Should we start a programming consortium?

[davbren]

Now that Linux is finally picking up the pace and becoming more mainstream, we need some real top notch applications to compliment the user experience. That isn't to say that the apps are confined to native desktop apps, they could be web apps too.

So I'm suggesting a programming consortium.

As a community we discuss applications and their features, look & feel, audience, etc. then whoever wants to develop it (individual or a team) can do so with the financial backing of the community.

Each benefactor then has a percentage stake in the application once it is complete to release quality. If the app is a paid for service, each benefactor is entitled to a percentage of that including the developer. If it is a free app, then the any revenue from possible sponsorship is shared out fairly.

Disclaimer: I know that this is controversial, I do think, however, that the idea is sound for the most part. If people have ideas on how to make this better then feel free. I do understand the free ideals of the Linux community having been part of it for nearly ten years. It doesn't mean that the developers shouldn't be paid for hard work, especially when we have a chance at making some really good software. I truly believe that this could be beneficial to the community and maybe even the industry as a whole.

[Paqman]

Now that Linux is finally picking up the pace and becoming more mainstream

Eh? What makes you say that?

You are right about one thing though, basic supply and demand will mean that if desktop Linux ever did start to take off, commercially developed apps would take a more prominent role. Right now though, with Linux's minute share on the desktop it generally only makes sense to spend money on cross-platform. I'm not sure splitting the money a zillion ways would be a good idea, either. A lot of the financially successful desktop apps like Calibre do so by being a one-man band.

[davbren]

Well, for a while netbooks were mostly linux. People kicked up a fuss mainly because of the apps.

I'm mainly trying to think of a way to get professionally made applications for linux by spreading the burden of paying for it. I envisage that each major release would incur further payments for the developer(s). It's currently just an idea, but tis something I would definitely want to explore.

[regala]

Well, for a while netbooks were mostly linux. People kicked up a fuss mainly because of the apps.

I'm mainly trying to think of a way to get professionally made applications for linux by spreading the burden of paying for it. I envisage that each major release would incur further payments for the developer(s). It's currently just an idea, but tis something I would definitely want to explore.

wow. People. You want to talk about Linux and mainstream ? Stop thinking you will be heard on Ubuntu forums. Register, sign up with the Linux Foundation, these are the guys that you want to talk to.

[davbren]

I'd quite like to talk to users and developers. Limiting myself to the Linux foundation is just as fruitless as limiting myself here. This is just the first step.

[fatality_uk]

If you get 10 Linux developers in a room, you can bet your bottom dollar that 12 opinions will emerge!!

[davbren]

If you get 10 Linux developers in a room, you can bet your bottom dollar that 12 opinions will emerge!!

Which is why the features and whatnot are decided before its given to the developer.

[Paqman]

Which is why the features and whatnot are decided before its given to the developer.

What do the developers get out of putting you in charge of them? Sounds like all you're offering them is less freedom and less money.

Good software is developed with a multi-disciplinary approach, but if you want to get involved then you need to be bringing something to the table besides opinions. Canonical does employ people that do nothing but UI design, graphic design, etc as do other Linux software patrons. If you think you've got the skills keep an eye out for jobs.

[davbren]

The developers get the money that is raised through the consortium.

I know that there are many disciplines for good software design. As I said before this is just a preliminary idea. I don't doubt that it can be improved.

developers, especially freelance ones rarely have the freedom to decide what will and won't be in the final release. Often I'm given a list of requirements to fulfill and then I get on with it.

[Paqman]

The developers get the money that is raised through the consortium.


My point is, the consortium would have to be bringing them something worth quite a lot. You're asking them to split any income a lot of ways, especially if they're doing the lion's share of the work. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see where your consortium adds enough value to make it a better business model than the other options.

What sort of management structure would it have? What would differentiate it from an ordinary software startup? Where would the finance come from?

[MG&TL]

This sounds awesome, and I love the idea, but there is issues described above. Maybe if said consortium was made especially for ubuntu, we might get better software then just Linux. (that way we can be specifically Gtk, apt, debian, GRUB, Unity, the things that make ubuntu different.)

I shall watch thread carefully.

[MG&TL]

Actually, why don't you start a thread and see what happens?

I'll go for it, if it works.

[davbren]

My point is, the consortium would have to be bringing them something worth quite a lot. You're asking them to split any income a lot of ways, especially if they're doing the lion's share of the work. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see where your consortium adds enough value to make it a better business model than the other options.

What sort of management structure would it have? What would differentiate it from an ordinary software startup? Where would the finance come from?

