Snowdrift.coop incubation
Scope
Snowdrift.coop is developing a new sustainable patronage model for Open Source projects. The primary mechanism is "crowdmatching" where patrons pledge to match all the other patrons in order to built more widespread support for projects.
Initial Incubator Project Sponsor (2015): Allison Randal
Current (2020) Sponsor: Elana Hashman
Project contact: Aaron Wolf
Alignment with OSI Mission
Snowdrift.coop is exploring new ways to build a sustainable economy for Open Source, especially for end-user products which often get neglected compared to sometimes-well-funded upstream Open Source.
Incubation period
Snowdrift.coop will graduate from incubation by developing and running a live prototype of crowdmatching, using the site itself as the initial test project.
Requirements to reach full incorporation
- Build and launch live crowdmatching at Snowdrift.coop
- Express the concept and UX clearly enough to announce the alpha prototype
Pre-OSI foundations
When first approved in 2015, Snowdrift.coop already had a fake-money prototype website and well-researched notes and writings.
Progress since joining OSI
After joining OSI in summer 2015, new branding and design were developed, and the backend software cleaned up and overhauled. Through OSI as fiscal sponsor, one full-time contractor worked alongside volunteers.
By fall 2016, the main funding source did not continue and the project shifted to an all-volunteer basis.
From 2017 through 2019, progress was inconsistent and no OSI sponsor was assigned to the project. The project moved through several different project-management tools and struggled to organize work among the distributed volunteer team. Nevertheless, the design and governance got refined and simplified and initial alpha testing began.
Current status
Last updated March 2021
Alpha testing
The platform itself is live as the first listed project: https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift
Although the ability to pledge has still not been widely announced, the project has 137 patrons. With crowdmatching set to $1 per thousand patrons, the monthly donations now total $18.76.
To avoid excessive fees, charges are delayed until multiple months add up to a few dollars per patron. At the time of this update, no actual charges have been processed.
Next steps
Incubation goals have been accomplished, as live prototype exists! However, cleaning up the presentation and front-end is necessary before announcing the operations. Once that has been done, we can announce the graduation and more broadly announce the live prototype.
For reference, see https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/planning for overview of project status.