The document discusses the challenges and strategies for organizing and funding free culture projects, emphasizing the importance of securing resources for their sustainability. It highlights the mixed state of free/libre open source software (FLOSS), encouraging a unified approach and questioning assumptions surrounding its success and community engagement. The text provides insights on fundraising tactics, project execution, and the overall significance of supporting free culture initiatives.

1. How to organize and fund free
culture projects
Kevin Shockey
Founder, Mis Tribus

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

3. So What?
By focusing on raising funds,
a project can increase its' chances
of survival

4. Why me?
Freedom is not free!
(How many ways can you relate?)

5. Why now?
● Declining interest in FLOSS
● Lack of unity, more division
● FLOSS success is taken for granted
● Increased willingness to compromise
● Lingering confusion surrounding free software

6. Disclaimer
I'm not pretending to tell anyone what to do,
I'm sharing my interpretation.
My story.
(Your mileage may vary...)

7. So far...
● Funding Free Culture:
● Blog: FundingFreeCulture.MisTribus.com
● blog.financingfreedom.com
● @ffc_2012
● Tumblr: FundingFreeCulture.Tumblr.com
● One Blogger post triggers:
● 3 Automated tweets on 3 different accounts
● Updated Linked In
● Updated Finding Free Culture Page on Facebook

8. Assumptions
● Free Culture
● Project Execution
● Project Funding

9. Free Culture Assumptions
● Free culture projects often fail
● People assume FLOSS's success is
guaranteed
● Division makes free culture weaker

10. State of FLOSS?
● Four stages of Maturity:
● Emergent
● Growth
● Mature
● Declining
● Projects in emergent, growth, & maturity stages

11. State of FLOSS is mixed
● Enterprise recognition
● Limited user recognition/support
● Participation is declining
● Finances (resources) are limited (often to just
one person)

12. Top 10 FLOSS Hall of Fame
1. Linux Kernel
2. GNU Utilities & Compilers
3. Ubuntu
4. BSD
5. Samba
(Top 10 Open Source Hall of Famers. (2009). http://mstrb.us/zjn6zK)

13. Top 10 FLOSS Hall of Fame
6. MySQL
7. BIND
8. SendMail
9. OpenSSH & OpenSSL
10. Apache

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

15. Search is relative
● Search is a simulation;
● By measuring “reality” we affect reality
● It is a proxy,
– We humanely can not understand the math involved
– Artificial intelligence

16. What SEO Tells Us
General trends for mature projects

17. What SEO Tells Us

18. What SEO Tells Us

19. What SEO Tells Us

20. What SEO Tells Us

21. What SEO Tells Us

22. What SEO Tells Us

23. What SEO Tells Us
General trends for emerging projects

24. What SEO Tells Us

25. What SEO Tells Us

26. Academic Publications
● Collected in 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.)

27. Open Source
Academic Papers by Year
900
800
700
600
500
Direct Results
400
300
200
100
0
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997

28. “Open Source” vs “Free Software”
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100 Free Softw are Results
Open Source Results
0
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 1983

29. Academic Paper Analysis
● There is a possible peak, and downward trend
for “open source”
● Free software has not been researched much
● Out-published by a margin of 5 to 1 by open source.

30. Academic Paper Questions
● Has research on “open source peaked?
● Why isn't anyone researching “free software?”
● Has “open source” obscured the importance of
free software?

31. What Else?
● Niche groups who are content with scratching
their own itch
● Dogmatic approach to community
● Financial support (donations, purchases,
memberships) is lacking
● Large difference between public relationship
strategies
● Most successful projects use modern strategies

32. Project Execution Assumptions
● Organizing a FLOSS project has changed.
● FLOSS projects are similar to startups
● Execution is achieved through testing
assumptions

33. Project Funding Assumptions
● Our software (product) is sufficient to obtain
resources
● There is an over abundance of data
● Varying levels of “information”
● Increasingly interact with more artificially
intelligent systems

34. State of FLOSS
● Build Measure Learn or Your Competition Will
● Irrelevance is your enemy
● Free Beer will NOT fuel your projects
● In need of unity of purpose
● In favor of software freedoms
● In favor of asking for help

35. Build Measure Learn

36. Free LOSS
Freedom is not free!

37. Fund-raising Alternatives
● Grants
● Seed Funding
● Donations
● Merchandise

38. Finding Resources
● Crowd-Sourced

39. Top Ten Fund-raising Lies
1.All we have to do is get 1% of the market
2.We filed patents so out intellectual property is
protected
3.Our management team is proven
4.The large companies in our market are too big,
dumb, and slow to compete with us
5.Our product will go viral

40. Top Ten Fund-raising Lies
6.Hurry up because our other investors are about
to do our deal
7.No one else can do what we're doing
8.Several Fortune 500 companies are set to do
business with us
9.Jupiter says our marker will be worth $50 billion
in ten years
10.Our projections are conservative(Kawasaki, 2012)

