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I see that Gun.io is trying to do something like this. It doesn't seem to be working very well yet. Not sure that specific implementation of the idea is right. Something feels off.
Background of question: I was just brainstorming some open source projects that I would like to exist. If I had more time or enough income that I could use some of my income generating time for purposes other than generating income, I would just build these projects. However, because of my life circumstances this is not the case (Early in career, stay at home wife and child, high cost of living, commitments outside of software world, etc...). These ideas are ideas that I believe a lot of other people could make use of and would generate income for many people if built. This got me thinking that it would be cool if I could either chip in a few hundred bucks towards the development of these projects or if I could get paid just enough to build these projects that I could afford the time to build them.
Related Side Rant: I greatly appreciate the open source communities commitment to donating time for the greater good of the community. I also think that it would be very beneficial to create more tools to further encourage the development of open source projects by compensating the talented engineers that lead the development in order to at a minimum offset the opportunity cost of time spent developing open source. I also think it is fantastic that companies and organizations like Khan Academy, P2PU and many others are attempting to build sustainable organizations based on open sourcing their code.
Related Discussions: Reflections on Using Kickstarter for Open Source Projects - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2875255 Gun.io Debuts Free Group Funding for Open Source Projects (gun.io) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3348358