AKA: Sponsorware, Embargo model, “Unlock the commons”, Delayed open-sourcing
Contributions made from private persons or companies to individual maintainers, contributors, or OSS projects in order to get early access to code, apis, documentation, etc. These are often semi-recurring payments for every new version.
Requires:
Variants & Options:
| Characteristics | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Effort to set-up | Hours | Only requires private repository or password-protected website |
| Effort to maintain | High | Constant reminders to sponsor necessary; Requires additional “publish” step |
| Cost to set-up | Low | Might require a little money for hosting private repos/content |
| Cost to maintain | Low | Might require a little money for hosting private repos/content |
| One-time Income | Medium | Often based on hourly wage |
| Recurring Income | Medium | Few users wants early access but might pay more and recurring if so |
| Income Predictability | Medium | If recurring payments work they will probably continue |
| Full income Threshold | 100+ | Â |
| Recipient | C | Â |
| Additional Work | Low | Might require to manage public and private repos/content |
| Visibility | Medium | Easy to forget, ignore, or overlook, but early-access users might talk about the new stuff |
| Necessity to pay | Medium | Might be necessary for security-sensitive companies or hosting services (e.g., for databases) |
| Entry Threshold | Low | Credit card is sufficient |
| Countervalue | Access | Might cause minimal additional work to handle multiple repositories |
| Scalability | Low | Early access to OSS gives only rarely an edge |
| Effort for marketing | Medium | Similar to donations but early-access users might talk about the new stuff |
| Competitors | None | Â |
| Software types | All | Esp. for OSS that gives payer an edge (test security, write news, host service, …) |