[BlenderBIM & IfcOpenShell] encouraging funding
I've probably mentioned this before, but here goes.
If my favorite coffee shop offers me a free cup of coffee I'll say thank you and smile.
If my favorite coffee shop offers me a free cup of coffee and asks for a small donation so they can keep offering free coffee and make a donation. But if they don't ask, I probably won't think much about it and the coffee won't improve much, they won't have much reason to keep improving the free coffee.
If free/libre open source software asks for a donation of time or money politely and not too often I have no problem with that. For me that shows that the project is serious about building a sustainable financial future - and I want that because I want to keep using the software.
IfcOpenShell and BlenderBIM are getting some good funding. With the reach of the project I think it can get even more. A lot more. I suggest a splash screen on first run with each update encouraging people to join the discussion and support further development. When LibreOffice implemented this briefly many years ago they quickly got USD20000 and had to stop because they had no way to spend the money. Luckily @Moult has organized BlenderBIM so that there can be paid developers working on the project, so it's quite different.
The reason I'm mentioning this here publicly is that I want to hear what others think. What do you think? Would this annoy you?
Comments
Agreed.
I also think osarch could help, and play a role to drum up funding.
I think the software already asks for money pretty prominently on its websites, so I don't know what else we could do there. I've now added a link in the software itself: https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/commit/bbd2b6704137a6ac76296b1bb145223ba1149ce1
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctF5qfyLbceKijM9EKMGeaYsfF9Y6vqZbybfACwV--i-lfrg/viewform
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jakobbeetz_research-bimserver-ifcopenshell-activity-7031163335433678848-s1pl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop