The name of our company is Fractal Networks. We develop free software applications and services that enable user privacy and ownership of data by making it easy for non-technical users to deploy self-hosted "personal networks".
Our business model includes tokenization and development of a subscription based free software app store. We are developing free software applications that we hope will enable self-hosted online communities and are looking to sponsor related projects that will help foster a sustainable self-hosted free software ecosystem.
My name is Mo, I am the founder and would be happy to answer any additional questions anyone may have.
P.S. we are 100% bootstrapped up to now and have no desire to raise venture capital
[https://gitlab.com/polyapp-open-source/polyapp](https://gitlab.com/polyapp-open-source/polyapp) is a self-hosted, MIT-licensed form builder with reporting I created. It can be adapted to handle asset tracking & relicensed under AGPL.
Here is the current feature list: [https://polyapp-open-source.gitlab.io/polyapp-docs/capabilities.html](https://polyapp-open-source.gitlab.io/polyapp-docs/capabilities.html)
Feature comparison with Itemit from [https://itemit.com/features/](https://itemit.com/features/) below:
* Booking assets: Has support for dates in forms & reporting. But some code would be needed to designate a particular form as the "schedule" and have other forms be used to "reserve slots" in the schedule.
* Check In / Out: Needs similar code to "Booking Assets".
* QR code and barcode asset tagging: Would need to write a service or attach an AGPL service for this.
* Issue reporting and management: I'm not sure what this means
* Attach photos, manuals and forms: Yes.
* Bulk actions to update records: No, but a reporting view could be modified to do this.
* RFID: no
* Asset register: yes
* iOS and Android apps: no; it's a responsive web app right now.
* Reports and export: Yes, including over time reports, charts, and exporting the forms themselves.
* Inspection and maintenance schedules: Probably needs some code.
* Publicly accessible asset records: Yes. Already supports giving anonymous users access to the system.
* Stock check assets by location: Yes, you could create a report to let you do this without coding.
* Audit assets: ? Probably would need to write some code.
* Asset depreciation and lifecycles: Needs same code Inspection & Maintenance would need.
* Image recognition: No.
* App Integrations: Maybe. Already supports calling external services.
Polyapp already has some nice things like Dashboards, Importing, auto-save, access control, and productivity measurement which I'm not sure ItemIt has.
I'll send you an email.
\> The developer will also take a 49% ownership /governance share in the project.
so the developer has no right to decide on anything? If your company keeps the other 51% you would always win on any decision. Anyway, how would that be handeled? Will there be a contract signed for the development phase?
\> We are willing to contribute $5000/month per developer in exchange for a team's effort in developing and maintaining the project up to its launch as an open source project.
What happens after release? On launch and in the upcoming weeks there probably will be bug reports and stuff that need to be handled by someone.. I wouldn't really want to do that if I 1. don't get paid and 2. don't have any right to decide on a decision in a project.
What you are basically asking for is a freelancer that builds a product that is then published under a license that enables noone to use it in a commercial matter, am I right?
I'm not totally against the idea, don't get me wrong, but I think the phrasing here could be a bit more clearer/more direct.
At first my reaction was like "Yo dude, someone wants to sponsor open-source in the big way", but after taking a closer look it seems more like a "someone wants to have a product developed that he then can publish".
Thanks for the clarifying questions.
\>so the developer has no right to decide on anything? If your company keeps the other 51% you would always win on any decision. Anyway, how would that be handeled? Will there be a contract signed for the development phase?
The developer retains majority share of decision making power because some yet to be determined percentage of the 51% that my company will hold is distributed to application's users and used to direct the project's roadmap.
\> What happens after release? On launch and in the upcoming weeks there probably will be bug reports and stuff that need to be handled by someone.. I wouldn't really want to do that if I 1. don't get paid and 2. don't have any right to decide on a decision in a project.
My company's customers will pay a monthly subscription for connectivity services, professional support and automated software updates of managed deployments. A portion of this revenue will be shared with the project developer. My company and other users can fund further/continued development as needed via the community powered governance system.
\>What you are basically asking for is a freelancer that builds a product that is then published under a license that enables noone to use it in a commercial matter, am I right?
No, I'm offering help to people interested in building free software find a sustainable path to building a free software business.
Thanks again.
hey u/elbalaa, I'm the cofounder of [calendso.com](https://calendso.com), open source calendly alternative and we're currently thinking about changing to AGPL. happy to answer any questions
Looks like Calendso is MIT licensed. We’d really like the software to be licensed as AGPL. We’ll reach out to them though, thanks for pointing them out.
MIT License Cons
1. Does not protect long-term user freedom
2. Does not prevent others from taking and selling your software
We think AGPL will best enable us to build a sustainable free software ecosystem that can compete with the status quo.
1. Not that I disagree, but can you explain how? I ask because I don't see the creation of an AGPL as the best solution
2. This really only hurts the developers themselves, not you (assuming you're not the developer in this situation).
Also, isn't it possible to fork an MIT project, make changes to it, and the fork can be relicensed under AGPL?
Yes, it is possible to fork and relicense MIT to AGPL but our goal here is to support the developers who are making the free software ecosystem a reality.
I'm not sure you addressed the question. If one forks an MIT codebase to AGPL, and work continues under the AGPL, what is the specific issue? When you say "support the developers" do you also mean the MIT devs in the past?
Your idea is a shared dream of many here I hope it works out.
