Why is it so hard to attract money in the open source?
This is the 4th article from the cycle of translation of texts of foreign representatives of the open-source movement. A significant part of the previous articles was devoted to the analysis of the reasons that prevent developers from more actively participating in OS projects.
Today’s text is devoted to finding a solution to one of the key problems of open source: the difficulty of financing projects. I liked this article first of all by the comparative analysis of various ways of attracting money for open-source development - which, of course, does not detract from its other merits.
It would be very interesting to learn about the experience of readers - did you use any of the services / tools described by the author? What were the advantages / disadvantages that worked / did not work?
')
Enjoy reading!
For the past four months, I have had the pleasure of creating a company focused solely on the monetization of open-source projects. Code Sponsor has overcome the path from concept to a fully viable solution to support open source projects.
Earnings developer in dollars by month
“Open Source is a very strange thing. The code that I develop for an open source project is the most significant work I’m doing. But no one wants to pay for it. At the same time, when I talk about work for which I get paid - no one wants to listen. ”
The activist of the open-source movement Nadia Eghbal (Nadia Egbal) oversees Lemonade Stand - a list of sources for financing open projects. This list contains an impressive number of options for attracting deposits, indicating the advantages and disadvantages of each of the methods.
Almost every mentioned solution belongs to one or several categories:
Let's look at each of the ways.
A request for funding is by far the easiest way to receive funds. It does not require developers to change behaviors. Many projects have achieved significant success, going to the Open Collective .
Not less achievements and those who decided to use direct payments. Patreon , Gratipay , and Liberapay allow you to add a payment button to the project's README. BountySource and Gitcoin are focused on paying for solving specific problems.
What is needed to raise substantial funds?
With competence in conducting fundraising campaigns, this method works well: Sean T. Larkin ( Sean T. Larkin ) shared a story about how the Webpack project raised $ 400,000 in one year. This result was not easy.
Unfortunately, the money does not start to arrive immediately after entering the Open Collective or adding a link to Patreon.
Cant Sy. Dodds placed the “Donate” button in his repository for a year. He informed me that during this time the amount of contributions was $ 0. But why? Because open source projects are asking for money from developers who themselves are trying to raise money for their projects. Imagine a hundred developers who are lined up and are paying the dollar to the neighbor on the left.
The practice of voluntary donations works well for some projects. But in most cases, the chances of attracting substantial funds are very small. At least, if the developer does not retrain in the evangelist of his project.
In most open source projects, technical support is provided free of charge. Developers answer questions, solve technical problems and provide all kinds of assistance solely out of the goodness of their soul and from the desire to introduce the developed software to the masses.
However, the growing popularity of the project requires increased support. Some developers are trying to make money through the release of books and souvenirs, as well as providing paid support.
However, most developers do not use these features. In fact, small projects can hardly count on this method of generating income. If the scale of the project is not large enough, then the paid trainings and books are of little interest to anyone.
Collecting a fee for a license to use is one of the most profitable ways to monetize open-source. A great example is Mike Perham 's Sidekiq. This is a free solution with open partners, but by offering a Professional and Corporate version, the project earns more than $ 1 million.
The main question that the developer should ask himself, deciding to follow this path of financing, is: “Do I want to turn this project into a business?”. If the answer is yes, and the project is large enough, this approach would be an excellent choice.
Only here most of the developers lack business acumen. They prefer development to finance and marketing.
Now that we have divided the decisions into categories, a pattern begins to manifest itself. The emerging picture, among other things, well explains the difficulties in monetizing the modern open source.
Increased funding requires developers to change roles
To increase their income from the open source project, the developer must change, turning from a technical project participant to an administrator, and, as a result, into a business owner. And the stronger the change, the higher the chances of attracting a good amount of funding.
But I am convinced that developers should not give up their vocation for the sake of money.
The Code Sponsor project emerged from the idea that developers can be provided with a stable and scalable source of financial injections through ethical advertising. This is a mix of Carbon Ads , Open Collective and Read the Docs (with a touch of mass marketing, demonstrated by Wes Bos ).
Two examples of the successful application of this approach are Read the Docs and Hoodie .
The idea is simple
There are hundreds of companies for which developers are the target audience (see the Heroku list). Each has an advertising budget. A huge number of developers visit GitHub every day to get acquainted with the documentation or to work on open-source projects. I knew that if I could convince developers to promote the services or products of such companies in the form of ethical advertising, then companies would prefer to pay them rather than Google.
