How to organize and fund free culture

projects

Kevin ShockeyFounder, Mis Tribus

What?

Free culture projects often fail due to a lack of resources.

So What?

By focusing on raising funds,a project can increase its' chances

of survival

Why me?

Computer Science, Math, Financials, and Software Development

Why now? Declining interest in FLOSS Lingering confusion surrounding free software Lack of unity, more division Cloud computing and proprietary platforms, like iOS, are:

- Reducing awareness of FLOSS foundations- Reducing interest with a superior user experience

O'Reilly Home Page (06/ 16/ 2012)

Disclaimer

Some of this class Is based on theories

I'm currently researchingAnd using

Tutorial as a Startup Financing Freedom - “How to organize and fund free culture projects”

- Slides- Handout- eBook

Supporting Materials- Background- Data- Illustrations (Graphs)- Vision for Maximum Strategy

Community

So far...Startup Progress Funding Free Culture:

- Blog: news.financingfreedom.com- Homepage: www.financingfreedom.com- @_ff12- Tumblr: FundingFreeCulture.Tumblr.com

One Blogger post triggers:- 3 Automated tweets on 3 different accounts

- Twitter- Linked In- Financing Freedom Page on Facebook

Assumptions Free Culture Project Execution Project Funding

Free Culture Assumptions Free culture projects often fail

- Never shipping - Unable to attract a community

Division makes free culture weaker- Contributors must choose- Only able to sustain two or three projects

“Free” Assumptions Ambiguiety between free and open source software In many cases there is a an unequal value transaction:

- Many use “free” software- Few look for ways to give back to the community

- Volunteer- Recommendations- Donations- Merchandise- Services

State of FLOSS? Projects in emergent, growth, & maturity stages State is Mixed

- Enterprise recognition- Limited user recognition/support- Finances (resources) are limited (often to just one person)

Top 10 FLOSS Hall of Fame 1. Linux Kernel2. GNU Utilities & Compilers3. Ubuntu4. BSD5. Samba

(Top 10 Open Source Hall of Famers. (2009). http://mstrb.us/zjn6zK)

Top 10 FLOSS Hall of Fame6. MySQL7. BIND8. SendMail9. OpenSSH & OpenSSL10. Apache

Measuring FLOSS Through search, Google Trends Through search, Google Scholar Through investigation, Mining SourceForge.net Repository

Search is relat ive Search is a simulation;

- By measuring “reality” we affect reality- It is a proxy,

- We humanely can not understand the math involved- Artificial intelligence

What SEO Tells Us Many Thanks to Stephen O'Grady and his SEO research, which he shared: “The State of

Open Source: Startup, Growth, Maturity or Decline?”

General trends for mature projects - Linux

Apache

MySQL

PHP

Open Source

GPL

Emerging Technologies Dominated by FLOSS – Linux Cloud

NoSQL

Hadoop

Google Scholar Advanced Search Parameters

- “Open Source” exact phrase all in title- “Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics” subject area- Year to Year (eg; 2012 to 2012, 2011 to 2011, etc.)

2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 19970

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Direct Results

Open Source Academic Papers by Year

“Open Source” vs “Free Software” (since 1983)

2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 19830

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Open Source Results

Free Software Results

Academic Paper Analysis Growth reversed in 2011, but 2012 will show new growth Free software has not been researched much

- Out-published by a margin of 5 to 1 by open source.

Academic Paper Quest ions Has research on “open source peaked? Why isn't anyone researching “free software?” Has “open source” obscured the importance of free software?

SourceForge Research Data Archive (SRDA) Many tables archived from February 2005 to present Data includes any churn in the number of active users, projects, messages, etc. Observations

Monthly additions of users is slowing down

User base is STILL growing- Just over 3 million users

Sharp increase in the number of projects

Number of packages is also up.

Number of releases are down

Number of files are down.

Downloads are generally rising- Extreme variances are unexplained

3.6 Million in January 2009 *

Is GitHub Eating all of SourceForge's Candy?

SourceForge and GitHub Smackdown Three comparisons

- Number of Users- Number of Academic Papers- Number of Repositories

Round One - Number of Users:- SF (3 Million to 1.6 Million)

Round Two – Academic papers- SF (195 to 8)

Round Three – Repositories- No correlation for repositories

Project Execut ion Assumptions Most projects end in failure A successful project organization has emerged FLOSS projects are similar to startups Execution is achieved through testing assumptions

Open Source Failure A project that is unable to grow a community beyond the founder. A project that fails to ship anything. Abandoned projects

Open Source Failure A project that is unable to grow a community beyond the founder. A project that fails to ship anything. Abandoned projects...when either of the 1st two conditions reoccurs

SourceForge Projects 324,000 projects 268,554 projects with only 1 developer (83%) 44,446 “viable” projects (14%)

Developers Per Project

Open Source Success Constant and synchronous communication Consistency in methodological development approach Geographical dispersion management through an extensive testing culture FLOSSD experience in accepting and handling the environmental limitations

Crit ical Success Factors Obligatory use of project methodology An extensive testing culture (Lean Startup)

- Build Measure Learn or your competition will Irrelevance is your enemy

- Mastery of Internet and Social Media marketing Create, nuture, and manage a viable community

An Inf inite Marketplace Thousands of new OSS projects every month Thousands of new apps on Android and Apple A hundred thousand new e-Books Millions of social media updates

- Photos- Videos- Blog entries

Irrelevance is Your Enemy