weekly news #23: how to transform money into freedom

[Michiel de Jong]

Thank you thank you thank you! for all your kind donations. We've started putting your names on our website. This is opt-in, that is why you're not on there yet unless you emailed me - please email me how you want to appear. http://unhosted.org/

It's been a week since we ended the donations campaign http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/hG7QUixpAZj2/eo/151029/ 

The barometer ended at 11.263,14 euros. \o/ Since then, Javier has told me that he will donate the 2.5 months of work he has done full-time on the project (gracias, Javi!!!), as well as all the work he's still doing part-time now, besides his freelancer work. \o/ And nlnet have said that they will probably give us another 30.000 euros. \o/ And there might be another 10.000 euros from a French project.

It's important to have money. Because having it makes it unimportant as a topic. :) This means that two people will be able to work full-time for Unhosted e.V. without having to take on distracting freelance work on the side, and without having to pause the project.

In other news, there will be one million pre-registered users \o/ soon, as surfnet (the federation of Dutch higher education institutes) will be doing a proof-of-concept of implementing our protocol for use by students and academics. So that's really big news. It basically takes the whole game to another level.

I think it's awesome and amazing that our project can now develop its technology without having to worry about, or be influenced by, money. At the same time, I think we can start attracting business on top of our standard. We have to be careful to not make any mistakes there that would result in confusion of interests. But learning from mozilla, and from a couple of peer-owned business models that exist here in Berlin (co-working, telecommunism, ...) I think there's a lot we can do.

So i think the way this should work is that me and one more person work on the strictly non-profit project, and other people set up business on top of the technology.

so they get rich, which is good because then they make more apps faster. But the unhosted project as such doesn't, and shouldn't.

these are still early thoughts, in brainstorm form, so please help make them more concrete.

and everybody get ready to quit their current jobs and to start writing unhosted web apps very soon. :)

cheers!

Michiel

[Thad Guidry]

Michael,

I would like to know if you yourself can code apps, and then make money, just as everyone of us ?  Any legal entanglements that prevent you (as a person) to do what the rest of us hope to do as well ?  Anything preventing full-time paid employees of the non-profit Unhosted e.V. from freelancing on their OWN Unhosted projects to earn more of a living ?  Curious about how that works in Berlin or it's laws surrounding Non-profits. 

-- 

-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry

[Michiel de Jong]

hi,

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anything preventing full-time paid employees of the non-profit Unhosted e.V. from freelancing on their OWN Unhosted projects to earn more of a living ?

Yes, it's ironic that in this construction i will be the only person on the planet who will /not/ be able to get rich with this. :) But partly because of that, i'm enjoying every minute of it! I'll just brainstorm about how to free the web, and share my ideas with whoever wants to use them. It wouldn't be as much fun if i also had to make money with it.

Before we started the donations campaign i said i will work for 1000 euros a month until 1 March 2013. Also, I will not be able to "sell" the project's assets after that, because all the value that is generated in this process is owned either by the project as a legal person, or by the public domain, and not by me. If i had wanted to make money with this, then i would have done that, wouldn't i? i could have put one of those software patents on it or something. :D

Don't worry, it's not a mistake in the plan. I want the app developers to get rich, because then more of you will write more awesome apps, for maximum orchestrated impact. I did it this way on purpose. Thanks for asking, though!

Cheers,

Michiel