A successful case on how to finance an open source project

The hardest task in the open source world is, without a doubt, figuring out how to finance your project. For programming you can always get third-party libraries or use copy / paste on Stack Overflow. But, the money to pay servers, bandwidth, electric fluid and other supplies, is irreplaceable.

The truth is that companies that benefit from open source content are often not overly generous when it comes to providing resources. And, much less home users. It is difficult to convince people that just because something is distributed for free does not mean that there is no cost to produce it.

Many projects fell by the wayside due to lack of money. Canonical abandoned its adventure in telephones seeking to seduce corporate investors who prefer the most profitable business services. OpenSUSE changed owners several times, Mandriva, despite its attempt to break into competitive motorsport, ended up disappearing.

Neither app stores nor donation buttons seem to get relevant results. Then the question arises: How to finance an open source project?

Elementary OS seems to have the answer.

How to finance an open source project. The Success Story of Elementary OS

Elementary OS is a desktop distribution based on the latest stable version of Ubuntu. It differs in having its own user interface (based on GNOME but modified to be lighter) and its own application store.

In order to download Elementary OS you have to indicate how much you are willing to pay to do so. You can press any of the indicated values ​​or specify it. One of the options is to write the vaara not to pay anything. The same scheme is repeated in the app store.

Daniel Foré, the founder of Elementary OS, says he was inspired by the game download site's system Humble IndieBundle. In this portal, the user indicates when they want to pay for what they buy.

The results are astonishing, since according to Foré, the income from the new system multiplied by ten those obtained from donations.

Foré highlights that developers who publish in the distribution's application store also register similar results.