open-funding
Introduction
More individuals, organizations and companies are starting to realize the potential of open source. An important question is obviously how projects can be funded to enable individuals to subsist and work on open source full time. This document aims to be an open guide to funding of open source projects.
Grants
A list of funding opportunities that follow the grants model. This type of funding is usually carried out in batches, i.e. the fund in question release a certain amount of money each year and it's spread out over multiple projects. Grant funding often allows you to plan and execute projects over a longer period of time.
Open Technology Fund
From their webpage:
The Open Technology Fund utilizes available funds to support Internet freedom projects that empower world citizens to have access to modern communication channels that are free of restrictions, and allow them to communicate without fear of repressive censorship or surveillance.
OTF funds projects through three different funds; Internet Freedom Fund, Core Infrastructure Fund and Rapid Response Fund. They also fund people by offering fellowships.
RIPE NCC Community Projects Fund
From their webpage:
The RIPE NCC will provide EUR 250,000 per year to support projects of value to the operation and resilience of the Internet, with a focus on tools and services benefitting the technical community in our service region.
The service region for RIPE NCC is made up of over 75 countries, which is one of five Regional Internet Registries (RIR). See https://www.ripe.net/about-us/what-we-do/ripe-ncc-service-region for more information.
Horizon 2020 🇪🇺
Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over between 2014 and 2020. You need a consortium to apply. See Holger Krekels talk at 32c3 (link below) for a more detailed description.
InnovationsFonden 🇩🇰
InnovationsFonden or Innovation Fund Denmark invests in both large and small projects and they don't require any stake in the project nor repayment. They have three different programs targeting the whole range from large scale research projects to smaller enterprises and entrepreneurs down to talented individuals within the research space. Funds can be anything between 50k to 5M DKK depending on the size of the project.
InternetFonden 🇸🇪
InternetFonden is a Swedish fund run by Internetstiftelsen i Sverige or IIS, which administer the Swedish .se TLD. Parts of the earnings from selling .se domains goes to various projects that benefit the development of internet in Sweden and one of them is InternetFonden. Since 2004 the fund has financed 323 projects for a total of 65M SEK (7.7M USD/7.1M EUR/5.2M GBP). Applicants can be companies, organizations or private people as long as they have a Swedish organization number or social security number.
Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS)
Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) is a grant program specifically focused on supporting the Open Source and Free Software movement, with an initial allocation of USD $1 million.
The Python Software Foundation
From their webpage:
The Python Software Foundation welcomes grant proposals for projects related to the development of Python, Python-related technology, educational programs and resources.
Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII)
The Core Infrastructure Initiative, or CII, is a multi-million dollar project to fund and support critical elements of the global information infrastructure. It is organized by The Linux Foundation and supported by companies like Amazon Web Services, Google and IBM. CII was formed as a response to the Heartbleed security crisis; however, the Initiative’s efforts will not be restricted to crypto-related issues in the long term.
SIDN Fund
From their webpage:
SIDN Fund stands for ‘a strong internet for all’. We provide financial support to ideas and projects that aim to make the internet stronger or that use the internet in innovative ways. By doing so, SIDN Fund wants to help increase the social impact of the internet in the Netherlands.
Similarly to InnovationsFonden, SIDN also funds projects on different levels. Smaller projects - Pioneer projects - can receive a maximum of 10k EUR and larger projects - Potentials projects - up to 75k EUR.
The Awesome Foundation
Apply for grants and get funded $1000 at a time.
Knight Foundation
From their webpage:
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy.
Sloan Foundation
From their webpage:
The Sloan Research Fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise.
and:
These two-year fellowships are awarded yearly to 126 researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field. The 2018 Sloan Research Fellows will receive fellowships in the amount of $65,000
Notable Projects
List of notable projects that have received grants.
equalit.ie
Read about the launch of their multiparty chat encryption.
Funded by OTF.
DAT
From the DAT homepage:
Dat is a grant-funded, open-source, decentralized data sharing tool for efficiently versioning and syncing changes to data.
Funded by Knight Foundation.
OpenCare
OpenCare is a project trying to figure out ways of combining modern science and technology with communities. It got funded 1.6M EUR by Horizon 2020.
Ghost
Ghost is an open source blogging platform. The project is run and organized by The Ghost Foundation, which is a non-profit organization. Ghost is completely free to use if you host it yourself. You can pay for it if you need help with hosting your blog. This is what funds further development and The Ghost Foundation calls this Sustainable Open Source.
Read the Docs
Funded by MOSS.
Other Organisations
This section lists organizations that aren't necessarily offering grant funding, but are still very important for creating a sound and healthy environment for open source projects.
✨ Software Freedom Conservancy
From the Software Freedom Conservancy homepage:
Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization incorporated in New York. Software Freedom Conservancy helps promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.
Conservancy offers a range of important services. From donations to assistance with fundraising, legal advice, contract negotiation to logistical support for conferences. Read more about their services here.
Some notable projects under their umbrella are:
Check out all their current 46 member projects.
Crowdfunding
The concept has been around for a while and can at times be the spark that makes a project take off.
There are different models, the traditional crowdfunded project asks for funds given some budget and project proposition. If the project reach the donation goal you can receive extra benefits apart from the actual product.
Other models are more focused on the community, where members of the community pitch in a certain amount of money per time unit, e.g. once a month.
Links
- Holger Krekel at 32c3 - Hacking EU funding for a decentralizing FOSS project
- Raking in the dough on Free and Open Source Software
- Paying the Piper
- Tech Cultivation
- Alternative Funding Sources - Renewable Freedom Foundation
- Funding OSS
- Awesome Indie
- Awesome Open Company
- Getting Paid for Open Source Work
License
All content submitted to this project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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