After 20 years of working in open source, Travis Oliphant, the co-creator of Numpy, Scipy & Numba and the founder of PyData, NumFOCUS, & Anaconda, decided the economics of open source needed to change.
Organizations are disconnected from the communities and lack support and maintenance from the open source projects they depend on. Open source teams are burned out, underpaid, underrepresented. These problems have made open source software difficult to maintain.
This is the reason Travis started OpenTeams, a marketplace to connect open source communities with organizations. On one side of the marketplace, we connect companies with teams to help fund project development and maintenance. On the other side, we create a way for open source contributors to showcase their work, help them get recognized for their work and hired to work on projects they care about. Put simply, it’s like a KickStarter for open source projects and a LinkedIn for open source contributors.
Please give us feedback to help make open source software sustainable.
We focused on building out the contributor side of the marketplace first. However, we are now focusing on building out both sides of the marketplace in parallel.
Travis Oliphant, here. OpenTeams is much bigger than me, but I have been part of the early team putting energy into the effort. Henry has captured some of the personal motivations for me. They are sincere. There are plenty of ways for me to make money more easily than wrestling with the economics of open-source software. This is my calling and something I care about a lot. You can watch a video of me talking something about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCEUPosJuIY if you want to get to know me better.
I have had the privilege of watching open-source projects I started or participated in get used by millions. I want to see a world where more people are paid a great living to work on open-source software. There are several approaches to improving the funding fabric for open-source. OpenTeams is one of them. Quansight Initiate (http://www.qi.ventures) is another one. Quansight Labs (http://labs.quansight.org) and Quansight (http://www.quansight.com) are others. A group of us are also working on a few other ideas including FairOSS (not going to give the website because it is a behind-the scenes operation for now --- ping me if you are interested in learning more).
I have spent many years writing open-source software, improving open-source ecosystems, hiring open-source developers, and paying people to work on open-source software. I have also spent the past 12 years in particular working in industry watching open-source get used and seeing the disconnect between open-source usage and open-source communities.
There are several business models that can work to improve things. With OpenTeams we are building out a platform and ecosystem to help open-source communities thrive by directing money from industries that use them to the communities that exist while also learning from the basic laws of incentive alignment and local choice making that are at the heart of every economy.
One of my core believes is that not all software will be or should be open source. I don't make this conclusion lightly. However all software will be based on and use open source foundations. Those communities that produce these foundations should be able to thrive and yet retain their freedom and self direction.
OpenTeams is a platform to make that happen by connecting companies that use open-source and want to fund specific features and improvements with organizations that hire open-source developers to work on proposals that have input from community participants and leaders. Some initiatives will be new projects, some will be usability improvements and feature proposals for existing projects. An effect of OpenTeams is also to enable a place for all open-source contributors to build their reputation (not just contributions that lead to pull-requests).
We are in a pre-alpha stage at the moment, but will be continuing to add features and are open to suggestions and ideas.
An organization collecting funds for open source should itself be open source and not earn margin for anything other than upkeep and paying engineers' salaries.
I kind of feel like Patreon and Kickstarter are in the same vein: rent seeking marketplaces that would be better if they were replaced with entirely open source alternatives that belonged to their respective communities. Patreon should be funded via patreon.
If Wikipedia were started today, I worry that it would have ads or be for-profit.
As someone working on a crowdfunding platform that I would like to be able to release the source code as an open consumer union implementation, I have concerns about enabling unmoderated crowdfunding.
The power of a collective wallet is not something to be taken lightly. Whether it's environmental destruction or divisive politics, I have yet to decide that setting something like this free is for the best interest.
I would like to see an open source license like the GPL that has enforceable, well-defined provisions for environmental protection and human rights.
It seems like to go all the way, a smart contract would need to be used to ensure the transparency that a standard webserver-based infrastructure cannot provide. But credit cards are the standard for online payments so this would put a project in a further category from the start.
