Getting Paid to Develop Open Source Software
An Interview with Cosource.com
By Clark D. Ritchie

Many people do not understand the motives that drive the open source programmer. Why one would develop software on their own time, on their own systems, and then distribute it completely free on the Internet, along with its source code, is entirely illogical in some eyes.

In fact, most open source programmers are motivated by a variety of reasons. Some cite a need to fix existing but buggy software. Others desire new features, or maybe the software doesn't even exist at all. Still others feel it's downright immoral to charge for software. Whatever their reason, most open source programmers toil long hours on their own time out of pure pleasure, not for a paycheck.

But what if there were a way to make money developing open source software? Or what if you're not a programmer yet you still need a particular piece of software developed or customized? Recently several websites have emerged to address these questions. While their approaches are unproven, each has taken a unique strategy to address these issues.

LDN recently interviewed Bernie Thompson, founder of Cosource.com, one such website designed to coordinate open source developers with paying clients.

[LDN] What are you doing with Cosource.com ?

[Cosource.com] Our goal is to merge the strengths free software and the free market. Open Source is a huge catalyst for innovation in that everyone on our planet can apply their talents to solving complex (or simple) problems in parallel. It allows new innovations to be built upon old, without re-creating the wheel because of intellectual property concerns. Through the availability of source, it enables the realization of software engineering's long-standing goal of building complex systems out of many independent, well documented, flexible, reusable components.

The problem is contributors need to be rewarded for their efforts, and they need to eat. How do we compensate the innovators for innovating? Open Source has made great strides though the donated efforts of many thousands of valuable developers. But their time isn't free. No one's time is free. It would be great for everyone if we could compensate these people directly for their valuable contributions to our collective body of software.

As it happens, we have a complimentary problem that needs solved. People who use Open Source have problems. It might be a piece of hardware that needs a driver. Or an application that is missing one critical feature. Or a platform that could use a port of an application that was originally created for another OS. These people are wasting time futzing and worrying about these problems, and they'd be willing to pay a little if someone would just write the software to make the problem go away.

These two parties need each other, but don't have a direct way of getting together. Cosource.com is about bringing these two parties together, so they can solve each other's problems. It's a classic case of building a market for the mutual benefit of both sides.

[LDN] What does the Cosource.com actually do, then ?

[Cosource.com] We provide a web site that is a gathering place for people to discuss and build support behind hundreds or thousands of individual projects, sub-projects, feature requests, bug fixes, etc. In addition to discussion groups, etc. that we provide free, we also collect legally binding financial commitments from sponsors who are willing to pay for certain things to be developed. Developers can submit proposals to do this work. When there are enough commitments to pay for a proposal, the work is assigned to that developer. If the project succeeds, Cosource.com collects the committed money from the sponsors (via credit card, etc.) and the developer is paid.

[LDN] Is it up and running now ?

[Cosource.com] On July 28, 1998 we opened up our live beta site. We've had over 250 people sign up in the first two days, 50 of whom are developers. It's been an awesome response! These people have authored over 50 requests for new software to be written. This beta will go on for several weeks, as we gather and respond to tons of feedback about how to make the system better. Then we'll do the big, splashy, official launch to get the word out. We have to do that, because a key value of our site rests in keeping momentum and bringing people back so we have a critical mass of sponsors and developers around the requests on the site.

[LDN] What is your background ?

[Cosource.com] I'm a technology freak with a entrepreneur streak. I'm 27. I graduated with a BS in Computer Science from Penn State. I've been lucky to have worked on lots of cool stuff. I was following and using Linux in the pre-1.0 days. I wrote an article for the very first Linux Journal comparing Linux, OS/2, and NT. The article appears on the front page just across for Linus' announcement of Linux 1.0. I worked at IBM Boca Raton doing Win32 emulation and device drivers for OS/2 2.0, 2.1, and Warp. Then I went to write display drivers for S3. After a year in California, they moved me to Redmond, WA where I represented S3's business and technical interests on-site at Microsoft for 2 years. I worked alongside the Win98 and NT 4.0/5.0 teams doing drivers. In July, 1998 I left S3 and Microsoft, and started Cosource.com.

[LDN] What do you think of Microsoft ?

[Cosource.com] Microsoft is a highly aggressive, highly competitive company. That comes through in everything they do. I'm not an anti-Microsoft kind of guy, and that's not what Cosource.com stands for. We are advocates of Open Source, free markets, and widely portable software. We are all about driving software to platforms that are currently staving for applications. Want to launch a new platform and get the wealth of Open Source applications ported over? We'll help you gather financial support to pay for each of these porting efforts. We have a powerful ability to help break down the barriers between platforms by gathering demand for small, niche efforts.

[LDN] What's in it for Cosource.com ?

[Cosource.com] As proposals from developers come into the site, developers specify how much they have to be paid to do the work. Cosource.com marks these proposals up for display on the system. That markup is where we make our money.

Software development is a difficult and error prone process. As a broker between sponsors and the developer, part of the service we're paid for is taking some of that risk upon ourselves.

We have to pay the authority even if the project fails (so they can stay neutral and honest), so we judge the risk of project failure and include that cost. We don't collect money up-front, because that could tie up our sponsors' money for months, and require an ability to return it for failed projects. So we also have to account for the historical rate of default among sponsors who don't pay in the end, which will vary with the type of project. We protect the developers from this risk by paying ourselves out of the collected moneys last, so if we mis-estimate, we loose money.

Having such a direct revenue model (purely that of a broker) means we don't need to make money off advertising, selling lists, or anything like that. So our site doesn't get in the way of discussing and funding Open Source projects.

[LDN] What do you think of sourceXchange ?

[Cosource.com] Quite a competition is developing between us. We announced our services and launched our betas around the same time. It's quite a good story!

Our strategy is simply to work harder and provide a better service. Both our sites are available to look at now, so everyone is encouraged to compare. We're going to be working hard over the next weeks, months, and years to be constantly learning and constantly improving. We wish sourceXchange luck!

[LDN] What's in store for the next few months at Cosource.com ?

[Cosource.com] We'll be conducting our live beta for some time until we have responded to all the feedback and really made the site humm. That said, the site is fully operational, and we want to encourage developers and sponsors to come check us out and make/save money by leveraging our market for Open Source. We've had an enormous response so far, so we're really excited about what's ahead. Also, you can find us at Linux World Expo in August at the SSC booth, and I'll be giving a talk at the October Atlanta Linux Showcase. Thanks, and check out cosource.com!


Linux Dev.Net would like to thank Bernie Thompson for participating in this interview. Do check out Cosource.com's web site at http://www.cosource.com.

Copyright © 1999 Clark D. Ritchie.


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