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Discussion on: How have you fund an open-source project ?

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Douglas McKechie

I've had an opensource JavaScript library for many years. This mostly stays in my spare time so gets a release about 2 times a year.

As well as the library itself I have a website with lots of tutorials, examples, and other documentation. I decided to try some Google ads on the site.

Currently the revenue is small, a few dollars a month, but over the course of a year should cover the hosting costs (which is great!). I imagine that more popular open-source projects, with lots of traffic to the site could make some helpful revenue with this method.

Some people have been very happy with the library and have asked if there is a way they could make a donation, so in future I may consider that via Paypal. As I understand it though, donations can be problematic, with credit card thieves using donation forms to test stolen credit card information. I would be interested to read about other people's experiences with this.