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The Internet The Almighty Buck Software Linux

OSS Funding through Fundable 109

Posted by Zonk from the pool-money-for-software dept.
John Pratt writes "FredCK, developer of the popular FCKEditor, recently raised $600 from supporters through Fundable to port his open source HTML editor to Safari. Fundable is a new site that lets groups of people pool money for specific purposes, like software features. Unlike generic donation dropboxes (such as PayPal buttons), if a group's targeted collection isn't reached after 2 or 4 weeks, everyone gets a complete refund." Newsforge has a piece discussing the site as well.
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OSS Funding through Fundable More

OSS Funding through Fundable

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  • Like Linux Fund (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <namtabmiaka>> on Friday July 08, 2005 @01:50PM (#13015557) Homepage Journal
    So it's like Linux Fund [linuxfund.org] except that the users get to donate money directly to projects?

    It's actually kind of neat how various funding options have begun appearing. Writing OSS software is a thankless job that takes hundreds (sometimes thousands) of man-hours. I'm curious if there's a possibility in the future of software developers being employed full time on user funded projects.
  • Software isn't like a car or boat, FTA

    Fundable.org leaves it up to the project initiator to make sure all the contributors are satisfied. "You can't really make sure someone is going to do what they're supposed to do," Pratt says. "We're working on a feedback system, but for now we let people post a link to their eBay profile and ratings, thereby implementing a degree of trustworthiness."

    So I pay my money and get my software delivered. After a month, I discover it has a bug in it. Do I get my money ba

    • It's called trust. If you don't trust the project intiator to do what they say or to do the right thing, then don't give the money.

    • Re:Is Software Tangible Enough For This? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by th0mas.sixbit.org ( 780570 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:00PM (#13015632)
      Uhm, no.

      It is a donation system that happens to also have a method to return the donation in case the developer completely fails.

      It's not "your software". You're donating to a group, helping them reach their goal. In the event they cannot reach their goal (by their definition, since it's their software), they can kindly refund the money.

      What you're looking for is to hire a software developer (or company) to write software for you. That's not what this is. So move along.

      But don't worry, you're modded up, so you have a great point.
    • Kind of like TinyMCE [moxiecode.com] (another rich text editor):

      We have made experiments with Safari on Mac OSX Tiger (thanks to the generous contributors of our Mac Mini). We have found that the implementation of the Midas Specification is incomplete and this some features is simple not possible to get working with Safari as it is now. We are in contact with Apple Developers and they seem to devote some attention to the issues, we will see in future versions.

      If you still wish to donate the page is still up, and you

  • If only.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rolan ( 20257 ) * on Friday July 08, 2005 @01:52PM (#13015575) Homepage Journal
    the FCKEditor website had the same numbers as everyone else.... Newsforge and Fundable list it as 700/600, but the website lists it at 800/500....

  • Better name (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Should have called it FCKable

  • Public menace? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @01:55PM (#13015593)
    The editor runs over Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

    Didn't the guy who wrote SASSER get arrested for running over at least one of the listed OSes?

  • funny how i see paypal and moneybookers but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by root-kun ( 755141 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @01:56PM (#13015598) Homepage
    the official fck website doesnt list fundable.org as a donation channel. I just see paypal and monkeybookers.
    The idea of fundable.org is good, especially since paypal is so miserable to work with, but when dealing with large money transfers, I would expect to know what kind of financial backing they have, and how reputable they are. I dont see any of that information on the page.
    I must say though, posting a donation link on the slashdot main page is a tad bit of advertising for my taste, even if the project is good (which it appears to be)

  • Human Fund (Score:1, Funny)

    by Stevix ( 861756 )
    so now i can make a Human Fund for real? or at least justify handing these [deadparrots.net] out at Christmas, and have a backup if someone gets wise...

  • Much needed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:02PM (#13015641)
    Similar proposals have been discussed and implemented before: CoSource, SourceXChange, the Free Software Bazaar, SourceAgency, Experts-something, ... here [archive.org] is a historical overview.

    Why did past projects fail? I think the main reasons are usability, lack of collaboration and the dot-com-crash. Wiki-like functionality is essential to allow specifications to evolve, and there needs to be a very simple and obvious process of pooling funds and finding projects to donate to.

    A brief look suggests that Fundable, while simple and slick, is not yet optimal for the purposes of funding open source projects -- it appears to lack collaboration on specifications, milestones, a process for applying to implement someone else's suggestions, fine grained categorization and sorting, etc. (correct me if I'm wrong on any of this) That it succeeds for some projects regardless shows that there is a vacuum for a portal like this -- not just in open source development. It would give those who cannot contribute code a way to nevertheless help to "scratch their itches" in the open source software world.

  • I would much rather see a bonded Escrow house (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gte910h ( 239582 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:02PM (#13015643) Homepage
    This should be a bonded escrow house. If its not, you'd be a fool to trust them with your money. Also, they should offer escrow services (Where the money is not disbursed until it passes some test). --Michael
    • It depends on how much money we're talking. At the moment most of this stuff is $50-$500 dollars total. That breaks down to $5-$100 per donator. If you don't trust them but want to help, make sure that you don't choose a project that requires an excessive amount of money per donator. i.e. Most people wouldn't mind gambling $5 on the chance that they're really helping.

