Reading this blog post entitled Work and open source, made me ponder about how to monetize open source projects. Though he's right that not all projects are abandoned because of financial issues; the important thing is what financial issues cause open source projects to stop being maintained.
While Gittip seem to be a good tool to monetize some open source projects, it might not be the answer for every project out there. For me, Gittip seems to be a better fit for those projects that individuals use for whatever reason. It gives people a way to personally tip the developers for their hard work, while making contributions bigger by funneling a large sum from different sources in a single place.
Another idea I like, and agree with, would be to GitHub to help the ones who use it to monetize their projects directly on the site. By adding a monetizing service to their site, GitHub stands at the chance of becoming an even more valuable tool for developers.
Neither Gittip or GitHub will be the full answer to help open source projects get much needed money to work with, but they could help developers a lot by giving people a way to contribute to their projects in ways that are secure and trusted by all involved.
The only thing I don't agree with, it's ads. True, not everyone likes the idea to have ads as a form of income. Yet, I believe that each project should be able to choose ads as a form of income. Done right, it adds a legitimate source of income while helping rise some awareness of the project. There should be a way for developers have a say on what they are willing to advertise, and for the people to advertising to be able to be able to choose on what projects their advertisement appears.
Monetizing a project doesn't go against the spirit of open source, it's a tool to get the resources to get the open source projects ahead.
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