Some examples of financing models for FOSS projects

Some examples of models

In first articles In this series, we saw how, although many free and open source software (FOSS) projects are delivered at no cost to the user, it does not mean that they cost no money to develop. Also, we conclude that when determining this cost, its complexity and the chosen tools will be a determining factor and that the interest that the project awakens in developers, end users and corporate sponsors is a critical factor in obtaining financing.

Finally, we will review some possible forms of financing.

Some examples of financing models

Sale of licenses

This is a combination of the methods used by proprietary software distributors to enable use for a fee and free software distributors. This can be done in two ways; the client pays for his license, but has no restriction when modifying and redistributing the code, or two versions are distributed, one free and one paid

With this scheme, the free version (generally identified as community) has certain limitations; as for example it can only be used for evaluation purposes, application development, proof of concept or non-commercial uses. Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be downloaded and used for free by developers, although commercial users must pay a subscription.

What neither of the two governing bodies of free and open source software (Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative validate, is that both license models apply to a single version. At the beginning of last year, the OSI warned:

We have seen several companies abandon their original dedication to the open source community by switching their core products from an open source license, one approved by the Open Source Initiative, to a fauxpen code license. The hallmark of a fauxpen font license is that those who made the change claim that their product is still "open" under the new license, but the new license has actually removed users' rights.

"Fauxpen" is a term that was born more than 11 years ago and is derived from the French word to designate something that is false. The pronunciation of fauxp which is very similar to opensource in English. It is the word chosen to indicate that it is software that claims to be open source but lacks the full freedoms required by the Open Source Definition.

Allow the use of trademarks and grant certifications in exchange for a payment

When a project is very popular, it is very likely that users want to use it but not want to bother with the configuration. Thus, many web hosting providers offer hosting solutions for WordPress, Nextcloud or some of the open source solutions for e-commerce.

In exchange for a payment, those who offer the services can use the name and logo of the projects and are often recommended as reliable providers on their website.

Sale of complementary products

This is very common with content managers for websites. The base of the project is free, but if you want optional features like themes and plugins, you will have to check out. And, they are not exactly cheap.

Sale of related products.

The project continues to be distributed free of charge, but combined with a paid product. PFor example, the Linux KDE Neon and Manjaro distributions have agreements with computer manufacturers who have equipment optimized for them and come pre-installed.

Another variant is the sale of user manuals as the Free Software Foundation does.

Sale of unrelated products

It is about the commercialization of products that have nothing to do with the purpose of the project, but that carry your logo. For example, mugs, t-shirts or a mouse pad. Several Linux distributions, programming languages ​​such as Python, and the Free Software Foundation itself use this system.

Sale of services

We talk about the commercialization of services related to the projector. For example, WordPress offers web hosting plans on its own servers and Ubuntu offers priority technical support for corporate users.

Donations

It is about raising money through voluntary contributions from individual users (Linux Lite) or systematically from corporations as The Document Foundation (LibreOffice) does


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