I cannot agree with you more. We are working on making open source software sustainable so that people view open source software as a real career. People should be paid to work on the projects that they love and care so much about! We have had many discussions around becoming open source in the beginning. However, in order to ensure that we achieve the aforementioned mission, we believe that is it best to start off as a proprietary company for a number of different reasons. In the future, we will be looking to become open source. Thank you for your feedback!
We are big fans of Liberapay. They are a great solution working towards making open source sustainable. Our model is very different though.
Instead of a recurring donation based system, we are creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software. The KickStarter idea comes from the fact that any person or company can fund the project so that in the future, they can use the software.
The deep social reputation database generated by the OpenTeams’ social reputation network will provide the foundation for proposers to demonstrate their ability to deliver on a fundable project's goals and grant the prospective funders the ability to validate the composition of the team proposed.
The discussion about being open source has been extensively debated. In order to change the economics of open source, we believe you need to do things differently. At the moment we are not open source because we need to get the project off the ground. We believe that in order to grow to a suitable level where we can talk about becoming open source, we need to have the control and swiftness of a proprietary startup to be able to first establish a marketplace that proves this new business model. Please note that we are all for becoming open source in the future.
"the control and swiftness of a proprietary startup"... What a load of BS. It's literally flicking a switch on your repository. Nothing else needs to change about how you do things.
I won't be supporting this venture, because you have made it clear you are not interested in supporting OSS. Your interest is in exploiting a market opportunity.
Thank you for your feedback. I empathise with your concern, but the only thing we are interested in is supporting OSS. Travis has been in the industry for over 20 years and his life is open source software. This is where his interests lie.
The sole purpose of this company is to bring together organizations using open source software with creators and maintainers of the software to facilitate and grow funding opportunities. This is needed so that open source can become sustainable. In order to achieve this mission, revenue is needed to make sure that we are actually capable of supporting OSS.
One of our main goals at OpenTeams is to channel more funding and resources into community-driven projects, to support transparency in their governance, and keep the communities around them healthy and accelerate their development. We do this in a way that keeps the community in charge of its destiny.
I promise this is a genuine question. Can someone explain the background here that explains why discussions about open-source to turn explosive?
Like, the point here is that if this venture means to support open-source then it should open-source its own stuff (which means what here? Its website, I guess)?
I mean, I guess that makes sense to me? But why so much passion about this? LOL, I really don't get it. I really think I'm missing some basic background. In my mind I'm thinking "hmm, that's a good point. Kind of inconsistent..." but I never make the leap to "you clearly are NOT interested in supporting open-source".
Can someone explain it to me? I promise if any of this sounds flippant, it's unintentional. I really think there's some OSS history I'm unaware of that makes me not understand these exchanges.
I doubt there is a single correct answer to your question. That said, two things come to mind...
First, commercial software used to be very anti open source. See [1]. As a result, there can be distrust & skepticism when commercial companies get involved in open source.
Second, there are a range of “open source” licenses reflecting a broad spectrum of values and beliefs about how much code should be shared and with what restrictions/obligations. So, people enter into the discussion from a variety of view points. Some people only use GPL or AGPL software and won’t participate in online forums unless the forum software is released under those licenses. People in that group might feel excluded from OpenTeams in the same way someone who is a strict vegan might feel excluded at a vegetarian restaurant.
It's literally flicking a switch on your repository.
That's technically true if you believe "open source" is just about having the right text file in a repo, but there's much more to it if you want to consider the ethics, responsibilities, and legal ramifications of how you choose to license your project.
There is absolutely nothing stopping someone creating an open source project and exploiting a market opportunity at the same time. The perception that "open source === done for altruistic reasons" is one of the most common misconceptions about OSS, and really should be changed.
Having read about the beginnings of a lot of open source projects it is common for an initial period of “closed” small team development.
Episode 32 of the Django Chat podcast touches on this topic at 34 minutes in. DHH talks about the benefits of a small group of people working fast to shape a feature before releasing it to the community.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/django-chat/id14515364...
