Want more open source software? Please give us feedback on our paid development model

[koenn]

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@koenn: The car example isn't the same thing. We can imagine a car as being a piece of proprietary software. I buy WoW today, you get it next week for your birthday. That's ok. Let me offer a different example. This is a true story. During my senior year of college, my roommate and I shared a set of dishes. Let's consider clean dishes to be open source software because once they are clean anybody can use them. The act of washing the dishes can be software development. How often do you suppose those dishes got washed? Right, nobody wants to wash dishes for you, even if they've got the time and you don't. By the same logic, , even if they've got the money. There are very few people out there for whom money is so expendable that they'll basically donate it to buy you software, and those folks don't surf this forum. Even if they did, they'd find something else to give the money to.

I don't understand your analogy - or it's wrong. Dishes get dirty when you use them, and they need washing. Copies of software don't.

nobody wants to pay for software that you're going to get for free

If a particular program doesn't exist but you need it, you might want to pay to have it created. It's that or no program.
However, once it exists, and you already have your copy, what's the harm in having other people have a copy as well - even for free. It doesn't need to be created again, there's no additional cost (except distribution costs maybe) and it's not as if somene is gonna take your program away to give it to someone else.

[dfreer]

However, once it exists, and you already have your copy, what's the harm in having other people have a copy as well - even for free. It doesn't need to be created again, there's no additional cost (except distribution costs maybe) and it's not as if somene is gonna take your program away to give it to someone else.

That's kinda of what I think. Let's say I REALLY need xyz software. I go to ODN or whatever, say "Hey, here's $50. This is what I need." Someone else sees the bounty for xyz software, decides they would like to have it too, and donates $10 (and so on and so forth). Some programmer comes along, makes the software, and claims all the money. Then myself and anyone else can download the software for free, make improvements to it, post it back to ODN. If anyone comes along and says "Hey, that xyz software really helped me out!", they donate some money and that goes back to the original programmer.
Sounds good to me.

[salsafyren]

I think this is a great idea.

I am more than willing to pay for software even though it becomes free after its creation.

Also, I think there is great potential in this because since the software is Free Software, anybody can setup a company to charge for support.

If Company A which sells a piece of proprietary software and their support sucks, I have to use another product. If the software was Free another company could support the software. Great win for the customer.

So not only will your idea create a lot of Free software, but also opportunities for support companies.

I wish you the best.

[Yfrwlf]

@Yfrwlf: In theory, I agree that open source software should be the golden standard. The same thing should apply to music, movies, writing: any sort of media. The same thing should apply to consumables: food, clothing, cars, houses. If everybody offered their services for free to everybody else, then everybody would get what they need. In theory, socialism is a splendid idea. In practice, it didn't work out so well. Why? Human nature. People are greedy. Nobody wants to be the one to give money just because they can (see my above response to koenn). Everybody wants to sucker the other guy into a deal that benefits themselves.

So suppose there's 100,000 Linux users who want a WoW port. Now suppose that to pay for development of that port, we'd need to raise $1,000,000. We're not talking about all the bureaucratic crap that's usually associated with porting software. That's one million bucks straight to the programmers and designers. I'm sure that if you advertised a prize like that you could get a team to do it, or even get a team to design a WoW clone from scratch. That's just $10 each. No big deal, right? I'm guessing you couldn't get 100,000 people to give $10 each, even if they want that software, because they know that if they hold out just a little bit longer the next sucker will pay their $10 and then they can have the software for free.

The options here are to pay for it, or not. If it's not paid for, it can't be delivered. Since the project wouldn't be created unless the team was sure there was interest in paying for it, I don't think this will be a problem. I actually have an idea to encourage *more* people to pay than needed, and the additional funds causing the price per user to decrease. That way, the more who pay, the lower it would be for everyone, providing an interesting incentive, but we'll see.

When I said that I'd donate money to a developer to work on open source software, I meant that in the sense that I'd donate money to a good cause. I'm not expecting something in return, I just want to promote the cause because it gives me warm fuzzies. I'd also buy a piece of open source software for the same reason. I know I can get it for free, but I'm giving the developer some money for their service because I think it's a good service. To me this is no different than supporting any good developer by buying their software rather than pirating it. I may not agree with their closed-source practice, but I understand their need to eat and I want them to go on eating because they've done a fine job on the software I've been using and decided to buy from them. I'm not paying them for the specific purpose of making another piece of software, though I would be happy if they did.
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That gives me an idea for a business model. How about instead of the bounty thing, you have a pool of money. I wouldn't be paying for development, I'd be donating to a good cause, your organization. The organization holds on to the money and watches its forums for interaction between users' requests and developers' ideas. Eventually, a developer will come to you for money. At that point the request becomes a public petition where the amount and a description of the project gets posted and it would require a certain number of signatures, depending on the amount of money requested, to pass. Once it passes you give them the money and the petition becomes a contract (with a whole lot of witnesses). Why would I pay for this rather than paying for the specific development of a program? Because this lets me support a cause without making me feel like I'm getting ripped off. I'd see you as a non-profit publishing house supporting open source development as a whole. I'd pay you because you support good titles, not because I want to see a specific title in the future. Does that make sense? I think people would feel better about a system like that. What do you think?