I'm asking them to split the revenue in as many ways as there are benefactors. As for the initial finance, that comes from the consortium. They buy their share in the project with the amount they donate.

As for management structure, I don't know as yet. If you have ideas then please feel free to share. That's sorta the point in this thread. It differs from an ordinary software house because it would possibly involve different people each time, (i.e. different donations/shares/developers, etc.)

I view it as a way of spreading the cost of getting the applications the community is crying out for.

[akand074]

My point is, the consortium would have to be bringing them something worth quite a lot. You're asking them to split any income a lot of ways, especially if they're doing the lion's share of the work. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see where your consortium adds enough value to make it a better business model than the other options.

What sort of management structure would it have? What would differentiate it from an ordinary software startup? Where would the finance come from?

I think he's suggesting that this work sort of like a corporation when it comes to finance. Basically you come up with a full complete idea for an application that a large amount of people want built and then developers can choose to develop the application. In which case, anyone in the community who sees promise in the app can choose to "invest" in the application which gives them a sort of "share" of the application. So basically, the developers get majority share of the application (like 51%) and the other 49% of revenue is split between the rest of the "shareholders" based on the percentage of the total expense that they contributed.

It's kind of convoluted, and unlikely an effective approach as it's kind of a mix between a contract design and an independent design. I think the best approach would be to stick to the current standard of approaches. Either one of two:

1. You hire developers to create an application for you to be released for free to the Linux community, i.e anyone who wants to see the application made can choose to donate and when the desired sum of money to create the app is reached, the developers will then create it for the price and the product is not their rightful property but belongs to the community. In a sense, the developers are employed by the community.

2. The developers take it upon their own risk to develop the application and if they choose to incorporate their business then anyone, like any other public corporation, can buy a share to that corporation and the money goes toward development. Though in this case you'd want to sell your application and maximize revenues for the sake of return on investment. The idea of buying shares on a single application and not the entire business would cause nothing but trouble as it would be way too difficult to maintain.

[davbren]

I think he's suggesting that this work sort of like a corporation when it comes to finance. Basically you come up with a full complete idea for an application that a large amount of people want built and then developers can choose to develop the application. In which case, anyone in the community who sees promise in the app can choose to "invest" in the application which gives them a sort of "share" of the application. So basically, the developers get majority share of the application (like 51%) and the other 49% of revenue is split between the rest of the "shareholders" based on the percentage of the total expense that they contributed.

It's kind of convoluted, and unlikely an effective approach as it's kind of a mix between a contract design and an independent design. I think the best approach would be to stick to the current standard of approaches. Either one of two:

1. You hire developers to create an application for you to be released for free to the Linux community, i.e anyone who wants to see the application made can choose to donate and when the desired sum of money to create the app is reached, the developers will then create it for the price and the product is not their rightful property but belongs to the community. In a sense, the developers are employed by the community.

2. The developers take it upon their own risk to develop the application and if they choose to incorporate their business then anyone, like any other public corporation, can buy a share to that corporation and the money goes toward development. Though in this case you'd want to sell your application and maximize revenues for the sake of return on investment. The idea of buying shares on a single application and not the entire business would cause nothing but trouble as it would be way too difficult to maintain.

Your analysis of what is meant is almost correct. I thought the developer(s) would actually get less of a percentage of the revenue than that, but thats up for debate. This is because the initial funds that are raised by the consortium are given to the developer no questions asked.

[akand074]

Your analysis of what is meant is almost correct. I thought the developer(s) would actually get less of a percentage of the revenue than that, but thats up for debate. This is because the initial funds that are raised by the consortium are given to the developer no questions asked.

Well, you could have 100 thousand people donating 100 thousand dollars each and you would still result in nothing without the developers. I doubt many developers would be okay taking less than half the revenue when they did all the work and all you did was cover their expenses (which is mostly just time). Unless he is getting paid a decent amount right to his pocket just for developing it. I also don't think many people would invest in a single application when the return on investment is likely very low. Which is why it's likely better to just employ someone who is willing to develop the app funded by the community and to continue supporting it so long as he continues getting paid (or you could choose to contract someone else to continue developing it). Point is, the developer shouldn't get the license for it but instead could be an investor like everyone else. But either way, developing non-free applications in such a way, like I said before, will cause nothing but trouble. It's very hard to regulate. There is really no proper way to managed revenues and fairly distribute them. As well as allowing/disallowing investments based on needs. So you would actually need a department for the business end of things that would require funding on it's own, which pretty much just creates a business... owned by no one (or everyone!). Everyone is just an employee with no clear cut owner. It's kind of like a large group of people splitting on lottery tickets and just splitting the winnings. This gets more difficult when it's uneven splitting. I mean, okay it's possible to do, but there is really low incentive to do so and you'd need a lot of honest people. Because if it's unregulated, then you'll have a lot of fraud/dishonesty or basically just people doing things incorrectly. And if it is regulated, then basically the regulators are the owners.

