Got permission to share this, which I wanted to do for better transparency and to hear opinions.
Hey Patrick,
Here at Bountysource we’ve been working on a new sustained funding platform
for open-source developers. This allows developers/teams to set monthly
funding goals, offer rewards, and (most importantly) have recurring
financial contributions come in from users and companies.
A short while ago we launched our first project on this, Neovim
https://salt.bountysource.com/teams/neovim. This was a fairly successful
launch (as of this writing, it hit the second goal of $2500/month, from
300+ supporters) and we’re confident in the platform as we prepare to
invite more projects.
Which is why I’m reaching out to you now. Would you be interested in having
an ongoing campaign for Whonix? At this point we have a good bit of
experience in launching and maintaining crowdfunding campaigns, and I think
your community would certainly rally behind a campaign to fund you.
If you’re interested I’d love to work with you to get a campaign together
and launched. What do you think?
David Rappo
Bountysource.com https://www.bountysource.com/ | @Bountysource
https://twitter.com/bountysource | #Bountysource (Freenode)
Hi Patrick,
Great! We’ve made it so that you can edit / view your campaign exactly how
it will look when you go live, you can start messing around and adding
information here: https://salt.bountysource.com/teams/whonix (make sure
you’re logged in first). For the time being I’ve added myself as a
non-public admin so I can help out.
Sorry for the wall of text, but here’s a rough outline of what should be
put together/planned before launch. It’s certainly some work to get it
organized, but worth it.
Write your pitch.
- The text on https://salt.bountysource.com/teams/neovim can serve as a
good example.
- You probably only need to spend one paragraph on what Whonix is,
assume that most people going here are at least somewhat familiar. Include
a snazzy screenshot.
- Find some quotes from some high profile users / developers praising
Whonix
- Talk about where you want to take the project – if you hit your
financial goals and had all the time in the world, what would it look like?
Make a video! People love putting a face to a project and it’ll help them
identify better.
- I would say 60seconds is good, but you can go shorter/longer if you
want.
- Don’t worry about production quality or flashy graphics (unless you
have a friend who is itching to do it for free). Webcam shot in your office
or a coffee shop is perfectly fine.
Goals / Rewards:
- Come up with multiple financial goals and descriptions for each. Do
you want a bounty budget? do you want to set aside a day a week? 3 days a
week?
- Rewards can be really simple, don’t make this a burden on yourself. No
handwritten letters, etc. I would suggest creating a Sponsors page on
whonix.org and offer name/url for 5/m, small logo / url for a larger
amount, etc.
Think about how you can reach your current users:
- Something eye-catching on whonix.org
- Do you have a mailing list?
- Forum post/sticky
- FB/G+/Twitter posts – not just an announcement, but ongoing reminders
- Edit the GitHub description and the README
- Reach out to any blogs/journals that have covered Whonix in the past
- Know of any companies or organizations that would be interested in
sponsoring? (EFF?)
Let me know if you have any questions. Looking forward to helping this come
together!
David
I’m glad to see something like this happen - a sustainable funding model for small to mid size Free Software projects. Traditional one time donations rely too much on bursts of awareness during times of crises but software is always evolving and the burden of ongoing development and maintenance needs to be recognized and supported.
I am not sure this is that exciting.
cons:
- they keep 10% fee
- all the advertisement for that platform is up to Whonix
What’s their advantage over directly collecting donations? They’re also in competition with all other crowdfunding platforms, patreon.com, kickstarter, etc.
The bounties posted on bountysource until now (overview may 2015: News - Whonix Forum) didn’t get a lot attention.
- they keep 10% fee
- all the advertisement for that platform is up to Whonix
I had no idea it was that high. I thought it was an agreeable fee (for you) and that’s why you are posting a new offer from them. I got the idea you were signing up to a funding pool of donations by supporters of free software and you were offered to sign up and receive funds monthly. Similar to what the Linux Foundation did for Openssl developers after heartbleed.
But now I understand that its an offer to manage your donations. You don’t need some organization to manage your money for you.
As for bounties a trustless system for new developers that want to help whonix can be made using multisignature bitcoin accounts. Once a milestone is achieved the funds can be released.
You can add a milestones page that is a summarized dump of tickets (titles only) from phabricator and indicate which ones have a bounty and those you are working on for a sponsor.
No. I posted it for transparency, to hear opinions, getting input.
Got another answer I may share here.
Hey Patrick,
I’ll respond here, but please feel free to repost to the thread on my
behalf.
In many cases, this is better than the alternative. Our 10% includes
payment processing fees. Patreon is 5% + payment processing fees. You’ll
find that the bulk of your supporters (probably 50-75%) will do $5/m or
less. Using a $5 pledge as our example, Patreon fees are 11% - 13% while
Bountysource’s remain at 10% [see:
https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606125-How-do-you-calculate-fees-
].
Fees breakdown on $5:
Bountysource: $0.50 (credit card or Paypal, same flat fee)
Patreon - Credit Card: $0.645 (Patreon fee $0.25 + Credit card fee $0.30 +
$0.095
Patreon - Paypal: $0.55 (Patreon fee $0.25 + Paypal fee $0.05 + $0.25)
This is no different from Kickstarter / Patreon / etc. In fact, I would say
you’d get more support from us than from others. We’re focused 100% on
open-source software, so we want every campaign to succeed. The amount of
support you’ve gotten from us in regards to campaign advice/tips is already
more than you’d get from KS. Discovery by a user browsing KS/Patreon is the
advantage they have, but neither are known to have lots of developers on
their platform looking to fund projects. We’d be more than happy to help
you develop your campaign and provide feedback, as well.
Other benefits:
- Fundraising and bounty program in one location. Funds raised through your
fundraising could be used directly for bounties as well, without ever
having to cash out and back in.
- One-off donations. You currently can receive one-off donations direct to
your team via Paypal or Bitcoin.
- Cash out options: Paypal, Bitcoin, Bank Check, Bank Wire (has a fee based
on domestic/international), and Ripple.
- Supporters are shown in a leaderboard style, which helps with some
friendly community competition.
- Supporters can contribute anonymously if they don’t want their name
public.
Take care,
David
well , i dont buy it , since the project built for free and so as open-sources , then why the hell giving even 1% from my money ?
also for our case in whonix , we can send our money to u (patrick) directly and/or anonymously why do we need this ?
also we have the same guarantees as if we spread the whonix project by ourselves => its demanding upon the ppl likeness or dependencies. and we can get that without spending 1$ (and 1$ it worth to loose time for it if someone want to save it).
the only way of accepting this, is to make an stable agreement on the amount of money e.g:- both sides agreed on monthly 1 or 10 dollars and thats it. not a percentage!!!. from theoretical point view if someone donated with 1 million dollar they gonna take 100,000$ !!! for what ?!!..
so nah, if u want my decision on that, its worthless.