This is exactly the approach we are taking to launch OpenTeams. By having a small "closed" group focus on launching key features, we believe that our new business model will become the default approach to helping open source projects become sustainable.
This crosses into personal attack, which is not acceptable on HN, and particularly breaks the Show HN guidelines. We want people to be able to share their work here without being harangued and disincentivized.
I'm sure you can express your substantive points thoughtfully, so please do that in the future. And if you wouldn't mind reviewing the Show HN rules and the site rules, we'd be grateful:
Assuming OpenTeams is built on Django/Flask (based on the large number of Python projects), it would also be cool just to submit code/doc improvements or support back to those projects.
Hi there, I'm part of OpenTeams. Members of our team are contributors and maintainers of several projects within the scientific python community. Our goal is not just to contribute funding, but to also contribute time/code. As we grow, we'll do our best to be part of many more projects.
As I recall, there was an attempt at "Kickstarter for open source" before. Only, it might even have been before Kickstarter (in which case I guess it was a "Fundable for open source").
I never heard of it again. I like the idea, but it might not be the easiest to get off the ground. Why not just use Kickstarter? (Except that they're doing union busting, I know).
There's Bountysource. Dunno if that's what you had in mind, but it seems like a similar principle. People put "bounties" on features in open source projects. Someone closes a PR for that feature, they get the bounty. Someone wants to encourage work on a feature, they contribute to the feature's bounty.
In my view this is a natural next step for open source as it closes the loop on users who don't contribute code but do use the software. Now they can contribute financially, in theory fueling more code contributors (in practice, most bounties I've seen are not worth the work, but I've only had my eye on one obscure little open source game, so this may not be representative).
I think Kickstarter is not great for this model simply because it has a fixed end date for fundraising and there is less of a direct tie to specific features in a particular codebase.
We agree that a KickStarter style of funding is the best way to succesfully fund a project as it has many benefits. For example, funding companies mitigate risk by sharing the burden of cost.
Check out our early Initiatives page and you'll find two early projects we are currently working with to get funding.
We understand that creating a successful startup is difficult. But we are determined!
While KickStarter might be useful to get funding for an open source project, we are aiming to become THE platform for open source innovation. OpenTeams is a marketplace that connects open source stakeholders with organizations to facilitate funding for new development and maintenance.
Unlike KickStarter which only provides funding, we're enabling project leaders, contributors working on the funded project, funders themselves, and OpenPartners (middlemen 'general contractors) to collaborate and get the work done in the best way possible.
Our competition is companies that help open source contributors to be hired or paid in one way or another. Additionally, any companies that help open source projects get funding would be considered competition.
Competition includes:
* Bounty-based companies like Gitcoin, BountySource, and IssueHunt
* Donation-based companies like Github Sponsors, Liberapay, and Patreon
* Subscription-based companies like Tidelift
However, there is no direct competitor creating a marketplace that connects open source stakeholders with organizations to facilitate funding for new development and maintenance.
One of the subtitles for this is "a KickStarter for open source projects". I looked at their landing page and utterly failed to understand if this description is accurate for the funding part of this product.
However, if it is, I think it's a terrible model for OSS development, or for funding development in general. I develop Cursive (https://cursive-ide.com), an IDE for Clojure code. When I was starting out and deciding how to fund it, lots of people told me I should do a Kickstarter like Light Table, another popular Clojure IDE. I decided not to and instead did the old-school thing of actually charging for the value I create. 4 years later, Cursive is going great and Light Table has been dead for years, despite obtaining $315k (IIRC) in Kickstarter funding.
So what went wrong with Light Table? The problem is that that funding is not ongoing, it's a one-off thing. $315k sounds like a lot of money, but if you have a couple of people living in San Francisco, you burn through it very quickly. When that money runs out, what do you do? It's really hard to go back and ask for more, and even if you do you're only kicking the can down the road - a year later or whatever you have the same problem again.
