Fund Your Open-Source Project on Crowdtilt
Do you currently collaborate on an open-source project or see a clear need for a new one?
Let Crowdtilt help you boost or jumpstart your project.
Turning to the open-source community for funding is not new, but has become a lot easier in recent years. Even just a few weeks ago, this project was posted to Kickstarter to help people install Ruby on Rails on their Mac computers.
While Kickstarter is great for funding larger projects, Crowdtilt allows you to go after smaller initiatives that you know would be supported by a specific community. And because of the all-or-nothing approach, it’s a risk-free approach to gauge interest in a new feature or entire project.
Needless to say, not all campaigns will be embraced with equal enthusiasm especially when a realistic funding goal, technical aptitude, or feasible plan is missing. However, if done properly, it can be a great way to collectively fund projects that otherwise would stay stagnant for months or years.
Take a look at this recent campaign aimed at supporting the existing Drupal community.
While it does not focus on one particular open-source project, it helps developers find one another and reduce the coordination and transaction costs of connecting them with potential projects.
“For example, if a non-profit wants a better donation process built for their web site and can offer their office space, three developers can offer their time, and five interested individuals can fund transportation for the developers — then Drupal gains this feature and everyone benefits, whereas without this coordination it might not have happened at all or been done as a custom code hack that others wouldn’t have been able to use.”
Progress on this projects can be found here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/190094
So if the bottleneck to your current open-source project is a lack of funding, but you know people would love to get behind the idea, then start a campaign on Crowdtilt today and share it within your community.
Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.
