
$100, not much for hundreds if not thousands of hours of work.

If you want to be paid to work on open source, the best bet seems to
be to find an employer who's willing to donate all or some of your
time to open source contributions. The usual wages for doing it
yourself seem to be enhanced reputation, and hopefully better chances
of finding work via consulting or as a resume enhancer for finding
more traditional employment.

--=20
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

If you want to be paid to work on open source, the best bet seems to
be to find an employer who's willing to donate all or some of your
time to open source contributions. The usual wages for doing it
yourself seem to be enhanced reputation, and hopefully better chances
of finding work via consulting or as a resume enhancer for finding
more traditional employment.

An additional cave at is that prospective employers, willing to donate
their employee's time to an open source project must have a need for the
project themselves, otherwise it doesn't make a whole lot of
business-sense. Altruism can be found in the corporate world, of course,
but it's few and far between.

 

[Rick DeNatale]

An additional cave at is that prospective employers, willing to donate th= eir
employee's time to an open source project must have a need for the projec= t
themselves, otherwise it doesn't make a whole lot of business-sense.
Altruism can be found in the corporate world, of course, but it's few and
far between.

Although it might be the exception that a company employ someone to do
open source full time, it's far from unheard of. Much more common is
to have a policy of setting some portion of employee's time aside for
open source contributions. This goes along with a common practice of
letting employees have time to work on personal company projects, i.e.
projects which the employee believes would benefit the company but
don't have official status. This has been done for a long time by
many technical companies for the development of engineers and
programmers, if nothing else. There are a lot of companies which see
benefit in this, and at the top of the pyramid we have examples of
companies which either sponsor large open-source efforts themselves,
or hire open-source luminaries (e.g. Linus Torvalds) to fund a highly
visible open source project.

The real problem in funding a DIY open source effort is that, even if
there is benefit to the users of the effort, most are not willing to
step up to the plate and pitch in funding. Kent's jUnit Max clearly
had value, but not many were willing to convert that to money. In my
case, I know that there are lots of projects which need a robust RFC
2445 compliant icalendar implementation for Ruby, but few seem willing
to contribute financially. My ability to support the project ebbs and
flows with how much paying work I have. Although I love to work on
the project and other open source contributions, working on stuff
which actually puts bread on the table has much higher priority.

And in the case of a project like Eleanor's which is as I understand
it an alternative Ruby implementation, it's tough. Sellling language
implementations, IDEs, and other programming tools for money is
getting more and more difficult since most of these things are
available for free or close to free these days:
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/2009/05/28/selling-shoes-to-the-shoemake=
rs-children

And talking to some of my old buds who are still at IBM, it seems that
the corporate types who try to sell 'enterprise level' tools for lots
of money are having a hard time understanding this, and worse, are
trying to compete with lightweight tools, languages, and frameworks
for the current adopters of those lightweight developer goodies.



--=20
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

Although it might be the exception that a company employ someone to do
open source full time, it's far from unheard of.
Absolutely.

Much more common is
to have a policy of setting some portion of employee's time aside for
open source contributions. This goes along with a common practice of
letting employees have time to work on personal company projects, i.e.
projects which the employee believes would benefit the company but
don't have official status. This has been done for a long time by
many technical companies for the development of engineers and
programmers, if nothing else. There are a lot of companies which see
benefit in this, and at the top of the pyramid we have examples of
companies which either sponsor large open-source efforts themselves,
or hire open-source luminaries (e.g. Linus Torvalds) to fund a highly
visible open source project.

Indeed. Google merely gets the headlines with stuff that 3M, Toyota, and
others are doing for years.

The real problem in funding a DIY open source effort is that, even if
there is benefit to the users of the effort, most are not willing to
step up to the plate and pitch in funding. Kent's jUnit Max clearly
had value, but not many were willing to convert that to money. In my
case, I know that there are lots of projects which need a robust RFC
2445 compliant icalendar implementation for Ruby, but few seem willing
to contribute financially. My ability to support the project ebbs and
flows with how much paying work I have. Although I love to work on
the project and other open source contributions, working on stuff
which actually puts bread on the table has much higher priority.

Very true. It's a combination of NIH syndrome, as well as programmers,
usually, being able to roll their own. Programmers are a tough market,
but it is not impossible to sell them tools, either. FogBuzz is an
example in the "tools" space.

I'd love to see iCal support for Ruby, especially since I could use it
for a couple of ideas I have to make my own life easier, but paying
money for the library is out of the question for a couple of reasons
(which can change, of course).

