I think really wealthy people have two problems when it comes to this: (1) there are a lot of people out there who want money but can't deliver. (2) many of these wealthy people, like the guy I mentioned above, want to be actively involved in solving problems. He didn't want to give money to OpenSSL because his only role there would be giving them money. Instead, he wanted to create some organization with his name on it so that he could be seen to be doing something.
[0]: I don't remember exactly what his proposal was, but I remember thinking it sounded really bureaucratic and unlikely to have any real benefits in practice.
It's not that they don't want to do good - it's that they want to maximize the value from the good they do.
Your solution to this problem seems to be focused on what other people can do to make things easier for you and others like you, but that's not how humanity works.
You're ignoring that your request is unreasonable because you're taking the easy way out - looking for a source of money and convincing yourself that your efforts deserve it because it's easier than doing the work yourself.
Stallman is right. Live cheaply. If you prefer, work full time at a well paid job and use your own money to support open source development. The rich aren't obligated to hand you money because you believe you're doing the right thing.
Also, I don't understand why people seem to expect a reply to a (probably) cold email.
> use your own money to support open s...
Why should he feel obligated to support others?
This is a major failure of free and open source, not having a business plan at all while those who do have a business plan, Google, AWS, Microsoft are reeking in the billions in profit from the free labor provided by foss-developers.
Why cant developers of the software (say coreutils) make profits on it? Why cant developers put constraints on the softwares usage, ie you arent allowed to use it unless you pay. Pay to buy software freedoms model.
Meanwhile, Microsoft/Google is using the same software to make a profit and it says to its customers "pay monthly to be allowed to use this foss". Thats all fine. Strange.
I agree. So many developers would simply like to sell their open source product so customers can run the product themsleves. It's simply impossible.
It's ironic that so many SaaS businesses are built on open source - a model that gives users even less control.
My recommendation is for developers to consider the 'source-only' option: you charge customers for your product and provide the source code. The code is not open source, but it still gives your customer flexibility to adapt the product to fit their needs.
There are successful examples of independent developers making a full-time living using this model, some even publish their source code on GitHub but rely on the honesty of their customers to not redistribute the code (examples include Kirby CMS and Craft CMS).
By the way, the GNU Project (supported by the Free Software Foundation) has never updated their advice on selling open source software to reflect reality. They still advise developers to charge for support or documentation (deeply unpopular with developers and customers). Or charging for distribution of software. This might have made sense in an era of software CDs and dial-up internet but make no sense in a era of broadband and GitHub:
If I ever develop an open source software, I’ll definitely ask for tiered licensing cost, something like redisdesktop.com.
> Be indepenedently wealthy
Both are very good suggestions. And I don't think there are better ones around.
Identifying a Newton or Mozart is a bigger problem that financing them, I think.
It would be interesting to see what people like Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and have been offered by the rich to continue their work. They are worth billions but I suspect they only see a fraction of that sum.
Eric S. Raymond answer was: Be independently wealthy.
I have tried to reach billionaire philanthropists (Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Dean Kamen, Warren Buffet, and others) with the idea that there are very talented people around who have brilliant ideas (say for instance another Newton or Mozart) but are not financially independent to afford to work on those. Among good places to look for such talent is to identify and support important or promising open source projects and people behind them. But none of them bothered to respond.