Several of its implications supported this idea:
I clearly stated that all messages posted on GitHub should be:
Within four months, Code Sponsor grew pretty quickly. This graph shows the total number of developers in the system.
Below is the total number of impressions for a period of four months. Only in November, I noted about 3.6 million hits. It should be noted here that we never even tracked anyone anonymously.
Developers received payments based on clicks. We are seeing a steady growth trend of this indicator.
Link clicks by day (excluding bots, duplicates and dishonest clicks)
Developer revenues grew from month to month. In November of this year ( * already past, an article for the 2017th year ) Code Sponsor generated $ 4,781.80 for open source developers.
Here are some final numbers:
Here is a screenshot of my dashboard - this is data about the whole life of Code Sponsor.
I am sure that Code Sponsor has shown a way for extensive, large-scale and stable financing of open-source projects. It is based on the provision of an advertising distribution channel, the profit from which will be sent directly to the open source. This method allows projects not to depend on charity. Sponsors see a return on investment, and developers get paid and have the opportunity to continue doing what they like.
Mike Smith, Rollbar Development Manager once told me that Code Sponsor had attracted more customers in a few months than any other marketing channel.
Code Sponsor was a successful project.
I suppose the main difficulties are due to two circumstances.
I believe that most developers in open source projects want to continue to pursue development. They do not want to either act as a support or build a business around their project.
Unfortunately, without a certain flexibility, raising funds will be a simple idea.
The main reason for the success of Code Sponsor is that everyone could participate. We had projects with a rating from 0 to 70 thousand stars. And this is possible only through dynamic sponsorship. In other words, the sponsored messages could vary depending on the budget and the wishes of the sponsor.
I love github. I believe that this is an excellent platform and company. I also understand their decision to remove Code Sponsor banners from my platform.
I sincerely hope that they will integrate Code Sponsor parts into their platform or allow Code Sponsor to continue serving dynamic images hosted in the README.
I appreciate all the help and support that the project received. The stability of financing is an important problem, and I hope that we will be able to continue communication and work together to find its solution.
"Code Sponsor closes December 8"
On November 24, I sent a letter about the upcoming closure of Code Sponsor.
I foresaw the possibility that GitHub would say “Enough” and planned some actions for this case. It would be easy to hide banners on GitHub, but continue to show them on other sites that use README.
Paid Domain Clicks
This graph shows which sites generated the traffic that led to the clicks. 53.49% of revenue comes from GitHub. 16.73% - on iframe widgets. 11.99% generated browsers with ad blockers enabled.
After reviewing this data, I realized that, contrary to all efforts, to provide stable support for open source on a significant scale without GitHub will not work. They were and remain the key to solving this problem.
Code Sponsor has become a part of my life. I want to continue to help developers.
Since January, Code Sponsor will try on a new role - we will become a kind of link between sponsors and developers. Funding will be provided monthly. Code Sponsor will represent developers as an agent and negotiate the highest rates. The goal is to attract as much money as possible in open-source projects. Developers will receive 85% of sponsorship revenue.
I, in turn, am going to move away from entrepreneurship. I miss my family. A new vector of activity will not require so much of my participation. I am leaving the current job and I hope with the advent of January to find a new one. If you are looking for employees, I will be glad to discuss this with you.
From the translator: at the moment Eric is working at GitCoin.
Today’s text is devoted to finding a solution to one of the key problems of open source: the difficulty of financing projects. I liked this article first of all by the comparative analysis of various ways of attracting money for open-source development - which, of course, does not detract from its other merits.
It would be very interesting to learn about the experience of readers - did you use any of the services / tools described by the author? What were the advantages / disadvantages that worked / did not work?
')
Enjoy reading!
For the past four months, I have had the pleasure of creating a company focused solely on the monetization of open-source projects. Code Sponsor has overcome the path from concept to a fully viable solution to support open source projects.
Earnings developer in dollars by month
Types of financing
“Open Source is a very strange thing. The code that I develop for an open source project is the most significant work I’m doing. But no one wants to pay for it. At the same time, when I talk about work for which I get paid - no one wants to listen. ”
The activist of the open-source movement Nadia Eghbal (Nadia Egbal) oversees Lemonade Stand - a list of sources for financing open projects. This list contains an impressive number of options for attracting deposits, indicating the advantages and disadvantages of each of the methods.