Obviously Cursive is not directly comparable to OSS development since it's closed-source and commercial. But the principle remains the same - development needs ongoing funding, not lump sums. As distasteful as it is to many developers, the model that best matches the actual requirements of funding software development is subscription pricing. When I was discussing possible licensing models on my mailing list, one of my users made this point more eloquently than I could:
Software is never delivered as a complete static product, it evolves over time to meet the needs of its users. Perpetual licensing leaves developers in the awkward position of deciding to support that product forever for free, or releasing new paid-for versions regularly and stepping onto the feature treadmill where you have to keep delivering 'value' to attract users away from your old versions. Perpetual licensing is bad for developers and bad for users.
As I said above, I couldn't work out whether OpenTeams is actually more similar to Kickstarter or something like Patreon. I really hope they're aiming for ongoing funding and not one-off lump sums.
Cursive was originally based on an old plugin for editing Clojure code developed by some JetBrains people in their spare time. It was effectively abandoned. I spent some time working on it and was going to take over maintenance of it when I considered making it into a product. By the time I released Cursive much of the original code was gone, but there's still some there lurking in the darker corners. That plugin was Apache licensed and I checked with JetBrains and the original devs if they would mind me making a product out of it. My code in the project has never been open source.
Thank you for your detailed comment. We really do appreciate your feedback - it will help us to get better!
Our KickStarter style funding events are called Initiatives. Please visit our early Initiatives page and you will find two projects we are already helping to get funding. We say it is a KickStarter for open source projects because it is a marketplace where companies that use open source software can connect with companies/individuals that will commit on a commercial basis to advance project roadmaps and maintenance. This is similar to KickStarter in the sense that the public (one side of the market place) is funding the project (other side of the marketplace) in return for a promise to use a product/service in the future when it is available.
Unlike Closjure, the projects that start an Initiative will be open source. Additionally, the feature/maintenance that the project releases as a result of the Initiative will also be open source.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and many other large companies donate to open source software for a number of reasons. Typically, it is to fund a new feature or to help maintain the project. We are creating a platform for these companies to better fund the projects they rely on (and already fund).
These projects aren't restricted to one Initiative. They can start as many Initiatives as they desire. Of course, the success of the Initiative is dependent on the supply of funding.
With regards to ongoing funding, projects can create an Initiative for maintaining the project which, while it is a lump sum, can be distributed to the maintainers over time (under contract). In this sense, it is similar to the world of startup funding: when you've run out of money, you ask for more and continue to grow.
One suggestion I have is to use plainer language when describing what this actually is, especially on your landing page. Here in the comments, when describing the project you've repeatedly described it as a marketplace, which makes sense to me. However that word or description doesn't appear at all on your landing page, and after reading the whole page I'm really none the wiser about how it works.
The way you describe all this, it sounds very complicated, but I'm wondering if it really is that complicated in practice. I'd suggest trying to have a "How does the funding work?" section on your landing page, and try to get that section under (say) 100 words. If you can't describe it that briefly, I'd gently suggest that you should try to make the way it works simpler.
In this sense, it is similar to the world of startup funding: when you've run out of money, you ask for more and continue to grow.
I think that's fair enough, especially once it's understood that it's mostly companies who are putting up the money, not individuals. Personally, I'd stay clear of the Kickstarter analogy because Kickstarter doesn't have this ability to go back for more money, and that's a killer for software funding.
I really appreciate the suggestions. They are very insightful and I'll make sure I discuss them all with the team - thank you so much.
In practice, a project needs funding. They create an Initiative on our platform with a product roadmap and outline of what they are going to do (maintenance or a new feature). Companies/individuals that use the project go to the website and provide funding. A contract is formed by the OpenPartner (similar to a general contractor) whereby the project only gets the money once certain requirements are fulfilled. The OpenPartner hires contributors to work on the project and those contributors get to work and are paid as they provide deliverables. Everyone then gets to use the updated software.
