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</head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">Ben Bucksch wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:503F260A.1010403@beonex.com" type="cite">
But OTOH, I wouldn't want to use anything that isn't open-source. How
can we solve that clash? How can we make people pay for open-source
stuff, organization and incentive-wise? Ideas?
<br>
</blockquote>
An interesting approach to this is called Fairware[1], and it seems to
be working for the guy who came up with it and implemented it. It's
based on transparency:<br>
<br>
<quote><strong><br>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">How does Fairware work?</span></strong>
All hours developers invest
in projects are public, as well as their hourly rate expectations. All
contributions from fair users are also instantly made public
(anonymously). When contributions are made, they are allocated to unpaid
development hours (see the<a href="http://open.hardcoded.net/faq/"></a>
F.A.Q. for details). Everyone can thus easily know how many hours have
yet to
be compensated. Also, users are made aware that the software is Fairware
with a dialog that pops up for users who haven't contributed yet,
reminding them of expectations from developers. With enough fair users,
such a system allows open source developers working on software for a
wide audience to do so full time. I don't know about you, but I find
that <strong style="font-weight: normal;">awesome</strong>.<span><meta
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[1] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://open.hardcoded.net/about/">http://open.hardcoded.net/about/</a> <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://open.hardcoded.net/">http://open.hardcoded.net/</a> <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.hardcoded.net/articles/fairware-it-kinda-works">http://www.hardcoded.net/articles/fairware-it-kinda-works</a><br>
<br>
<br>
I know that I feel much more motivated to donate given this kind of
transparency. <br>
<br>
On AMO you can make statistics for your add-on public (download counts,
active user numbers, etc.), but for some reason there is not an option
for developers to make contribution data public (as in the Fairware
model). Why not make that an option? It would be a straightforward
step that might really increase people's motivation to donate,
especially in cases where little to none has been contributed as yet.<br>
<br>
<span>It also sounds promising that the <span>monetization code from the
</span>new web app marketplace could be fairly easily back-ported to
AMO. </span><br>
<br>
-Paul<br>
<br>
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