I had this idea recently: if people are willing to pay a small fee monthly for streaming services or Photoshop, surely some would also be willing to pay a similar amount for the FOSS they use. Even a few cents monthly would add up to quite a substantial sum over a vast userbase*. In light of this, I’ve started working on an app that records your app usage, and then at the end of the month splits whatever sum of money you want to donate amongst the apps in proportion to the time you spent using them.
Then it will (hopefully) let you donate to all of those projects with a single click.
Since it’s only halfway finished, I’m posting this to gague how much interest there would be in such an app. Could you could see yourself using something like this? Do you have any ideas for what I should add/change?
*(It also occurred to me that perhaps one way to fix surveillance capitalism on the internet would be if every HTTP get request came with a microtransaction (eg 0.01¢) attached; those without money would gain those 0.01¢ by seeing ads, like today)
i wouldnt personally allow any app to track my usage, but others can be different. my biggest point would be against the one click payment. i would not want any app that tracks usage to even connect to the internet, let alone anything related to payments
having donation links is good enough.
there may also be the question of how does it track the usage. running constantly in the background? ill probably want a system tray icon to indicate it then
Definitely agree. If they could somehow make it a Flatpak with minimal permissions I would def check it out. Otherwise, I don’t use any unsandboxed software to avoid apps having arbitrary permissions.
Sounds interesting, but, I do worry, if such a system were to get any sort of significant adoption, it would create a financial incentives for projects to do questionable things.
Like, even the best intentioned dev would have a very strong incentive to intentionally make their software run in the background in a way that made it look like it was being used. And if a lot of projects did that, then, suddenly there is a bunch of always on stuff eating up system resources.
There is also potential complications around one project pressuring or paying off others to do stuff that gets them more run time. Like say, pressuring a distro or desktop to include their project as a default that turns on when ever the system starts. Or simply include their project as the default even if it’s not well suited to the task.
The incentives created by the system for devs and projects would need to be considered in aggregate, like what down steam outcomes could be created for the entire software ecosystem.
I mean, first thing that went through my head is “if your app is recording my usage, does that mean it’s always in use?” Not saying this isn’t a great idea in lots of ways, it’s just prime for abuse
I would like to have a way to track my use of FOSS, but i want to retain my privacy. I would be interested in this app. I also would like a different way to allocate so that apps that increase my efficiency so that I don’t spend a long time troubleshooting something get the bigger slice. Perhaps having an optional “impact” survey with varying degrees of granularity (impact survy with only thumbs up and down OR impact survey with only 5 stars OR impact survey with 1-100) honestly this would be really cool if adoption got so high that this became the “patreon” of linux apps (aka having a “like” at the bottom that would remind you of high impact).
Woaaaaaaah ok that survey idea is super cool. Although I’d argue that paradoxically it’s the rubbish apps that the bulk of the money should be directed to, to give their authors the resources to make them as good as the other apps. I guess it could almost be a Kickstarter-style system where you have to publish a barely-working MVP but if ppl vote for it then it’ll get a larger share of people’s donations. Wait I think I’ve just re-invented the wheel here.
I think the ideal is that it would be a conscious decision to donate more to software that needs more work. It definitely wouldn’t be good to encourage poor usability that creates more usage time. (That’s how we ended up with terribly written recipes all over the internet that make you scroll for ages before you get to the useful information)
I would love an APP like this, actually thought about needing something like this a few months back.
I would use it, but I see the problems mentioned by others with giving hugely wrong incentives to devs, if the app gains traction (running in background, making slower software, hiding dependencies, etc.)
Also I dont really know if use time really is the best metric (dont know anything better though.)
Also also there would need to be a smart way to detect dependencies, forks and the like, as the frontend is often not the part which is the most work to maintain
Perhaps amount of time the app is the focused window AND the mouse is in it or keystrokes are actively being entered to it?
Yeaaaaah, this would need WM integration which woukd be a pain to write
Yeah, maybe an Option for developers to selfregister their dependencies/forks? Like a community driven gentlemans agreement
Like if the freetube developers gives an honest review on what other work they build on, and the percentage of money that should go to them vs the projects they build on, the yt-dlp (which is hypothetically used in freetube) author can accept the offered split % (in which case the split is done automatically without user interaction) or ask for an alternative split %, in which case the user needs to choose which percentage of their donations goes to whom.
I know handeling user data and accounts is probably out of the scope of this project, but wanted to put this out there anyway
Note to self: in the settings dialog, let the user create custom donation entries with a regex to look for in ‘ps’ and a donation url.
Well, i just remembered the nexus mods and vortex Mod manager business model. All downloads are counted and you are asked to give an endorsement of the mod after a period of time. There is then a option to donate and you can choose your allocation if any. Something like that could only run once per month and be able to give good info. While tracking use time can be like beneficial Spyware, I think I would still like the reminder without that service.
I wouldn’t. id rather give it to some FOSS non profit that would allocate the resources intelligently tbh.
such organizations already exist, e.g. Software in the Public Interest (most well known for hosting Debian)
Hmm good point, it’s true that a human would probably be better at getting the most for FOSS out of your money than a dumb algorithm. Just like is the case for stock brokers
Honestly if you are interested in working on this domain. something like “amazon for red hats” sounds like a better idea. where you are able to subscribe to a organisation and he can gather feedback on what work people want the most (features and bug fixes). but only people paying money are allowed to vote. with data on which organisation are growing in their revenue and number of subscribers which is another indicator (like liberapay view income history section). and of course ability to write reviews and give ratings but again only for paying customers so there will be no review bombing.