We will be working on our messaging so thank you for the feedback.
Hm, maybe I'm missing something, but for me it seems unfair to compare initially open source LightTable and closed Cursive, doesn't it? Even more, according to the website Cursive is built on top of IntelliJ---well known and polished/tested by dozens of developers commercial IDE.
So I cannot get a point in this comparison: different business models, different licenses, etc.
I mentioned that the projects are not directly comparable. My main point was that ongoing software development requires ongoing funding, and Kickstarter doesn't provide that. If this project does, then I think that Kickstarter is a poor analogy for them to use in their marketing material.
> but if you have a couple of people living in San Francisco, you burn through it very quickly.
Guess what, most open source code is not developed in Frisco. At least not for pay. You can do a lot with apparently trivial amounts of money, that simply give key volunteer developers the margin of support they need.
_most_ developers live where their companies are and _most_ software companies are in big cities and _most_ big cities in 1st world countries are somewhere on the continuum of expensive to freaking expensive unless you want to live in the slums, and most developers get paid well enough to not live in the slums.
put that all together and you have a high cost of living for _most_ developers. "trivial amounts of money" don't go very far in the city.
Yes, you can move to the country but speaking as someone who works remotely, it is NOT easy to get a good remote job with a company that gets remote and there is a ton of competition for each position. So, it's not easy for most of us to just move somewhere cheap and "do a lot with apparently trivial amounts of money" Sure, it's possible. It's just not probable, or likely.
OpenTeams' vision is to become THE platform for open source innovation.
OpenCollective uses a donation-based model. On the other hand, OpenTeams is creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software.
You need to be super transparent about what sort of cut you are taking from funders and how you are funding the OpenTeams project itself and what expenses that funding is paying for (salaries, development, servers etc).
We will be taking a 10% cut on the funding which will go to further development of the platform.
The OpenPartner's are responsible for creating the product roadmap in liaison with the development team. This includes a clear budget for where the money is going, just as you described.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadOrganizations are disconnected from the communities and lack support and maintenance from the open source projects they depend on. Open source teams are burned out, underpaid, underrepresented. These problems have made open source software difficult to maintain.
This is the reason Travis started OpenTeams, a marketplace to connect open source communities with organizations. On one side of the marketplace, we connect companies with teams to help fund project development and maintenance. On the other side, we create a way for open source contributors to showcase their work, help them get recognized for their work and hired to work on projects they care about. Put simply, it’s like a KickStarter for open source projects and a LinkedIn for open source contributors.
Please give us feedback to help make open source software sustainable.
Thank you!
We focused on building out the contributor side of the marketplace first. However, we are now focusing on building out both sides of the marketplace in parallel.
I have had the privilege of watching open-source projects I started or participated in get used by millions. I want to see a world where more people are paid a great living to work on open-source software. There are several approaches to improving the funding fabric for open-source. OpenTeams is one of them. Quansight Initiate (http://www.qi.ventures) is another one. Quansight Labs (http://labs.quansight.org) and Quansight (http://www.quansight.com) are others. A group of us are also working on a few other ideas including FairOSS (not going to give the website because it is a behind-the scenes operation for now --- ping me if you are interested in learning more).
I have spent many years writing open-source software, improving open-source ecosystems, hiring open-source developers, and paying people to work on open-source software. I have also spent the past 12 years in particular working in industry watching open-source get used and seeing the disconnect between open-source usage and open-source communities.
There are several business models that can work to improve things. With OpenTeams we are building out a platform and ecosystem to help open-source communities thrive by directing money from industries that use them to the communities that exist while also learning from the basic laws of incentive alignment and local choice making that are at the heart of every economy.
One of my core believes is that not all software will be or should be open source. I don't make this conclusion lightly. However all software will be based on and use open source foundations. Those communities that produce these foundations should be able to thrive and yet retain their freedom and self direction.
