To all developers of #FOSS:
I'm interested in your experiences and opinions of funding #FOSS. How to maintain freedom and secure financial stability.
Which strategies work, which don't? Like: grants from public institutions, donations from companies, donations from users, subscription models, ad revenue, sponsors, etc. etc.
What are your experiences with those strategies?
And: Do you think an anonymous payment system like #GNUTaler, along with its anonymous subscription service capabilities, could be helpful and to what degree?
What other ideas do you have?
I'm looking forward to answers, comments and shares!
@oec Not personally involved with any financial/funding stuff, but the company I work for is developing AGPLv3-licensed software and successfully funding itself exclusively by selling support subscriptions since 20 years. IMHO, it helps a lot that the software is an integrated solution and not just a puzzle piece. The main product is for managing virtualization, so what Broadcom did with VMWare helped spur a lot of the growth in recent years.
@totientfunction @oec Yes! Support contracts is a proven business model for sustaining free software, for example #GNU #GCC, #RedHat, #Nextcloud, and many more.