41. Modeling
If we do not know who the customer is,
we do not know what quality is.(Ries, 2011)

42. Questioning Assumptions
“What if they don’t care about [fill in the blank]
in the same way we do?”(Ries, 2011)

43. Questioning Assumptions
“In fact, piercing the reality distortion field
is quite uncomfortable. ”(Ries, 2011)

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

45. Successful Free Culture Project
When it's community
is more than
just the author of the project

46. Developers Per Project

47. Why Do People Give?
1.Belief in the cause 6.Joy
2.Recognition and 7.Guilt
honor 8.Fear
3.For a tax deduction 9.To make a difference
4.Family tradition
5.Religious beliefs

48. Thought Experiment
● Put the following non-profits in order of size of
assets (donations):
● Apache Foundation
● Free Software Foundation
● GNOME Foundation
● Mozilla Foundation
● Perl Foundation
● Wikipedia Foundation

49. Case Study: Free Software
Foundation

50. Case Study: GNOME Foundation

51. Case Study: Apache Foundation

52. Case Study: Mozilla Foundation

53. Mozilla vs overall FLOSS Browsers

54. Mozilla vs overall FLOSS Browsers

55. Case Study: FSF Foundation

56. Fund-raising Best Practices
● Ask
● Prepare
● Measure
● Repeat

57. Best Practices for Startups

58. Best Practices for Politicians

59. Build
A good design is
one that changes customer behavior
for the better.(Ries, 2011)

60. Fund-raising 101
● Build a Foundation
● 501(3)c
● Grants
● Corporate Donors
● Community

61. Build a Foundation
● Incorporation
● Mission/Vision
● Board of Directors
● Transparency

62. Setting up a 501(3)c

63. Finding Grants

64. Corporate Donors
● Pitch
● Outbound Marketing
●

65. Community
● Building a Community
● Using Social Media
● Build-Measure-Learn

66. References
● Kawasaki, G. (2012). Raising Money: What Not to Say and
What Not to Believe. http://mstrb.us/zfhxIl
● Dvorak, J.C. (2009). The State of Open Source on Firefox's
Fifth Birthday. http://mstrb.us/yF7CF3
● Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup.
● Fiscal Year 2010-2011 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/AzdrN2
● Fiscal Year 2009-2010 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/yLiEIy
● Fiscal Year 2008-2009 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/x8VKbv

67. References
● Fiscal Year 2007-2008 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/xvGSe4
● Fiscal Year 2006-2007 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/y63WzT
● Fiscal Year 2005-2006 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/yNAbTE
● Fiscal Year 2002-2003 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/wyCvAe
● Fiscal Year 2001-2002 Annual Report for The Apache Software
Foundation. http://mstrb.us/wRRw6w
● 2010 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/yLAmX7

68. References
● 2009 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/yOyW0n
● 2008 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/xLdf1Y
● 2007 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/xP1jqj
● 2006 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/wDJDOV
● 2005 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/yzTktK
● 2004 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/zMnI1u

69. References
● 2003 IRS Form 990 for the Mozilla Foundation.
http://mstrb.us/wDpQeo
● Perens, B. (2008). State of Open Source Message: A New
Decade For Open Source. http://mstrb.us/zre7oP
● Perens, B. (2005). The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open
Source. http://mstrb.us/xVlTXC
● Perens, B. The Covenant - A New Approach to Open Source
Cooperation. http://mstrb.us/ybrmfO
● FSF 2011 Audited Financial Statement. http://mstrb.us/zCy7VT

70. References
● FSF 2010 filing information. http://mstrb.us/x2Rumq
● FSF 2009 Audited Financial Statement. http://mstrb.us/zyoFHX
● FSF 2008 filing information.
http://mstrb.us/xtBZi1
● FSF 2007 filing information.
http://mstrb.us/zbSp0Q
● FSF 2006 filing information.
http://mstrb.us/xzNEzS
● FSF 2006 filing information. http://mstrb.us/yTjZuR

71. References
● FSF 2005 filing information. http://mstrb.us/xCUQeQ
● FSF 2004 filing information.http://mstrb.us/zwOlhl
● GNOME Foundation Detailed Financial Plan 2011.
http://mstrb.us/zxoI4N
● GNOME Foundation Detailed Financial Plan 2010.
http://mstrb.us/A0jA2g
● GNOME Budget 2009. http://mstrb.us/zdFT0B
● GNOME Foundation Financial Statement for Fiscal Year 2007.
http://mstrb.us/Aw7sGN

72. References
● GNOME Foundation – Fiscal Year 2005 – Balance Summary.
http://mstrb.us/wP8h59
● GNOME Foundation Financial Statement for Fiscal Year 2004.
http://mstrb.us/wxQVGB
● GNOME Foundation Financial Statement for Fiscal Year 2003.
http://mstrb.us/xoFnzh
● Sourceforge.net. (2012). Developer Counts – The Stats.
http://mstrb.us/xmAWfu
● Browser Market Share. (2009). http://mstrb.us/znr3Iy
● Wheeler., D. (2007). Why Open Source Software / Free
Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!
http://mstrb.us/xBkuQP
● Browser Market Share. (2111). http://mstrb.us/znr3Iy