OpenTeams is a platform to make that happen by connecting companies that use open-source and want to fund specific features and improvements with organizations that hire open-source developers to work on proposals that have input from community participants and leaders. Some initiatives will be new projects, some will be usability improvements and feature proposals for existing projects. An effect of OpenTeams is also to enable a place for all open-source contributors to build their reputation (not just contributions that lead to pull-requests).
We are in a pre-alpha stage at the moment, but will be continuing to add features and are open to suggestions and ideas.
Thanks for your feedback.
* © 2019 OpenTeams. All rights reserved.
* https://openteams.com/terms-of-service
Why isn't a project who wants to change the economics of open source, open-source itself? Can you reconsider your licensing choices?
I kind of feel like Patreon and Kickstarter are in the same vein: rent seeking marketplaces that would be better if they were replaced with entirely open source alternatives that belonged to their respective communities. Patreon should be funded via patreon.
If Wikipedia were started today, I worry that it would have ads or be for-profit.
The power of a collective wallet is not something to be taken lightly. Whether it's environmental destruction or divisive politics, I have yet to decide that setting something like this free is for the best interest.
I would like to see an open source license like the GPL that has enforceable, well-defined provisions for environmental protection and human rights.
It seems like to go all the way, a smart contract would need to be used to ensure the transparency that a standard webserver-based infrastructure cannot provide. But credit cards are the standard for online payments so this would put a project in a further category from the start.
We are at the very beginning of our journey and so there are many features to come.
It's open-source, non-profit, and (tries to) fund itself through its own platform: https://en.liberapay.com/Liberapay/donate
Instead of a recurring donation based system, we are creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software. The KickStarter idea comes from the fact that any person or company can fund the project so that in the future, they can use the software.
The deep social reputation database generated by the OpenTeams’ social reputation network will provide the foundation for proposers to demonstrate their ability to deliver on a fundable project's goals and grant the prospective funders the ability to validate the composition of the team proposed.
We really appreciate your feedback, thank you!
The sole purpose of this company is to bring together organizations using open source software with creators and maintainers of the software to facilitate and grow funding opportunities. This is needed so that open source can become sustainable. In order to achieve this mission, revenue is needed to make sure that we are actually capable of supporting OSS.
One of our main goals at OpenTeams is to channel more funding and resources into community-driven projects, to support transparency in their governance, and keep the communities around them healthy and accelerate their development. We do this in a way that keeps the community in charge of its destiny.
Like, the point here is that if this venture means to support open-source then it should open-source its own stuff (which means what here? Its website, I guess)?
I mean, I guess that makes sense to me? But why so much passion about this? LOL, I really don't get it. I really think I'm missing some basic background. In my mind I'm thinking "hmm, that's a good point. Kind of inconsistent..." but I never make the leap to "you clearly are NOT interested in supporting open-source".
Can someone explain it to me? I promise if any of this sounds flippant, it's unintentional. I really think there's some OSS history I'm unaware of that makes me not understand these exchanges.
First, commercial software used to be very anti open source. See [1]. As a result, there can be distrust & skepticism when commercial companies get involved in open source.
Second, there are a range of “open source” licenses reflecting a broad spectrum of values and beliefs about how much code should be shared and with what restrictions/obligations. So, people enter into the discussion from a variety of view points. Some people only use GPL or AGPL software and won’t participate in online forums unless the forum software is released under those licenses. People in that group might feel excluded from OpenTeams in the same way someone who is a strict vegan might feel excluded at a vegetarian restaurant.
[1]: “Balmer: ‘Linux is a Cancer’” (2001), https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...
That's technically true if you believe "open source" is just about having the right text file in a repo, but there's much more to it if you want to consider the ethics, responsibilities, and legal ramifications of how you choose to license your project.
There is absolutely nothing stopping someone creating an open source project and exploiting a market opportunity at the same time. The perception that "open source === done for altruistic reasons" is one of the most common misconceptions about OSS, and really should be changed.