      Once the monetary amounts start reaching above $1000, THEN bond backing will become more important.

    • This should be a bonded escrow house. If its not, you'd be a fool to trust them with your money. Also, they should offer escrow services (Where the money is not disbursed until it passes some test)

      Well, given that OSS projects don't have the money to pay for a bonded escrow house, that's not very applicable here.

      Yes, for large coporate software, that is the kind of thing you do.

      That would be like saying if the HURD could spend $1billion on R&D they could probably produce a finished OS. The lack o

      • That would be like saying if the HURD could spend $1billion on R&D they could probably produce a finished OS. The lack of the $1 billion is the key here.
        You could always give a regular donation [gnufans.org] to support the development of the Hurd.
    • I've been working on something similar at http://www.ideacradle.com/ [ideacradle.com] and there are quite a few stumbling blocks. The fundraiser takes considerable risk accepting funds with possible refunds because of the transaction fees associated with using any payment system like credit cards, paypal and all the rest. Paypal seems at first to be the easyest way but unfortunately they have a nasty habit of freezing funds for as long as they want if there is any abnormal activity on the account. See http://www.paypalsuc [paypalsucks.com]
      • I'd think you'd be able to refund "The money you've put up, minus processing fees from the payment services."

        Espcially if you explain your service by saying something like the folowing:

        Suppose Mark McInventor has proposed that he'll port the linux operating system to Acme brand toasters if he gets $10,000. Jack von Generous thinks that he'd love to see linux running on his Acme brand toaster, but doesn't have $10K for this purpose. Jack gives ideacradle $1000 for this project by charging it on his visa.

  • Popular FCKeditor? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:02PM (#13015646) Journal
    I must be out of the loop, cuz I've honestly neither heard of it, nor heard of anybody using it.
    • Doesn't work in Opera either. If it doesn't work in Opera it will never be used on any page I develop.
    • It has been for decades. If you listen to the Woodstock album you can hear Country Joe leading 350,000 people in a cheer praising this editor.

    • yup, popular. (Score:4, Informative)

      by LDoggg_ ( 659725 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @03:47PM (#13016569) Homepage
      Guess you are out of the loop :)
      Take a look at the stats [sourceforge.net] Actually, I only found out about the project a few months ago.

      Check out the demo its actually a really cool editor. Amazing what this guy can do with javascript.
      Works great as an embedded editor for a web-based content management system.


    • And with a name like F*CKEditor, one has to wonder WHY it has yet to achieve widespread adoption...

    • No, you're not out of the loop, in spite of the cries from the fanboys, FCKeditor is out of the loop. An editor which relies on browser features (and yes, quirky java is a browser feature) is guaranteed to write those pages we all try to avoid: This page best viewed in version abc of browser XYZ

      For a standards based editor/browser try Amaya [w3.org]. But even Amaya users complain when it fails to render pages carefully broken to render on browser XYZ.

  • Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phasm42 ( 588479 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:03PM (#13015651)
    Although I don't know the details of Fundable, the idea is great. One person contributing a little money towards a project usually doesn't help the developer much. It's the sum of many people that helps. However, there's a problem -- if not enough people donate, then your donation may have gone to waste. With this method, you can donate and feel safe that either 1) Enough people wil donate to make a difference or 2) You get your money back.

    This kinda reminds me of another website whose name eludes me at the moment, but they have a similiar system applied to signatures, and agreeing to do something e.g. confront an organization about an issue.

  • I think we found that #2! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fitten ( 521191 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:03PM (#13015653)
    The concept, while unique, is quite simple. Anyone who has a product or service to sell, or needs monetary support for a charitable cause, or who wants to organize a group purchase, posts their requirement on Fundable.org. They specify the number of contributors needed and the amount of money required from each. They also specify a deadline by which to raise the needed capital. Fundable.org holds all contributions until the total amount requested is received, or the deadline is reached. If, by the deadline, the amount contributed is less than the required amount, the project is scrapped and the contributors receive a full refund.

    So, all they do is collect money (and earn interest on said money) and watch a date. They don't care that the software is actually delivered and/or works (which is somewhat smart because they collect interest up until the deadline regardless and they aren't responsible for the quality or even the delivery of said product). I think we finally found that #2!

    1. Collect money for someone
    2. Collect interest on said money up until a deadline and either give the money back or give it to the person who set up the fund depending on amount.
    3. Profit!!!
    • 3. Profit!!!

      In all seriousness, they will profit only if the interest they collect is sufficient. Remember that they have to pay for web-space, bandwidth, and that all these monetary transactions have costs associated with them, also. In fact, I doubt holding a few hundred dollars for a week or so generates enough interest to offset the two transactions required to move the money around.

      Sounds to me like fundable.org will have to set up a "please fund fundable.org" fund.

  • What am I doing wrong? (Score:5, Funny)

    by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:03PM (#13015656)
    I added the following in my code, but I am still not getting any money:
    public class MyOSSProject implements Fundable

    After implementing the interface, my project compiles fine, but the money is just not coming it when I run it.

