Open Collective to push ProcessWire or top modules to the next level?

[szabesz]

Hi,

I've just read about Open Collective: https://wptavern.com/new-backyourstack-tool-drives-financial-support-for-open-source-projects

Quote

Open Collective launched in 2017 as a new organization that helps groups raise funds and manage them transparently. The service is now widely used by many open source projects. Webpack, one of the first major Open Collective success stories, was able to fund its first full-time developer through the service and is now operating on an estimated annual budget of $331,471.

ProcessWire or the top 3 (or 4?) most popular ProcessWire modules might be able to utilize it.

I opened a "request": https://github.com/processwire/processwire-requests/issues/218

Top modules: https://weekly.pw/issue/202/

• Tracy Debugger by @adrian
• AdminOnSteroids by @tpr
• FormBuilder and ProCache by @ryan

[adrian]

I have looked into OpenCollective and even suggested it to @tpr for AOS - the problem is that they require you to have 100 Github stars on a project before they'll accept it. So if you guys want to help out, send some star loving ?

Obviously the PW core could get involved, but I don't think there are any modules with 100 stars yet.

 

[szabesz]

11 minutes ago, adrian said:

the problem is that they require you to have 100 Github stars

I see. In an effort to help, I updated my signature:
Please don't forget to give a star at GitHub to the best in the ProcessWire world: ProcessWire, Tracy Debugger and AdminOnSteroids.

Anyone not using a signature just yet might want to copy me ?

[adrian]

2 minutes ago, szabesz said:

Please don't forget to give a star at GitHub to the best in the ProcessWire world: ProcessWire, Tracy Debugger and AdminOnSteroids.

Love it ?

[dragan]

6 hours ago, szabesz said:

FormBuilder and ProCache by @ryan

Are you sure those are eligible? Those are commercial modules, not open-source.

[szabesz]

11 minutes ago, dragan said:

Those are commercial modules

Currently ? It is just an idea, for consideration which might be worth evaluating...

Edited August 14, 2018 by szabesz
typo

[FrancisChung]

4 hours ago, adrian said:

So if you guys want to help out, send some star loving ?

 

Done

[Robin S]

Maybe I'm missing something, but in terms of raising money isn't Open Collective basically just a fancy donate button? The only money raised for a project is the money that users donate to that project, right?

The transparency features are cool, but is it a lack of transparency that's actually holding back users from donating money to the PW project or PW modules? If people aren't donating currently then it's hard to know for sure why that is, but some possible reasons:

1. It isn't possible to donate (i.e. no donate button exists - presumably because the leader of that project doesn't want to have a donate button). That is the case for PW itself, and I have never heard Ryan express any interest in seeking donations from users. I think he prefers to raise money via his Pro modules. And if users aren't taking that opportunity to support PW via the Pro modules then I think they're unlikely to donate via Open Collective either. With regard to Tracy there have already been several requests for a donate button.

2. 3. 4... Users can't afford to donate, or they never think about offering financial support, or they have thought about it but they're just not motivated to pay money to support the software they use. Or maybe they prefer to support the PW project in other ways - e.g. spreading the word, helping out in the forums or at GitHub, developing free modules for the community, etc. In any of these cases I'm not sure why an option to donate via Open Collective would change their mind.

But I'm all in favour of people starring the modules that they use.

[Robin S]

I also see this on the FAQ page:

Quote

Open Collective takes 10% of the money raised by the collective for managing bookkeeping, taxes, and admin (fiscal sponsorship), as well as providing your Open Collective page and the software it runs on.
...
Additionally, our payment processors charge a fee - Stripe for receiving money via a Credit Card and PayPal for paying out expenses. Usually 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

So that is a pretty big chunk of money you could avoid missing out on by simply having a Stripe or PayPal button alone.

And think about how much money 10% of all donations adds up to. I'm skeptical of these outfits that sound like they're all about altruism but really they are making stacks of money in the process. Here in NZ a lot of charities raise money via the Givealittle service that is run by one of the big telcos. When it launched all of the money donated was retained by the charities ("we're good corporate citizens"), so naturally it became very popular. Then in 2016 they stealthily started taking a 5% cut. They say that donations are at 22 million per year, so 5% of that is a big fat 1.1 million that goes into their pockets.

[szabesz]

7 hours ago, Robin S said:

So that is a pretty big chunk of money

Sure, and if they do not do anything except for providing a donate button and some "transparency" then probably only the most widely used projects such as Webpack can benefit from it. Thanks for pointing it out!

EDIT: I also closed the issue at GitHub.

Edited August 15, 2018 by szabesz