Almost every mentioned solution belongs to one or several categories:
- Voluntary contributions. Ask for money to support the project.
- Support. Charge for products and services related to product support.
- Licensing. Receive payments from the use of the project.
Let's look at each of the ways.
Voluntary contributions
A request for funding is by far the easiest way to receive funds. It does not require developers to change behaviors. Many projects have achieved significant success, going to the Open Collective .
Not less achievements and those who decided to use direct payments. Patreon , Gratipay , and Liberapay allow you to add a payment button to the project's README. BountySource and Gitcoin are focused on paying for solving specific problems.
What is needed to raise substantial funds?
With competence in conducting fundraising campaigns, this method works well: Sean T. Larkin ( Sean T. Larkin ) shared a story about how the Webpack project raised $ 400,000 in one year. This result was not easy.
Unfortunately, the money does not start to arrive immediately after entering the Open Collective or adding a link to Patreon.
Cant Sy. Dodds placed the “Donate” button in his repository for a year. He informed me that during this time the amount of contributions was $ 0. But why? Because open source projects are asking for money from developers who themselves are trying to raise money for their projects. Imagine a hundred developers who are lined up and are paying the dollar to the neighbor on the left.
Many of my projects are important for IT infrastructure and are widely used. But those projects for which I could get something are relatively small or have already been completed. It does not make sense to make T-shirts, organize meetings, or even continue to develop them. And despite all this, developers should be rewarded for their work.Cant Sy. Dodds
The practice of voluntary donations works well for some projects. But in most cases, the chances of attracting substantial funds are very small. At least, if the developer does not retrain in the evangelist of his project.
Support
In most open source projects, technical support is provided free of charge. Developers answer questions, solve technical problems and provide all kinds of assistance solely out of the goodness of their soul and from the desire to introduce the developed software to the masses.
However, the growing popularity of the project requires increased support. Some developers are trying to make money through the release of books and souvenirs, as well as providing paid support.
However, most developers do not use these features. In fact, small projects can hardly count on this method of generating income. If the scale of the project is not large enough, then the paid trainings and books are of little interest to anyone.
Licensing
Collecting a fee for a license to use is one of the most profitable ways to monetize open-source. A great example is Mike Perham 's Sidekiq. This is a free solution with open partners, but by offering a Professional and Corporate version, the project earns more than $ 1 million.
The main question that the developer should ask himself, deciding to follow this path of financing, is: “Do I want to turn this project into a business?”. If the answer is yes, and the project is large enough, this approach would be an excellent choice.
Only here most of the developers lack business acumen. They prefer development to finance and marketing.
Are you ready to change roles?
Now that we have divided the decisions into categories, a pattern begins to manifest itself. The emerging picture, among other things, well explains the difficulties in monetizing the modern open source.
Increased funding requires developers to change roles
To increase their income from the open source project, the developer must change, turning from a technical project participant to an administrator, and, as a result, into a business owner. And the stronger the change, the higher the chances of attracting a good amount of funding.
But I am convinced that developers should not give up their vocation for the sake of money.
Open Source Advertising
The Code Sponsor project emerged from the idea that developers can be provided with a stable and scalable source of financial injections through ethical advertising. This is a mix of Carbon Ads , Open Collective and Read the Docs (with a touch of mass marketing, demonstrated by Wes Bos ).
Two examples of the successful application of this approach are Read the Docs and Hoodie .
The idea is simple
There are hundreds of companies for which developers are the target audience (see the Heroku list). Each has an advertising budget. A huge number of developers visit GitHub every day to get acquainted with the documentation or to work on open-source projects. I knew that if I could convince developers to promote the services or products of such companies in the form of ethical advertising, then companies would prefer to pay them rather than Google.
Several of its implications supported this idea:
- Such a model made financing scalable. As long as the company sees a return on investment, it will continue to invest.
- Developers do not need to change behavior. They can start receiving payments by adding one line of code to their README file.
- Anyone can participate. This model of monetization was available to any developer, even with the most modest in scale project. The amount of money received depended on the popularity of the project. This is the key to extensive funding.
I clearly stated that all messages posted on GitHub should be:
- Unobtrusive - the banner is displayed as a document, but recognizable enough not to be misleading.
