[LRUG] How to fund an open-source project?

[Eleanor McHugh]

On 18 Dec 2009, at 23:07, stephen.boisvert at gmail.com wrote:
> You could gage the amount of community support for your goal by trying
> out a crowd sourced funding model.
> 
> Using kickstarter ( http://www.kickstarter.com/ ) you can set what you
> think is the required amount of support to even considering starting
> and people are only billed for their contribution if you reach the
> total amount.   You will also have to hustle and do the marketing to
> get donations.  They seem more arty than techie though so your project
> may be outside of what they are interested in.

Looks interesting, but I see what you mean. Still, perhaps the novelty of a technical project might appeal to someone :)

Anyway I'm resigned to having to do some hustling to get support, not to mention putting together some kind of readable project prospectus. My Ruby Manor talk (slides for which will be online as soon as I'm happy with the simplified and annotated version of the hideous page of code I included) was in part a first stab at figuring out a pitch and I'm hoping to find a couple of other places to hone that over the next couple of months, but this is all new territory for me.

> I'm pretty sure Pat Allan (thinking_sphinx) just got himself a month
> worth of support to focus on thinking_sphinx.  You could ask him.

I'll make time to drop him a line and see if he has any advice he's willing to share.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
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