Your second point, that is exactly what I wish for.
Episode 32 of the Django Chat podcast touches on this topic at 34 minutes in. DHH talks about the benefits of a small group of people working fast to shape a feature before releasing it to the community. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/django-chat/id14515364...
This is exactly the approach we are taking to launch OpenTeams. By having a small "closed" group focus on launching key features, we believe that our new business model will become the default approach to helping open source projects become sustainable.
I'm sure you can express your substantive points thoughtfully, so please do that in the future. And if you wouldn't mind reviewing the Show HN rules and the site rules, we'd be grateful:
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Thank you for your suggestion. We could not agree more with you!
Along those lines, I appreciated login with GitLab!
I never heard of it again. I like the idea, but it might not be the easiest to get off the ground. Why not just use Kickstarter? (Except that they're doing union busting, I know).
In my view this is a natural next step for open source as it closes the loop on users who don't contribute code but do use the software. Now they can contribute financially, in theory fueling more code contributors (in practice, most bounties I've seen are not worth the work, but I've only had my eye on one obscure little open source game, so this may not be representative).
I think Kickstarter is not great for this model simply because it has a fixed end date for fundraising and there is less of a direct tie to specific features in a particular codebase.
Check out our early Initiatives page and you'll find two early projects we are currently working with to get funding.
Thanks for your awesome comment!
While KickStarter might be useful to get funding for an open source project, we are aiming to become THE platform for open source innovation. OpenTeams is a marketplace that connects open source stakeholders with organizations to facilitate funding for new development and maintenance.
Unlike KickStarter which only provides funding, we're enabling project leaders, contributors working on the funded project, funders themselves, and OpenPartners (middlemen 'general contractors) to collaborate and get the work done in the best way possible.
Thanks for the feedback! We really appreciate it.
Competition includes: * Bounty-based companies like Gitcoin, BountySource, and IssueHunt * Donation-based companies like Github Sponsors, Liberapay, and Patreon * Subscription-based companies like Tidelift
However, there is no direct competitor creating a marketplace that connects open source stakeholders with organizations to facilitate funding for new development and maintenance.
However, if it is, I think it's a terrible model for OSS development, or for funding development in general. I develop Cursive (https://cursive-ide.com), an IDE for Clojure code. When I was starting out and deciding how to fund it, lots of people told me I should do a Kickstarter like Light Table, another popular Clojure IDE. I decided not to and instead did the old-school thing of actually charging for the value I create. 4 years later, Cursive is going great and Light Table has been dead for years, despite obtaining $315k (IIRC) in Kickstarter funding.
So what went wrong with Light Table? The problem is that that funding is not ongoing, it's a one-off thing. $315k sounds like a lot of money, but if you have a couple of people living in San Francisco, you burn through it very quickly. When that money runs out, what do you do? It's really hard to go back and ask for more, and even if you do you're only kicking the can down the road - a year later or whatever you have the same problem again.
Obviously Cursive is not directly comparable to OSS development since it's closed-source and commercial. But the principle remains the same - development needs ongoing funding, not lump sums. As distasteful as it is to many developers, the model that best matches the actual requirements of funding software development is subscription pricing. When I was discussing possible licensing models on my mailing list, one of my users made this point more eloquently than I could:
Software is never delivered as a complete static product, it evolves over time to meet the needs of its users. Perpetual licensing leaves developers in the awkward position of deciding to support that product forever for free, or releasing new paid-for versions regularly and stepping onto the feature treadmill where you have to keep delivering 'value' to attract users away from your old versions. Perpetual licensing is bad for developers and bad for users.
As I said above, I couldn't work out whether OpenTeams is actually more similar to Kickstarter or something like Patreon. I really hope they're aiming for ongoing funding and not one-off lump sums.
Did you convert the license from open source to proprietary, or was it never open source in the first place?
