The subject of sustainability was discussed as a significant challenge for OSSTAs. Given that most OSSTA projects are largely supported by volunteers, energy and intention tend to dissipate over time as project leaders must carry the challenge of managing the project as well as supporting their own careers. Even if energy around the project grows, it results in the project scaling in complexity and community size, further increasing the burden on maintainers. Additionally, relying solely on volunteer labor excludes those without the financial and/or class privilege to donate their time and knowledge. One question that arises is, “How can the OSSTA community better foster spaces in which the tools are documented and maintained in a sustainable way?”
OSSTAs utilize a variety of sources for funding and support. Participants stressed that most OSSTAs are committed to offering their tools for free and do not have a business model or source of reliable income. They are often entirely dependent on donations, gifts, and grants.
Key funding sources and themes that emerged in discussion included:
- Community Donations
- Grants
- Corporate Sponsorships and Partnerships
- Educational Institution Support
- Establishing a Business Model
- Infrastructure
OSSTAs have tried a variety of community fundraising strategies including adding donation buttons to websites, running Patreons, and year-end fundraising campaigns offering rewards like stickers, t-shirts, or artwork. While these methods can provide some support for projects, they are not continuous or significant enough to be a sustainable solution on their own.
OSSTAs have applied for a range of grants spanning the areas of technology, art, media art, education, and social justice. However, OSSTAs often have a difficult time making the case to funding organizations because they fall into an in-between space of different fields, specifically between tech and art. Creating a tool to produce art is often seen as different than producing art, and many arts grants require an end result of an artwork or exhibition. Additionally, connecting the concepts of art and open source can be difficult for many funders without experience in the area to understand. One of the participants said, “We make things that help people make things that make things.” This concept is abstract and encompasses a broad spectrum of values both monetary and non-monetary. There has been some success, though: Examples of granting organizations that have recognized the potential of OSSTAs in the arts now include the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation.
Some of the participants recognize that they do not know how to demonstrate the importance of the tools to potential funders. This is often a result of project leaders being focused on creating and maintaining tools, and not having time or awareness of the importance of demonstrating and measuring value created. Project leaders need education around how to create and collect metrics to demonstrate the impact of these tools. Grant writing and fundraising involve a different skill set than developing code, and it’s necessary to have people involved in the projects that have experience in this area.
Collaborating with companies is one possible source of support, but it requires the mutual interest of tool leaders and the company. Use of the tools in commercial contexts occasionally results in a company making a donation to the makers of the tool to help sustain its development. This usually happens when a developer working at the company has a previous connection to the toolmakers and thus understands the need for funding and can write it into the project budget. However, these cases are rare, and it is often difficult or impossible to convince a company to pay for something that is free. One participant said, “Occasionally, a friendly agency, if they are using my add-ons or something, will say […] here is a check. It doesn't happen very often, it is more like a surprise. It is not sustainable, but it does encourage.”
Granting programs through corporations have provided another source of support. Examples of this include the Google Summer of Code program, Google Faculty Research Grants, the Mozilla Open Source Support Program, and GitHub sponsorships.
In corporate partnerships, alignment of values is fundamental. Corporations might approach a tool but, if their values or business model are not aligned, project leaders and the community will not accept resources.
Educational institutions can be another source of support for OSSTAs. Tools like Processing, p5.js, and openFrameworks have widespread use in the classroom and seem to be a natural fit to provide support. However, there is often a lack of awareness around the need for support. Even when there is a desire to donate toward tool development, there is no infrastructural way for an educational institution to make a donation. On the other hand, they can and do pay commercial license fees and Edtech subscription fees.
Many contributors to OSSTAs have full-time jobs working at universities, enabling them to have semi-funded time to dedicate to the projects. Some universities have dedicated labs that provide support to tool contributors through grants and residencies, such as Carnegie Mellon University’s Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and University of Denver’s Clinic for Open Source Arts.
Some OSSTAs like p5.js are used extensively in K12 education, and the project has pursued funding and partnerships with K12 organizations like the NYC Department of Education. These partnerships can be fruitful, but also require navigating large amounts of bureaucracy and multiple stakeholders.
Participants identified establishing business models that generate income as a path toward sustainability. There are many commercial entities using OSSTAs to produce work and products but because the tools are free, revenue isn’t generated from this commercial use. One way to address this may be to establish a dual-licensing model that keeps the library free for artists, educators, and hobbyists, but requires a license fee for commercial users. Another possibility is to create a “freemium” model in support tools like OSSTA code editors where core functionality is free for all, but users can pay for additional features or technical support.
Participants made the point that to be sustainable, OSSTAs not only need revenue streams, but also an infrastructure to accept financial contributions and direct the distribution of resources. Many OSSTAs lack a basic organizational structure that would enable them to financially compensate contributors. Some OSSTAs have approached this by establishing nonprofit organizations such as a 501(c)(3) in the United States. However, doing so adds additional management structure and staffing resources necessary to run the organization.
Collaboration between OSSTAs is one potentially beneficial strategy. Knowledge sharing and strategizing happens informally between projects, but it could be formalized. Projects could aggregate some of their needs and address them collectively. Infrastructure could be shared between projects, reducing individual costs and enhancing the general capacity of the OSSTAs. One example in the OSS world outside of the arts is the Apache Software Foundation, an umbrella non-profit organization that claims over 350 OSS projects.