Snowdrift.coop is a work in progress — we have lots of resources/writings that fit this
wolftune opened this issue · 2 comments
We propose a real solution to this entire topic. We need to get operating to see how much impact it can have. We have worked hard, done our homework, and are unlike all the other attempts people have been trying. In short, it's a patronage model, but it's one that gets past the freeriding issues via a network style matching pledge, as in "I will chip in a tiny amount each month per how many others chip in with me", and we're 100% ethically aligned with Free/Libre/Open (FLO) values, plan to run as a co-op, and have a political message that is part of expressing why patrons should come join us to fund the commons. Lots more on the site.
So, check out Snowdrift.coop, read about what we're trying to do, and consider helping us get this new model off the ground to see if it can make a real change for the better.
We use the same license, CC-BY-SA 4.0. So, anything you add here we can use and vice versa, as long as we credit our respective works.
Now, here's resources we've already put together that are relevant to your work to compile resources:
- Existing Mechanisms to fund FLO projects
- History and Status Quo of FLOSS funding approaches
- Enormous summary of all the fundraising/crowdfunding platforms that exist that are relevant to FLO projects (we reviewed over 700 sites to make this summary)
Please feel free to simply add our resources as links, learn from them, use ideas or bits, and potentially come join us in building the resources and tools we're building.
Best,
Aaron, co-founder, Snowdrift.coop
The model for getting past the 'tragedy of the commons' situation is interesting & viable. On a slightly theoretical note it'd be interesting to know if there's any game theory around models for inducing collaborative work in a self interested world.
I do think that there's a social converse to the snowdrift approach of 'monetize around the problem'. In a sufficiently engaged community actors will take up the task first, because there's been sufficient demonstration and trust that if they do so that others will follow, leading to a knock on effect of encouraging others, and eventually getting to a healthy social point where it's the non-involved who get socially penalized.
Personally I'm more interested in trying to find conventional funding approaches backed by social incentives, which is why I've not participated in this thread, but it's clearly an interesting approach, and if you could convince a few projects to get on board then it'd be v interesting to see how it goes.
@tomchristie Thanks for the thoughts. Snowdrift.coop is not strictly about money. (For some thoughts on that see https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift/w/en/psychology ). We are a volunteer-built project ourselves, and we're working to make sure the best engagement tools and policies are in place generally. Our focus is on addressing the snowdrift dilemma in whatever ways we can, and that includes encouraging creative contribution, not just monetary.
To be precise, there's been some proposals to have a form of our donation pledge be available but as a pledge of matching time as a volunteer. I think it's harder to quantify time and impossible to enforce the matching, but we really may go ahead and offer some loose time-focused public pledge with some honor reporting or something to experiment with that direction as well.
Anyway, our status has little to do with convincing projects. We already have a whole list of projects who are eagerly waiting to sign up and happy to give it a try. Our challenge is that we don't exist to fund ourselves yet. We have minimal resources we're just scraping by on to support the work of founding the thing and the coding and development of the system itself to then make it available to test. So, we're grateful for all the involvement we get at this stage, financial or creative or just feedback. It will be a different story when we have it working enough to be doing real-world testing with real projects and real funds.