Fairware (Hardcoded Software)

[lautrepay]

A peculiar way used by an open source developer to obtain (fair) remuneration for his work.
http://open.hardcoded.net/
http://open.hardcoded.net/about/
http://open.hardcoded.net/faq/

[m^(2)]

Like it:)

[webfork]

A peculiar way used by an open source developer to obtain (fair) remuneration for his work.

Its definitely a good idea. Many non-profits work this way: they get funding, do something, release it to the public, and then move on to the next thing. Its a very good idea.

I've seen variations on this where people can put bounties on individual features they want to see or folks on Rent-a-coder charging different rates for working on something that's openly licensed.

For donations, I wouldn't be surprised if Mozilla's donations are mostly dependent upon how badly Google and Microsoft are behaving. When Microsoft didn't release its latest browser for XP, I'm sure their donations went up and if Google takes their browser a closed-source route, I think Mozilla will see millions.

[m^(2)]

The latest Mozilla financial report (for the year 2009, released in November) says they got $50k from donations and $100m from search engines that they use. So no, they don't make millions and donations and donations are totally insignificant part of their income.

[webfork]

So no, they don't make millions and donations and donations are totally insignificant part of their income.

I seem to recall their donation numbers were higher when they first started out because Microsoft was the only browser in town but I can't find anything about it on their 2005 report.

[webfork]

Old thread update: the hardcoded site has mostly shut down, but I wanted to restore some as the concept is still useful and interesting:

About page:

"Fairware" is a term I coined in 2010 to designate open source development of software targeting a wide audience (typically published in the form of "Shareware" in the proprietary world) with expectation of fair compensation from users.

https://web.archive.org/web/20171015202 ... .net/about

FAQ:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150509113 ... d.net/faq/