On Mar 27, 2019, at 16:44, Bennion, Brian via Rdkit-discuss <rdkit-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > One of the goals of ATOM is to fund work that will be open sourced. I think > any of the partners can choose to hire consultants for the work. > > https://atomscience.org/ > Atom > atomscience.org
I think there are only three successful external funding strategies for open source in cheminformatics: 1) grant funding, 2) cost reduction, and 3) R&D budget for new, and typically pre-competitive, software. It appears that ATOM gets it funding from #1 and #3. And I have no problem with that. I've been funded as a consultant from grant funding. Most of RDKit was funded (if I understand it correctly) by #2 and #3, but the funding is smaller and less direct now that Greg has left his previous employer. My interest is in successful models for self-funded open source developer. Who will pay to maintain and develop "Our Digital Infrastructure" (to use the term from https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ )? I'll be more specific. How can we get EUR 250K/year to fund RDKit development? This would cover a full-time developer at commercial wages, plus overhead, and have money available to pay people for special work - new features, performance, documentation, and so on. It also makes project continuity easier. Not only is it easier for Greg to maintain and develop the project if there's a clear revenue source, but it also increases the pool of people who might be able to replace him, whenever he decides to step down. In principle the money is there, given the number of commercial users with extra money. The questions I ask again are "why would they contribute money?", "why haven't they contributed money?", and "how do we effectively encourage them to contribute money in the future?". By comparison, we know that it's possible to make a living selling self-funded proprietary software in this field. Andrew da...@dalkescientific.com _______________________________________________ Rdkit-discuss mailing list Rdkit-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rdkit-discuss