The general public on ODN would also be educated in that the software purchased there would be free from restrictions, making it a good cause as well. I don't see how someone could see it as a bad thing. Paying a developer so they can program full-time is a fine alternative and empowers people with money but no skills at development. The only difference here between donating to a pool and donating to a specific development project is it's focus. One is more specific, one is less-so. Donations to a "normal" open source project would have to be for the exact same thing, paying the developers so they could be better or fully supported while developing something full or part time. It's the same thing essentially, but one is specific and more controlled, while the other is not and could have more trust issues in my opinion. While I would like to trust everyone, there are some scams out there. For instance the recent Linux Indy500 scam. If a developer wishes to program software for a job instead of doing something else for money, this gives them one of several different opportunities they'd have for doing so.

I think your idea is a good one, one that could work, but I am not sure how common it would be. I think it could definitely be an option though on ODN. We could have a donations section where your name could be displayed or remain anonymous along with perhaps the amount donated. Then, a project that gains high popularity and seems to have a high need could do what you suggested and receive part of the donation pool. This would be good for people who wished to donate to open source software in general instead of a specific program's development. Again, I'm not sure how many people would wish to do this instead of just focus on specific programs, but having that option sounds like a good idea to me.

On the other hand, the contract/agreement/bounty model does annoy me as you mentioned, because it makes me feel like I'm playing chicken with the 100,000 other users who want the same product I do. Who will give in first? Who will pay the $10? I don't want things like that keeping me up at night. Just make the software and if it's good I'll pay for it.

I understand your concern, but I think with certain mechanisms in place, there would not be a sniping issue at hand. Purchase commitments could be prevented from being withdrawn. I think it's a legitimate concern, you don't want to let it become a competition or sniping match or anything like that. Just like ebay found ways to prevent sniping, I believe ODN can find ways to display project funding and purchasing in a positive way that encourages payments to be donated. After all, everyone *wants* their software, and if they've been watching a project as it develops, they probably will want to start using it after it is finished. I believe the mere effect of needing to wait will be an incentive. The whole voting/purchasing system could be made into a very complex system, but hopefully we'll be able to find a simple solution to avoid confusion while not making people feel like their purchase was a "waste" in any way.

Thanks a bunch for your comments, and sorry for the rambling ^^ Again, if you know of anyone else who may be interested in helping this project get moving and gaining attention, please send them to http://www.opendevelopmentnetwork.org

[Nils Olav]

What's the license going to say? Is it something like: "Only blah blah may compile this software or any derivatives of it. After blah blah this software changes its license to the blah license."?

[Yfrwlf]

That's kinda of what I think. Let's say I REALLY need xyz software. I go to ODN or whatever, say "Hey, here's $50. This is what I need." Someone else sees the bounty for xyz software, decides they would like to have it too, and donates $10 (and so on and so forth). Some programmer comes along, makes the software, and claims all the money. Then myself and anyone else can download the software for free, make improvements to it, post it back to ODN. If anyone comes along and says "Hey, that xyz software really helped me out!", they donate some money and that goes back to the original programmer.
Sounds good to me.

Hmm sort of similar to aurelm's idea, except it's giving money to a specific developer or team to say good job, but after the project is finished, instead. Entirely possible to implement. It's very possible though that the same team or developer could come back to work on another project to further add features or to work on something else, and you'd be helping them out by helping fund that project as well plus helping the creation of more OSS for everyone. There are many ways to look at it, and these things are entirely possible to implement. Thanks for your suggestion. ^^

[Yfrwlf]

I think this is a great idea.

I am more than willing to pay for software even though it becomes free after its creation.

Also, I think there is great potential in this because since the software is Free Software, anybody can setup a company to charge for support.

If Company A which sells a piece of proprietary software and their support sucks, I have to use another product. If the software was Free another company could support the software. Great win for the customer.

So not only will your idea create a lot of Free software, but also opportunities for support companies.

I wish you the best.

I think that it will open a lot of doors, you're right. For example, lets take the development of an open source MMORPG as an example. You could have several servers that host the default world group together and make their own service to pay for the bandwidth. There would be free servers too of course, and in an unrelated note perhaps you could make a program to connect several servers virtually so that you could serve the game similar to how torrents work, but any way. You'd have other groups which created their own alterations on the game and hosted their own servers. You'd have that same development team or other teams come back and propose paid development projects for creating a very content-rich "expansion", or even a sequel.

As for product support as far as patching bugs and such, I think ODN would definitely need to specify a certain level of code cleanliness so that releases would have few bugs. You could perhaps have some kind of support payment put into the project, so that the payments would go to development of that projects *plus* some additional funding for a certain period of paid support. Or, someone else could come out and suggest a project for patching or updating some software. Or, like you mentioned, you could have a company just charge a flat cost for some kind of support. There are many different possibilities. You are right that proprietary software sucks for that reason. With proprietary software, there's so much lock-in due to license terms that in effect it's a "monopoly" on a certain product for things like support, meaning their support could really suck. Sure, you can sometimes find support from other companies, but without access to the source code their support would be quite limited.

Glad you hear you're interested, there's enough positive feedback that I'm definitely going to give this project my all. The main work to get ODN running will be in site design, PHP/MySQL/CSS/etc, so if you know any web developers I'd love to have their opinions or support. Thanks a bunch for your feedback!

[Yfrwlf]

What's the license going to say? Is it something like: "Only blah blah may compile this software or any derivatives of it. After blah blah this software changes its license to the blah license."?

It could, but honestly, I do not know. Perhaps no license would be needed until the end? I am no lawyer, and how we could work this out in the most painless way possible is still to be contemplated. There is a legal section on the ODN forums though for discussion about this and other legal issues, though we're still at least a few months from having to worry about it I think, depending on the speed at which ODN grows and gains attention.