Thanks Robb!
Out of all the great points and background you just provided, I’d say this would be a primary reason to set up a collective. Making a living contributing to a community run open source project that you care about…especially one that can empower communities, musicians, and creative artists… that’s been my ultimate goal over the past 10 years. Probably many others in this community that would love to do the same.
Conversely I haven’t seen many examples of an all-volunteer open source project of this or any size last very long. Even projects with maintainer time sponsored by their employer or company responsible for the project may be neglected if priorities change (like Sourcefabric / Airtime).
The cool thing about OpenCollective is
- all transactions (expenses, funds available, etc.) are transparent
- the platform makes it really easy for multiple types backers/sponsors to fund your project
- the code is open source Open Collective · GitHub
- the community on Slack https://slack.opencollective.com/ consists of the OpenCollective team and folks from all the other open source collectives…all trying to figure out best practices for fundraising, distributing funds and providing incentives; collaborating on projects; seeking out and sharing people who may have interest/skills to work on several projects.
The platform and community is still relatively new, but those are just some of the reasons I think people like ourselves (and others reading this) may actually be able to make a good living contributing to and helping sustain a project like LibreTime.
Rather than rambling any further, I’ll just reference this post that probably addresses other concerns about bringing funding into an OSS project - SustainOSS: The Report. On June 19th, 2017, one hundred people… | by pia mancini | Open Collective | Medium
Definitely would be good to get input from other project leads and contributors.