AKA: Sponsorware, Embargo model, "Unlock the commons", Delayed open-sourcing
Contributions made from private persons or companies to individual maintainers, contributors, or OSS projects in order to get early access to code, apis, documentation, etc. These are often semi-recurring payments for every new version.
Requires:
- Setup of a payment mechanism (hosted or self-build)
- Collection and description of one or more tiers / offerings
Variants & Options:
- Single payments for version- / result-specific early access
- Recurring payments for continuous access to "closed repository"
- Tiered Access Levels: Offering access to different maturity-levels or types (code, api, docu, ...)
- Sponsorware
- Embargo Model as defined by Heather Meeker: sell access to code before it is publicly released (either to beta versions or even full final versions)
- "Unlocking the commons" as defined by Tim Carmondy: Giving access to early previews and experiments
- Github Sponsors-only repositories
- Memberspace (giving access to (parts of) a website)
- Patreon etc. (giving manual access to repos)
| Characteristics | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Effort to set-up | Hours | Only requires private repository or password-protected website |
| Effort to maintain | High | Constant reminders to sponsor necessary; Requires additional "publish" step |
| Cost to set-up | Low | Might require a little money for hosting private repos/content |
| Cost to maintain | Low | Might require a little money for hosting private repos/content |
| One-time Income | Medium | Often based on hourly wage |
| Recurring Income | Medium | Few users wants early access but might pay more and recurring if so |
| Income Predictability | Medium | If recurring payments work they will probably continue |
| Full income Threshold | 100+ | |
| Recipient | C | |
| Additional Work | Low | Might require to manage public and private repos/content |
| Visibility | Medium | Easy to forget, ignore, or overlook, but early-access users might talk about the new stuff |
| Necessity to pay | Medium | Might be necessary for security-sensitive companies or hosting services (e.g., for databases) |
| Entry Threshold | Low | Credit card is sufficient |
| Countervalue | Access | Might cause minimal additional work to handle multiple repositories |
| Scalability | Low | Early access to OSS gives only rarely an edge |
| Effort for marketing | Medium | Similar to donations but early-access users might talk about the new stuff |
| Competitors | None | |
| Software types | All | Esp. for OSS that gives payer an edge (test security, write news, host service, ...) |