Free Software Developer Self-Financing Guide
The author of the article is Patrick "tyil" Speck
Hoping to help other developers who are trying to find sources of funding on their own, I post this article describing my experience. This is a living document! If you have add-ons, send your comments on each platform and links to other interesting platforms that I missed.
We list the platforms with the support of recurring donations. This is the most convenient way to ensure a stable income.
BountySource allows people to set rewards on certain tickets open on GitHub. As soon as you closed the ticket, you can get the accumulated "reward". Such a system also helps to determine which problem to work on in the first place, and it increases the interest of the “sponsors” to the project.
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There is also BountySource Salt - a platform of recurring donations. Through it, projects or teams receive monthly payments to finance their projects.
Platform support works on the
The platform BountySource itself is an example of free software, its source code is published on GitHub .
The Liberapay service looks free as in the word "freedom." He also publishes source codes on GitHub . Their own funding is organized through donations on their own platform, and not through a commission from other people's donations, as most other services do.
You can connect your other accounts to LiberaPay. Although the function is quite standard, it is programmer sites that speak about you as a developer, such as GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket. You can connect another account Mastodon, if you have one.
To tell people that you accept donations via LiberaPay, select one of the available widgets. This is the "Donate" button with a link to your profile. Please note that these are not ordinary HTML buttons or a well-implemented anchor tag, but a JavaScript button.
Another disadvantage of LiberaPay is the lack of a level system for sponsors, which is on most other platforms and gives certain privileges to “donors”.
MakerSupport's primary audience is content creators. They, like no one else, need freedom of speech. The platform is not specifically aimed at software developers, since you cannot link an account to one of the major platforms of hosting code on Git.
Here you can set "levels" for donors; This is a convenient way to provide them with additional benefits and incentives for support. In the case of open source software, such benefits may be something like privileged access to the developer for support.
Unfortunately, registration does not work as smoothly as on other platforms. My favorite nick tyil was too short. There are no indicators of the necessary requirements - after submitting the form, you are simply shown a pop-up window with a notification about the unsuccessful registration.
In addition, third-party JavaScript is required for the registration form to work and Google reCaptcha needs to be resolved for the form submit button to appear. Since uMatrix works in my browser, I had to spend additional time on setting permissions.
Setting a photo in a profile is also difficult. First, again, because of uMatrix, third-party XHR requests (in this case to Amazon) are blocked. Secondly, they again have not very friendly error output when loading an image in the “wrong” format, since they do not report the cause of the error or which formats are allowed.
Patreon is probably the most famous financing platform through donations to date. Popularity is good because it potentially increases the number of sponsors.
On Patreon you expose the so-called "goals". I did not find such a function on any other platform. Each goal corresponds to a certain amount of funding and reward for participants. So you can inform the sponsors that you will create certain content when the funding goal is reached. In fact, you show them how the money will be spent.
Another interesting option that I have not seen on other platforms is the ability to withdraw payments from donors after the creation of content, and not monthly. Although software developers are not very suitable (unless you want to receive payments for each commit), this is an interesting and rather unique feature. If you publish a lot of manuals, handbooks or other articles, then this may like.
As on other platforms, links to other services are linked to the account, but here it seems that only proprietary social networks are supported.
I mention Hatreon because I saw IRC talking about him. But this is nothing more than a joke that has gone too far. The main reason for the existence of Hatreon, apparently, is to get rid of political correctness that was present on the previous crowdfunding platforms. Registration is by invitation only, so even if you are interested, you will not be able to use the service. It seems that money transfers also do not work for at least 10 days.
It is not enough just to register an account on the financing platform. It takes more effort to maintain a healthy and happy sponsor base.
Do you write articles or release new software releases, whatever you do - tell the world about it. If no one knows about your project, they will not be able to encourage you in any way for it. Use social media, open forums, mailing lists, whatever! Tell us about what you have done, why it is useful and how people can use it to improve their digital life.
On platforms with support for sponsor incentives - use it. There are all sorts of little buns that can mean a lot to your sponsors. For example, you can come up with badges for donors who donated a certain amount. These icons are relatively simple to do, and many people like these things.
Another idea that sponsors often like is the opportunity to personally speak with the person whom they support financially. This can be done on a private IRC channel for sponsors. You can use another platform, but most software developers are already using IRC and there are few alternative options for real-time communication.
There are many platforms, use everything! They differ in user base, so you can reach new people if you give them the opportunity to choose a platform.
If no one knows that you accept donations, then with a high degree of probability you will not receive anything. Or if it’s too difficult to donate donations to you, people just won’t waste their energy trying to figure out how to do it. Make sure that the fact of receiving donations is clearly visible, as well as methods of translation.
A page with information about what exactly you are doing with the funds received. These could be simple facts like what you pay for renting an apartment and buying food. Most donors are not too concerned about what exactly you do with their money, but some appreciate when this information is published.
You can simply add a link to the site
There are more resources with tips on financing the work on open source software. I will list some of them.
Hoping to help other developers who are trying to find sources of funding on their own, I post this article describing my experience. This is a living document! If you have add-ons, send your comments on each platform and links to other interesting platforms that I missed.
We list the platforms with the support of recurring donations. This is the most convenient way to ensure a stable income.
Platforms
BountySource
- Requires a third-party JavaScript script on Cloudflare hosting.