Since you need regulators obviously, the community can form a committee who's job is to deal with the business end of things and regulate it. That way it's basically a business, but owned by everyone who contributes. It'd obviously need regulation so that no one could just invest a lot of money all of a sudden and put himself at over 50% share of the business which would then make him majority owner. Which is really bad news. So you'd have to ensure investments can only be made when asked for, and that there is a limit on how much you can invest/how much share of the business you can get. It could work, it'd be as much work as any real company, it'd just be owned by everyone. There are a number of small corporations that actually do that. I've read about companies where everyone involved gets exactly equal share of revenues (that aren't going back into the business for growth).

Sorry if nothing I said makes sense I started confusing myself part way in and just continued typing arbitrarily based on what my brain subconsciously decided should be written.

[davbren]

I know its just an example, but if 100,000 people each gave 100,000 then the developer would get 10 billion. I'm pretty sure they'd go for that...

This is better than freelancing, the developer gets a future share in the app profit making or not. They could potentially sell their shares too.

[akand074]

I know its just an example, but if 100,000 people each gave 100,000 then the developer would get 10 billion. I'm pretty sure they'd go for that...

This is better than freelancing, the developer gets a future share in the app profit making or not. They could potentially sell their shares too.

Your right, it's basically as I just edited in to my post. You'd have to have permanently employed developers, permanently employed business related committee just like any other company. Everyone would just own the company together with no one or small number of owners allowed and basically get paid by performance.

[davbren]

Maybe permanently approved developers than permanently employed. If the developer isn't getting paid, then the work stops. Similarly, if the developer stops working, the funding stops.

As far as the funding goes, anyone can do it. If someone no longer wants to support the project, then can sell the shares to someone third party or within the consortium, that money then goes to the maintenance costs of the app.

I don't think its such a failing of the idea that if because there are so many people giving money they don't get much back for it when people are willing to spend hundreds on office every couple of years. What they would possibly get out of it in the end is a brilliant application that they can use.

[Paqman]

So, who would be handling all the money? Who makes sure it's all safe, and that people get paid when they should? And what safeguards would there be on people's investment?

You're suggesting a very decentralised model, I think you'd need to be able to show very strong safeguards before people would be confident handing over money.

[MG&TL]

I develop for nothing. And I don't WANT to be paid either. Just saying.

[fatality_uk]

So Project A starts, the orders are given by the management team and work begins. Four months in, developers 8&9 of 10 say "We don't like the management teams orders, we have no input, were off".

As it's OpenSource, they take the code, fork it, work like crazy and release project A a month before you have a beta release date!


I thought the developer(s) would actually get less of a percentage of the revenue than thatReally!!

[davbren]

So Project A starts, the orders are given by the management team and work begins. Four months in, developers 8&9 of 10 say "We don't like the management teams orders, we have no input, were off".

As it's OpenSource, they take the code, fork it, work like crazy and release project A a month before you have a beta release date!

developers only ever have input when they gone beyond developing into management.

OpenSource it maybe (although not necessarily but for the sake of argument it is), they may well fork it, but in this case they won't get paid. If the projet still gets built, we all win. The app gets built and noone has paid for it..

I agree more detail is needed to design who looks after the money and whatnot. But that is something that can be decided at a later date.

What I wanted to do here was test the waters. If there is no support for such a scheme, the management of it is a irrelevant.

[Paqman]

I agree more detail is needed to design who looks after the money and whatnot. But that is something that can be decided at a later date.

What I wanted to do here was test the waters. If there is no support for such a scheme, the management of it is a irrelevant.

On the contrary, I think it's important details like money and leadership that you have to get right at the start. Good quality code is the result of your process, it's not the process itself. Get the process right and your output will follow.

[fatality_uk]

1. Developers only ever have input when they gone beyond developing into management.

2. OpenSource it maybe (although not necessarily but for the sake of argument it is)

1. Developers are an integral part of the process. Not allowing developers input I think is a mistake.

2. What distribution method other than opensource do you think would suit an consortium? If it's closed source, who owns the source, the IP, copyright?