Re:Free and open source software projects are in transition
by kdmccormick on Monday July 31, 2023 @03:37PM
(#36947685)
Happy to share, although I don't know how applicable the journey is to most.
The project started as nonprofit with both a business goal (sustain itself by selling online courses) and a philanthropic vision (essentially: increase education access by disrupting the degree market & also open sourcing the code).
A decade later, the nonprofit sold the entire online course business, its brand, and most of its staffing to a for-profit company. It kept the copyright to the open source code, and the remaining staff now use the proceeds of the deal as an endowment to pusue the original philanthropic mission, which includes being a sort of core team for that open source code.
Some details [0]. The online course business is edx.org, the buyer was 2U, the source code is Open edX [1] and the nonprofit started as edX Inc and was renamed to Axim [2] after the sale.
The project started as nonprofit with both a business goal (sustain itself by selling online courses) and a philanthropic vision (essentially: increase education access by disrupting the degree market & also open sourcing the code).
A decade later, the nonprofit sold the entire online course business, its brand, and most of its staffing to a for-profit company. It kept the copyright to the open source code, and the remaining staff now use the proceeds of the deal as an endowment to pusue the original philanthropic mission, which includes being a sort of core team for that open source code.
Some details [0]. The online course business is edx.org, the buyer was 2U, the source code is Open edX [1] and the nonprofit started as edX Inc and was renamed to Axim [2] after the sale.
0. https://press.edx.org/2u-inc.-and-edx-complete-industry-rede...
1. http://github.com/openedx
2. http://axim.org
TL;DR: Start off as a nonprofit, build a valuable product, sell the product, and then use the money to continue the nonprofit. YMMV ;)