From a035eaefa36e414645c4630cbe527ea42c5843ad Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michael Mayer Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 11:03:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Docs: Add a clarification of the clarification to README.md Signed-off-by: Michael Mayer --- README.md | 16 ++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 548a3a72d..8a40734b5 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -112,6 +112,22 @@ Let us know if we mistakenly label an idea as [unfunded][unfunded issues]. Thank you very much! <3 +## Lessons learned ## + +Having done mostly commercial projects in the last 10+ years, it is important for us to explore various forms of funding +and communication for independent Open Source projects. Note that many of today's popular projects are funded by +corporations like Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Intel. That's a good thing and we profit from it, but doesn't +mean independent developers should not do this full-time or pay everything themselves without asking the community for +support. In fact, crowdfunding is a pretty common way to cover development expenses if you look at +[Indiegogo](https://www.indiegogo.com/) or [Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/). + +In no way do we spurn other OSS projects like [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/), +as a Twitter user suggested. We just state the fact that even a non-commercial app can't use their API +for production, which is perfectly OK. +On the other hand, it also doesn't mean we have to provide this service for free to our users. +We've learned that money is a very sensitive topic most of our users don't engage with and even try to avoid. +No wonder most founders go the easy way, take venture capital and sell licenses for their software. + ## Public and corporate sponsorship ## Our software is now almost done after two years of hard work, some days 16 to 20 hours on top of other projects we