A guide to sustainability models for research software projects.
.. subtitled “How can we find funding for our open source project?”
This is a GitHub page started by my colleague Dan Katz of NCSA. This is a living document that lists, with examples, techniques for sustaining software once initial development funding has ended. To maximize the value of the page, Dan is soliciting contributions and examples from the scientific community. As of this writing, he lists the following categories:
Volunteers
Donation button
Crowdfunding (one-time)
Crowdfunding (recurring)
Books & merchandise
Advertising & sponsorships
Industry support
Consulting & services
Grants
SaaS
Membership
Dual license
Open core
Foundations & consortiums
Venture capital
Trademark licensing & franchising
Here is a sample content, from Industry Support:
“Companies sometimes support particular projects via paying for some development in that project, or by supporting a PhD or researcher to undertake a specific development project. Find a company that uses your project, and determine something the project wants to do that the company is willing to put work into.
(Note that this might overlap Consulting & services below.)
Pros
Taps into those who have resources (i.e. companies)
Can be well-aligned with company needs
In certain areas, industrial support for PhD or researcher positions is already an established mechanism
Cons
Usually involves “getting lucky”: no clear, repeatable path to finding this arrangement
Project already needs to be well-known and used
Governance issues, company could have undue influence over project
Can affect project dynamics + balance
Case Studies
BoneJ – with F + P Specialist Modelling Group”
Source: https://astrocompute.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/a-guide-to-sustainability-models-for-research-software-projects/