BountySource allows people to set rewards on certain tickets open on GitHub. As soon as you closed the ticket, you can get the accumulated "reward". Such a system also helps to determine which problem to work on in the first place, and it increases the interest of the “sponsors” to the project.
')
There is also BountySource Salt - a platform of recurring donations. Through it, projects or teams receive monthly payments to finance their projects.
Platform support works on the
#bountysource IRC channel on Freenode .The platform BountySource itself is an example of free software, its source code is published on GitHub .
LiberaPay
The Liberapay service looks free as in the word "freedom." He also publishes source codes on GitHub . Their own funding is organized through donations on their own platform, and not through a commission from other people's donations, as most other services do.
You can connect your other accounts to LiberaPay. Although the function is quite standard, it is programmer sites that speak about you as a developer, such as GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket. You can connect another account Mastodon, if you have one.
To tell people that you accept donations via LiberaPay, select one of the available widgets. This is the "Donate" button with a link to your profile. Please note that these are not ordinary HTML buttons or a well-implemented anchor tag, but a JavaScript button.
Another disadvantage of LiberaPay is the lack of a level system for sponsors, which is on most other platforms and gives certain privileges to “donors”.
Makersupport
- Requires jQuery to work on a third-party hosting.
- To register a new account you need to decide the captcha Google reCaptcha.
MakerSupport's primary audience is content creators. They, like no one else, need freedom of speech. The platform is not specifically aimed at software developers, since you cannot link an account to one of the major platforms of hosting code on Git.
Here you can set "levels" for donors; This is a convenient way to provide them with additional benefits and incentives for support. In the case of open source software, such benefits may be something like privileged access to the developer for support.
Unfortunately, registration does not work as smoothly as on other platforms. My favorite nick tyil was too short. There are no indicators of the necessary requirements - after submitting the form, you are simply shown a pop-up window with a notification about the unsuccessful registration.
In addition, third-party JavaScript is required for the registration form to work and Google reCaptcha needs to be resolved for the form submit button to appear. Since uMatrix works in my browser, I had to spend additional time on setting permissions.
Setting a photo in a profile is also difficult. First, again, because of uMatrix, third-party XHR requests (in this case to Amazon) are blocked. Secondly, they again have not very friendly error output when loading an image in the “wrong” format, since they do not report the cause of the error or which formats are allowed.
- Apparently, they check the extensions of the downloaded files. As I understand it, images in .jpg and .png formats are allowed.
Patreon
- Requires a third-party JavaScript script on Cloudflare hosting.
- To register a new account you need to decide the captcha Google reCaptcha.
Patreon is probably the most famous financing platform through donations to date. Popularity is good because it potentially increases the number of sponsors.
On Patreon you expose the so-called "goals". I did not find such a function on any other platform. Each goal corresponds to a certain amount of funding and reward for participants. So you can inform the sponsors that you will create certain content when the funding goal is reached. In fact, you show them how the money will be spent.
Another interesting option that I have not seen on other platforms is the ability to withdraw payments from donors after the creation of content, and not monthly. Although software developers are not very suitable (unless you want to receive payments for each commit), this is an interesting and rather unique feature. If you publish a lot of manuals, handbooks or other articles, then this may like.
As on other platforms, links to other services are linked to the account, but here it seems that only proprietary social networks are supported.
(Not) worthy of mention
Hatreon
I mention Hatreon because I saw IRC talking about him. But this is nothing more than a joke that has gone too far. The main reason for the existence of Hatreon, apparently, is to get rid of political correctness that was present on the previous crowdfunding platforms. Registration is by invitation only, so even if you are interested, you will not be able to use the service. It seems that money transfers also do not work for at least 10 days.
It's not all
It is not enough just to register an account on the financing platform. It takes more effort to maintain a healthy and happy sponsor base.
Spread information about your work
Do you write articles or release new software releases, whatever you do - tell the world about it. If no one knows about your project, they will not be able to encourage you in any way for it. Use social media, open forums, mailing lists, whatever! Tell us about what you have done, why it is useful and how people can use it to improve their digital life.
- Of course, you should not spam on sites of inappropriate subjects. So you only get negative feedback.
Use rewards system
On platforms with support for sponsor incentives - use it. There are all sorts of little buns that can mean a lot to your sponsors. For example, you can come up with badges for donors who donated a certain amount. These icons are relatively simple to do, and many people like these things.
Another idea that sponsors often like is the opportunity to personally speak with the person whom they support financially. This can be done on a private IRC channel for sponsors. You can use another platform, but most software developers are already using IRC and there are few alternative options for real-time communication.
Don't get attached to the only platform.
There are many platforms, use everything! They differ in user base, so you can reach new people if you give them the opportunity to choose a platform.
Let people know that you accept their donations.
If no one knows that you accept donations, then with a high degree of probability you will not receive anything. Or if it’s too difficult to donate donations to you, people just won’t waste their energy trying to figure out how to do it. Make sure that the fact of receiving donations is clearly visible, as well as methods of translation.
Show what you do for the money
A page with information about what exactly you are doing with the funds received. These could be simple facts like what you pay for renting an apartment and buying food. Most donors are not too concerned about what exactly you do with their money, but some appreciate when this information is published.
You can simply add a link to the site
/donate , where donation methods are explained and where the funds go.- But do not turn the page into something like an advertisement, otherwise you will probably get the opposite effect.
Additional Information
There are more resources with tips on financing the work on open source software. I will list some of them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/345300/
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