Description of the crowdfunding effort for OpenLayers 3. Presented at Foss4g 2013.

1. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
armasuisse
Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
OpenLayers 3 - How to
successfully run a
crowdfunding campaign for
an OSS project
Cédric Moullet
Head of FSDI Web Infrastructure
@cedricmoullet cedric.moullet@swisstopo.ch

2. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
geo.admin.ch vision
Gather, optimise, network
The vision and objectives of geo.admin.ch
cover all of the institutional arrangements,
activities and technical developments needed
to establish an information
technology platform for Swiss
geospatial data and information in
accordance with the new Geoinformation Act
(GeoIG).

3. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Legal basis: Geoinformation Act
(1.7.2008)
Article 1: Aim
This Act has the aim of ensuring that geodata
relating to the territory of the Swiss
Confederation is made available for general
use to the authorities of the Confederation, the
cantons and communes, the private sector, the
public and to academic and scientific institutions in
a sustainable, up-to-date, rapid
and easy manner, in the required quality and at a
reasonable cost.

4. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
200+ geodataset freely accessible in
map.geo.admin.ch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrTPRyQUtok

5. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Context
• Open Source
• Development of new software library

6. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Open Source Community Structure
Users
Contributors
Committers
PSC
Capacity to develop
Capacity to finance

7. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Software development challenges in
Open Source context
1. Federate developers
2. Federate funders
3. Formalize relationships:
– Within developers
– Within funders
– Between developers and funders

8. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Crowdfunding definition
“Crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing,
equity crowdfunding, crowd-sourced
fundraising) is the collective effort of
individuals who network and pool their
money, usually via the Internet, to support
efforts initiated by other people or
organizations.”
Source: wikipédia

9. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding models
• Feature oriented
• Community oriented

10. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding models: «feature oriented»
Funder B
Feature B
Bug B
Commiter B
Develops
Commits
Open Source
Software
Funder A
Feature A
Bug A
Commiter A
Develops
Commits

11. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding models: «feature oriented»
+ Agile
+ Efficient in bugfixing/additional development
phase
- Lack of coordination / global responsibility
- Not efficient for new development

12. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding models: «feature oriented
plattforms» - one example

13. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Open Source Legal
Entity
(association, consortium)
Funding models: «community
oriented»
Funder B Commiter B
Open Source
Software
Funder A Commiter A
Specifies
Pays
Commits
Specifies
Pays

14. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding models: «community
oriented»
+ Global responsibility by the legal entity
+ Coordination by the legal entity
+ Efficient for new development
- Requires consensus by the funders
- Requires agreement between the main
Open Source actors
- Heavy for bugfixing/additional
developments

15. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
1. Challenges: developers federation
Feature oriented model Community oriented model
• Probability that development is
not accepted is quite high since
one developer has not the full
power on the community.
• Probability that features are
heterogeneous is quite high
since no global coordination
occurs
• Probability that development is
well accepted is quite high since
the legal entity represents the
majority of PSC members and
committters
• Probability that features are
homogeneous is quite high since
a coordination occurs

16. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
2. Challenges: funders federation
Feature oriented model Community oriented model
• Difficulty to define a global
feature list
• Funders focus on their specific
needs
• Possibility to agree on a global
feature list
• Possibility to encourage the
funding (“follow me”)

17. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
3. Challenges: formalize relationships
Feature oriented model Community oriented model
• No relationships between
developers
• Funders have no relationships
• Funders can request/contract
only the features they pay
• Developers are coordinated
within the legal entity
• Funders have a loose
relationships, mainly based on
confidence
• Bilateral contracts between
funders and legal entity
• Possibility for the funders to
specify all the features but only
to pay some of them (if the legal
entity accepts it)

18. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding models comparison (new
development)
Feature oriented Community oriented
0 +Perennity
0 +Cost sharing
0 -Control
0 -Ensure result
0 -Legal basis
0 +Future developments
0 +Benefits for others

19. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding «OpenLayers 3»
swisstopo direction decided in 2012 to finance
100 kUSD if a global amount of 350 kUSD
can be found.
«Community oriented» funding model has
been chosen.
100+ crowdfunders (individuals, companies,
administrations) have been found in one
month for 350 kUSD.

20. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Funding «OpenLayers 3» phases
1. Initialization: discuss / feel the need
2. Objectives definition
3. Crowdfunding campaign
4. Contract
5. Development
6. Usage

21. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Crowdfunding tips and tricks
• Think worldwide
• Interest the Open Source community
• Direct and personal contacts are more
efficient
• Important contributions can be found by
companies and administrations
• Less important contributions of individuals
are still important since they show the
interest/acceptance of the Open Source
community

22. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Crowdfunding issues
• An Open Source community is not a legal
entity -> the important Open Source
members have to create a legal entity (like
an association or a consortium) in order to
be able to make a contract with it.
• Legal difficulty to bind the
contributions/requirements, particularly if
various jurisdictions are present ->
possibility for contributors to make a
“research contract” with the legal entity.

23. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo

24. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
Results from the geo.admin.ch
perspective
• New geoportal will be based on a modern
web mapping library.
• Perennity of this library is ensured by the
fact that the major actors have participated
to its creation.
• Relatively modest investment.
• Other entities (countries, cantons, cities,
companies, privates etc…) can benefit of
this work.

25. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo

26. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
www.geo.admin.ch
map.geo.admin.ch
api.geo.admin.ch
info@geo.admin.ch
Twitter: @swiss_geoportal
THANK YOU