Key considerations in funding open source projects
As much as we want to consider that all open source projects are the same, investors find pitfalls with that idea. The following considerations and lessons learned will help reduce confusion about which projects are preferable to fund for the organizations who have set funds aside or investors who are likely to invest in open source projects:
- Community: The open source project is more viable if it has individual and institutional contributors.
- Project usage: The broad criterion is if the project has actual users.
- Project license: There are hundreds of open source and free software licenses, each with its own nuances. Check for the most widely accepted and curated list. Two examples are OSI-approved licenses, https://opensource.org/licenses, and Debian Free licenses, a curated list of which is available here: https://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/.
- Project funding: The projects should maintain information in a transparent...