- Relevant - the message should be about what developers might be interested in (based on the programming language used in the project).
- Ethical - I did not want to track ANY personal data and did not use cookies for re-marketing. I followed the principles of ethical advertising by Eric Holscher ( Eric Holscher 's Ethical Advertising ).
Intensive growth
Within four months, Code Sponsor grew pretty quickly. This graph shows the total number of developers in the system.
Below is the total number of impressions for a period of four months. Only in November, I noted about 3.6 million hits. It should be noted here that we never even tracked anyone anonymously.
Developers received payments based on clicks. We are seeing a steady growth trend of this indicator.
Link clicks by day (excluding bots, duplicates and dishonest clicks)
Developer revenues grew from month to month. In November of this year ( * already past, an article for the 2017th year ) Code Sponsor generated $ 4,781.80 for open source developers.
Here are some final numbers:
- 1,471 repositories.
- 95 sites.
- 7,110,890 hits.
- 35,544 clicks.
- $ 24,370 of total revenue (of which $ 1,500 is refunded).
- $ 23,474.55 total revenue from clicks.
- $ 12,387.65 total profit.
- $ 11,086.90 total payout to developers.
- $ 1,051.55 The total amount transferred to the sponsors.
Here is a screenshot of my dashboard - this is data about the whole life of Code Sponsor.
Stable and scalable open source financing is just
I am sure that Code Sponsor has shown a way for extensive, large-scale and stable financing of open-source projects. It is based on the provision of an advertising distribution channel, the profit from which will be sent directly to the open source. This method allows projects not to depend on charity. Sponsors see a return on investment, and developers get paid and have the opportunity to continue doing what they like.
PSA friends, @codesponso r, is an excellent resource for the open source community. With his help, we managed to raise money for our project and tell @Rollbar to a wider audience. After we understood the benefits of participating in the project, the decision was very simple ...
Mike Smith, Rollbar Development Manager once told me that Code Sponsor had attracted more customers in a few months than any other marketing channel.
Code Sponsor was a successful project.
What complicates the financing of open source?
I suppose the main difficulties are due to two circumstances.
1. Developers do not want to change the role
I believe that most developers in open source projects want to continue to pursue development. They do not want to either act as a support or build a business around their project.
Unfortunately, without a certain flexibility, raising funds will be a simple idea.
2. GitHub does not provide dynamic sponsorship
The main reason for the success of Code Sponsor is that everyone could participate. We had projects with a rating from 0 to 70 thousand stars. And this is possible only through dynamic sponsorship. In other words, the sponsored messages could vary depending on the budget and the wishes of the sponsor.
I love github. I believe that this is an excellent platform and company. I also understand their decision to remove Code Sponsor banners from my platform.
I sincerely hope that they will integrate Code Sponsor parts into their platform or allow Code Sponsor to continue serving dynamic images hosted in the README.
Code Sponsor closes the platform
I appreciate all the help and support that the project received. The stability of financing is an important problem, and I hope that we will be able to continue communication and work together to find its solution.
"Code Sponsor closes December 8"
On November 24, I sent a letter about the upcoming closure of Code Sponsor.
I foresaw the possibility that GitHub would say “Enough” and planned some actions for this case. It would be easy to hide banners on GitHub, but continue to show them on other sites that use README.
Paid Domain Clicks
This graph shows which sites generated the traffic that led to the clicks. 53.49% of revenue comes from GitHub. 16.73% - on iframe widgets. 11.99% generated browsers with ad blockers enabled.
After reviewing this data, I realized that, contrary to all efforts, to provide stable support for open source on a significant scale without GitHub will not work. They were and remain the key to solving this problem.
What's next?
Code Sponsor has become a part of my life. I want to continue to help developers.
Since January, Code Sponsor will try on a new role - we will become a kind of link between sponsors and developers. Funding will be provided monthly. Code Sponsor will represent developers as an agent and negotiate the highest rates. The goal is to attract as much money as possible in open-source projects. Developers will receive 85% of sponsorship revenue.
I, in turn, am going to move away from entrepreneurship. I miss my family. A new vector of activity will not require so much of my participation. I am leaving the current job and I hope with the advent of January to find a new one. If you are looking for employees, I will be glad to discuss this with you.
From the translator: at the moment Eric is working at GitCoin.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/348546/
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