    Any thoughts?

  • For buying code (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Harbinjer ( 260165 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:04PM (#13015657) Journal
    This could be really useful for buying the code to open source projects, especially older applications, or stuff from companies that are dying.

    This might've been really useful for getting Blender at the time. I'm just saying it could work well for this stuff.

    It could also be used for code bounties...ie how much do you want a feature, added to an OSS program.

    I have to agree with some previous posters that this may not work out great for continuous OSS support, meaning paying people full-time to work on stuff, cause that requires lots of money, and you aren't quite sure what you'll get each month.

  • Sounds like a great way for developers... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ingolfke ( 515826 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:05PM (#13015666) Journal
    to hold a release hostage. Yes... I have the latest release of some software w/ all of the new features you want, and many of the bug fixes, but will not release it until I get $600. Then again, it's their software so it's not really hostage. Point is... this will be a very effective tool for established one-man or partly commercial project or for fixes to nagging problems in existing projects, but only when the developers use the money as an ultimatum for releasing the work.
    • This is the same as proprietary software: you pay for new features, bug fixes, etc. It's funny how the whole OSS movement is starting to look more and more like traditional software all of the time. Maybe this is yet another sign that selling software was a non-problem that didn't need fixing?
    • These developers had better not hold out for too much money, otherwise some other OSS developer looking to make a name for themselves will scratch the itch for less (all the way down to free, possibly).
  • FCKEdit is a little dirty.
  • Jonny is 8 years old.
    He needs a new liver.
    Help us raise $200,000 to cover the cost of the transplant and a lifetime supply of anti-rejection drugs.

    Send your contribution to

    "Jonny Liver Fund"
    Big Bank and Trust
    Yourtown, USA

    --
    Seriously, legitimate fundraisers DO work through banks and are transparent, but it would be nice to get our money back if poor Jonny dies before getting the liver he needs.

  • If anyone can help... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dark-br ( 473115 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:19PM (#13015803) Homepage
    I have just set up a account so maybe I can raise the funds needed to buy your public school Linux Lab a new box.

    Help if you can [fundable.org]

    Many Brazilian kids would be very very thankful!

  • Book publishing worked like this (Score:4, Informative)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Friday July 08, 2005 @02:27PM (#13015885)
    Years ago, booksellers would ask for subscriptions to get a book published and when the printing threshold was reached, publication took place. If it never did, the subscribers got their money back.
    It actually looks like a very good model for specialist software. As someone who works for a small consultancy, I'm aware that there are many applications we would find useful that could be used by maybe twenty similar companies around the world, but would never justify the development cost for just one. And obviously no-one would buy from (or sell to) the competition. This is a possible way of developing this kind of software, though what would be ideal is some kind of trusted brokerage equivalent to the 18th century bookseller. Perhaps there's a business model for somebody there who has more spare time than I do.

    Truly there is nothing new under the Sun (or under Windows for that matter).

  • Like Public Software Fund (Score:4, Informative)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Friday July 08, 2005 @03:09PM (#13016230) Homepage
    Similar idea to the Public Software Fund [pubsoft.org], only we allow for different size donations and multiple bidders for the same job. I have plans to modify the system so it allows for dominant assurance contracts [google.com].
  • If my initials were FCK, I'd either change my name, or avoid naming anything with my initials! In fact, didn't they used to make a t-shirt with this guy's initials on it? It read "FCK... the only thing missing is U!"
  • Honestly, the way to solve the funding problem is to start a search engine as a non-profit whose revenue is used to fund aka "grants" OSS projects and build an endowment. GNU could do this. Sell ads on the search engine, run and maintain it, provide cool new software.
  • They say they can refund all monies if the goal is not reached. But they use paypal. How are they able to refund the money without paypal taking its cut? Do they not really collect it up front? If so, how do they guarantee that a contribution is really there and not just a false promise that could fall through later on?
  • simple as that :)

    Arash Partow
    __________________________________________ ________
    Be one who knows what they don't know,
    Instead of being one who knows not what they don't know,
    Thinking they know everything about all things.
    http://www.partow.net/ [partow.net]

  • TinyMCE (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eluusive ( 642298 )
    When I was last working on a project that required this sort of thing I evaluated a bunch of these different content editors and TinyMCE seemed like one of the best ones to me. It, unlike most and FCKEditor, converts existing textareas like HTMLArea does. This is nice in supporting browsers in a backward compatible manor. It also seemed to be alot more responsive once the graphics for the buttons had loaded up. - my 2 cents.
  • Doesn't work for people who can't get paypal... Like me...

    all the best,

    drew
  • http://ippimail.com/ [ippimail.com] is primarily a charity fundraiser but we are committed to donating 10% of profits to the OS community. We are hoping that this will prove to be considerable amounts. All our work will also be Open Sourced.
    Just by using ippimail (there are no donations involved) you will be channelling new money not just to the charity of your choice but to Open Source as well.

  • Donorge [donorge.org] is another open source service for funding projects.

    It uses Drupal [drupal.org] for its web site and infrastructure (Drupal's web site is down at the moment, so try later).

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