And in the case of a project like Eleanor's which is as I understand
it an alternative Ruby implementation, it's tough. Sellling language
implementations, IDEs, and other programming tools for money is
getting more and more difficult since most of these things are
available for free or close to free these days:
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/2009/05/28/selling-shoes-to-the-shoemakers-children

Indeed. Even MS gives away free versions of Visual Studio. The idea is,
of course, that users pay for the Profressional or Team System
solutions, a deal made sweeter by the investment. If you know how the
debugger works, where the compiler lives, and how to configure the IDE,
the pain of buying a tool is less severe, than buying a largely unknown
product.

In short: Generating customer lock-in is key.

However, that is not quite possible with an open source project
(fortunately). However, OSS mostly generates income with fringe
benefits: Tired support, selling install media, selling a printed manual.

It is, by no means, impossible to monetize an OSS project. But it's a
long, long road, and can be a thin edge to walk, as well. OSS lives from
contributors (the Bazaar model of Linux is much more prevalent than the
Cathedral model of GNU), and alienating *them* is risky, yet easily done.


In conclusion: It is not impossible, at all, to generate *some* sort of
income from an open source project. But it takes patience.

For the classic models of selling software, I can't yet see a revenue
stream for RubyGoLightly.

A look at Java, and .NET, could be an idea, as well as Linux distros, to
see how money comes in.

 

[Rick DeNatale]

I'd love to see iCal support for Ruby, especially since I could use it for a
couple of ideas I have to make my own life easier, but paying money for the
library is out of the question for a couple of reasons (which can change, of
course).

We're really not talking about paying for something which is, after
all, freely available under an open source license.

We're talking about throwing something into the 'tip jar.'

It seems that street buskers tend to do better on average than open
source programmers.Maybe I should brush up on my atrophied guitar
playing skills! <G>

--
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

We're really not talking about paying for something which is, after
all, freely available under an open source license.

We're talking about throwing something into the 'tip jar.'

Which is what I meant. I should've written "contribute money", instead
of paying it.

It seems that street buskers tend to do better on average than open
source programmers.Maybe I should brush up on my atrophied guitar
playing skills!<G>

Who know, it could even be fun!

 

[Edward Middleton]

Naturally I'm also looking for collaborators but I'll admit to being something of a lone wolf as I'm used to working solo on ambitious but underfunded commercial projects. It's not that I don't trust other people to pull their weight, just that it's a luxury I've never had!

I think this kind of thing is a bootstrapping problem. For a lot of
companies they don't see the benefit in investing in something like this
unless you are already using it. What about pushing it as a free time
project until you have enough working to use it in a money project, then
use money projects to drive its development.

Edward

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

=20
What is pcm?

per calendar month

Anyway I don't know if my previous email got lost [I don't see it=20
anywhere].
=20
Greg's idea for mendicant was a pretty good one--ask for donations, = get=20
corporate sponsors to match or to sponsor you out right. The kicker=20=

with something experimental like this is to convince people "why it's=20=

the next best thing."
=20
Besides that, google SoC might work, if you can find a student to work=20=

on it. Or some type of research funding grant, or get a full time job=20=

with somebody that gives you 20% time for research, like I guess = Google=20
does (do those companies exist?)

It's becoming quite a frequent thing in web companies but but =
unfortunately I have a small child who eats up a lot of my 'non-work' =
hours so 20% of my employed time + what I can arrange at weekends would =
maybe amount to a total of 80 days of coding per year - nowhere near =
enough to make a dent in this project


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

=20
Although I can't remember having seen any code of yours I definitively =

appreciate your postings here. Your community profile might be better =
than you believe.

=20
My 0.02 EUR: why not invest half a day and write up a project outline =

with enough detail so people can get a clear impression of your vision, =
put it on a website and provide a means to collect funding commitments =
(maybe something with a google docs hosted form could work)? You could =
even keep individual names private if people wish so, which might be the =
case for various reasons.

Thanks for the suggestion Robert, I think I'll give that a go over Xmas =
as I may have the luxury of a day or two to myself


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

=20
Agreed. I fondly remember Eleanor's and my exchange back in an ADA =

discussion on ruby-talk.

My memory's mostly clouded by that poisonous climate change thread we =
had on here earlier in the year so I'm glad I'm remembered for something =
else!


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

If you want to be paid to work on open source, the best bet seems to
be to find an employer who's willing to donate all or some of your
time to open source contributions. The usual wages for doing it
yourself seem to be enhanced reputation, and hopefully better chances
of finding work via consulting or as a resume enhancer for finding
more traditional employment.

Well to be honest I wouldn't be considering risking it on my own if I =
saw much of an alternative, and if I didn't have other projects on the =
drawing board that need a decent concurrent Ruby implementation.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net