Open-source development monetization

[PatchRanger]

In short: this PR proposes a way to monetize open-source development of your project.

The idea is similar to how free-to-play works in gamedev industry: "You are free to wait for the package download - but in case if time is money for you, please consider buying non-waiting access to the package, every cent goes to the package developer to incentive the open-source development."

For details please refer to https://github.com/Free2Wait/composer-free2wait .

According to packagist statistics of your package https://packagist.org/packages/salsify/json-streaming-parser/stats , in theory it could bring to you about 7,450 (installs per month) * 0.03 (estimated conversion installs-to-sale) * 5 (price of each non-waiting access per month) = estimated $1,117.5 per month.

Please do not consider it as ready-to-merge PR, it's work-in-progress: I am just willing to get your potentional or conditional (what is needed to make it suitable) consent to merge it in the future. There are already several issues/concerns (see https://github.com/Free2Wait/composer-free2wait/issues).

Please give me your feedback about the idea: what do you think? Are you interested in monetizing open-source development? Do you have any suggestions? Concerns?

Would be glad to receive any feeedback. Thank you for attention.

[darrenoh]

Any company big enough to find it worth paying the fee for immediate download would have the expertise to create their own repository that does not have a dependency on composer-free2wait.

In addition, this could motivate a lot of people to create forks of other people’s projects to attempt to direct revenue to themselves.

[PatchRanger]

Any company big enough to find it worth paying the fee for immediate download would have the expertise to create their own repository that does not have a dependency on composer-free2wait.

@darrenoh Thank you for your input, it's very valuable. I've created a separate issue for this concrete aspect - see the link above.

In addition, this could motivate a lot of people to create forks of other people’s projects to attempt to direct revenue to themselves.

The root point is whether those "clones" are useful enough to make others to switch dependencies to them. If it's the case then it means that "clones" provide more value to end-users than originals - and should be rewarded. Looks like it would enforce positive concurrency beside package developers. I've created a separate issue about "negative concurrency" - please see the link above.

[gonzofy]

@PatchRanger Thanks for the suggestion. I'd rather keep this project completely free. I open sourced it to help other developers be productive, not to make money.