Our KickStarter style funding events are called Initiatives. Please visit our early Initiatives page and you will find two projects we are already helping to get funding. We say it is a KickStarter for open source projects because it is a marketplace where companies that use open source software can connect with companies/individuals that will commit on a commercial basis to advance project roadmaps and maintenance. This is similar to KickStarter in the sense that the public (one side of the market place) is funding the project (other side of the marketplace) in return for a promise to use a product/service in the future when it is available.
Unlike Closjure, the projects that start an Initiative will be open source. Additionally, the feature/maintenance that the project releases as a result of the Initiative will also be open source.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and many other large companies donate to open source software for a number of reasons. Typically, it is to fund a new feature or to help maintain the project. We are creating a platform for these companies to better fund the projects they rely on (and already fund).
These projects aren't restricted to one Initiative. They can start as many Initiatives as they desire. Of course, the success of the Initiative is dependent on the supply of funding.
With regards to ongoing funding, projects can create an Initiative for maintaining the project which, while it is a lump sum, can be distributed to the maintainers over time (under contract). In this sense, it is similar to the world of startup funding: when you've run out of money, you ask for more and continue to grow.
One suggestion I have is to use plainer language when describing what this actually is, especially on your landing page. Here in the comments, when describing the project you've repeatedly described it as a marketplace, which makes sense to me. However that word or description doesn't appear at all on your landing page, and after reading the whole page I'm really none the wiser about how it works.
The way you describe all this, it sounds very complicated, but I'm wondering if it really is that complicated in practice. I'd suggest trying to have a "How does the funding work?" section on your landing page, and try to get that section under (say) 100 words. If you can't describe it that briefly, I'd gently suggest that you should try to make the way it works simpler.
In this sense, it is similar to the world of startup funding: when you've run out of money, you ask for more and continue to grow.
I think that's fair enough, especially once it's understood that it's mostly companies who are putting up the money, not individuals. Personally, I'd stay clear of the Kickstarter analogy because Kickstarter doesn't have this ability to go back for more money, and that's a killer for software funding.
In practice, a project needs funding. They create an Initiative on our platform with a product roadmap and outline of what they are going to do (maintenance or a new feature). Companies/individuals that use the project go to the website and provide funding. A contract is formed by the OpenPartner (similar to a general contractor) whereby the project only gets the money once certain requirements are fulfilled. The OpenPartner hires contributors to work on the project and those contributors get to work and are paid as they provide deliverables. Everyone then gets to use the updated software.
We will be working on our messaging so thank you for the feedback.
So I cannot get a point in this comparison: different business models, different licenses, etc.
Guess what, most open source code is not developed in Frisco. At least not for pay. You can do a lot with apparently trivial amounts of money, that simply give key volunteer developers the margin of support they need.
put that all together and you have a high cost of living for _most_ developers. "trivial amounts of money" don't go very far in the city.
Yes, you can move to the country but speaking as someone who works remotely, it is NOT easy to get a good remote job with a company that gets remote and there is a ton of competition for each position. So, it's not easy for most of us to just move somewhere cheap and "do a lot with apparently trivial amounts of money" Sure, it's possible. It's just not probable, or likely.
[1] https://opencollective.com
[2] https://github.com/opencollective
OpenTeams' vision is to become THE platform for open source innovation.
OpenCollective uses a donation-based model. On the other hand, OpenTeams is creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software.
The website needs to be open source too.
You being able to revise the terms of service with no notice is a deal breaker.
The privacy policy might not be GDPR compliant due to changes being effective immediately instead of being consented to.
Why are you using Slack instead of something more open (like self-hosted Mattermost)?
Really appreciate it!
You need to be super transparent about what sort of cut you are taking from funders and how you are funding the OpenTeams project itself and what expenses that funding is paying for (salaries, development, servers etc).
The OpenPartner's are responsible for creating the product roadmap in liaison with the development team. This includes a clear budget for where the money is going, just as you described.