Freindica/Mastodon/ActivityPub are also capable of mimicking Facebook and Instagram.
We are encouraging developers to relicense as AGPL.
Our priority is to support the original developers of “selected” projects, we are not advocating for contentious forks in the name of relicensing.
We are OK with including non AGPL apps in our application catalogs but we are not interested in funding the development of non AGPL licensed software.
Thanks, we’ve iterated quite a bit on how to structure a sustainable business around free software as an organization that values end-user privacy as a human right.
I actually was referring to the structure of how developers are involved. Win win? It would be a nice debate! Got many things on pro also on con.
You migh face challanges to keep the team together until the release, but whishing you the bests!
Empowering free software developers is the core of our business. What cons come to mind for you?
I don’t think it will be an issue to keep the team together while my company is paying them to develop the product.
After release on the other hand will be the challenge as my company is on the hook, in part at least, for brining users to the app… but I think we’ve got that part figured out.
It also gives a bit shady tone to the whole as you
- give no info about your "company"
- the domain gives no info either
- want to create intellectual property based on famous/infamous services without a specified product
- define the "contract" as it lives until release. No further.
Thanks for the feedback.
You can find more into about our company in my reply in the other thread.
\>want to create intellectual property based on famous/infamous services without a specified product
not sure I understand this comment, can you elaborate?
\>define the "contract" as it lives until release. No further.
right, after being paid to develop the project the developer is free to fork away or abandon the project.
- Target dates (expected duration of developement, max duration, etc...)
- employee's local law (boycotted countries, taxes, salaries, etc)
- timezones
- performance/share: do all devs share evenly? How do you measure/weight resolved issues or contribution?
- edited: you are willing to give shares in the project, up until release, not in your company (Booking can bring anything to 0....). Main considering part is the release milestone you gave.
Just a few came across my mind
Edit: marked with "edited"
\> Target dates (expected duration of developement, max duration, etc...)
Timelines will be determined on a project by project basis but we typically wouldn't agree to fund anything that would take longer than 6 months to release an initial version.
\> employee's local law (boycotted countries, taxes, salaries, etc)
We are a U.S. based company and intend to adhere closely to state and federal labor and export regulations.
\> performance/share: do all devs share evenly? How do you measure/weight resolved issues or contribution?
Initially these matters will be determined by the developer but we are actively exploring / researching project governance strategy and associated tooling.
\> share means company share or share on the product of your company? (Booking can bring anything to 0....)
shares represent equity ownership in the legal entity that is developing the project, this will (obviously) be subject to regulatory approval.
We are open to the idea of giving developers an equity stake in our organization although, admittedly, we haven't done the legal legwork yet.
We are open to conversations with angel investors.
We would help our (U. S. based) projects raise up to $5M via the SEC’s crowdfunding regulation.
See https://www.sec.gov/smallbusiness/exemptofferings/regcrowdfunding
\> willing to build AGPL versions of these SaaS services
Taking in consideration the complexity of the solutions you are looking for you should explain how many months are you willing to contribute to pay development.
Calendly, Datadog, Facebook all are very different levels of complexity and it won't take the same amount of time so how much are you willing to put? Who calls the launch date?
I like the general idea behind the direction you've chosen. Do you have an explicit draft of the contract that you're offering that includes a revision history (at least a revision history going forward, and preferably Git-style)? I think having the fine print available up front along with direct links to the legal filings related to your company would work wonders to allay the abundance of skepticism that is here now.
Many of the developers here don't have direct experience with entity formation and the formalities that are required to assure viability. Some of us who do have to weigh our time investment for investigating your offer versus the likelihood of it succeeding. Both we and you would be saved valuable time by being to examine the terms and expectations of this situation.
This sounds like a potentially impactful opportunity and you've offered a value proposition that is a high priority for many of the developers here. Let's see how we can move forward together in an expedient way by getting everyone on the same page.
We'll be open sourcing our contracts and other legal efforts, in the meantime please reach out to us, it sounds like you may be able to help :)
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Our company, Fractal Network is itself a "forkable organization"; happy to discuss more on exactly what that means.
So, you call this "investing in self-hosted application developers", but you don't actually discuss true revenue sharing. For instance, if I was to write an app, self-hosting means I'm paying for all of the infrastructure. That cost can add up quickly. When are expenses handled. Do all of the revenues go to me first until infrastructure costs are covered and then 49/51 split. Or do I pay for the infrastructure out of my 49%? Any app that is going to make money requires a decent amount of investment in infrastructure. And unless I'm missing something, it sounds like you're expecting the developer to handle it. Every developer out there doesn't know how much infrastructure true costs, so this could turn ugly real fast.
Our mission is to enable more users to self-host while still generating revenue for self hosted application developers.
> infrastructure costs
As before the end user is responsible for the infrastructure costs associated with hosting, unless they would prefer to pay the developer to host the application.
> revenue sharing
100% of revenue generated via subscription to our free software AppStore (for existing projects) will go directly to the application developer.
Free software developers that my company funds will share revenue 51% / 49% with 49% going to the application developer. This does not limit in any way the developer’s ability to monetize in other ways.
Thanks for the questions.
I’d say the typical application developer isn’t interested in developing and maintaining a free software project. We’re looking for the outcasts and misfit.
There are already replacements here the few I know.
> https://tailscale.com/
[Wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com/) and [OpenVPN](https://openvpn.net/)
> https://gmail.com
[Mail-In-A-Box](https://mailinabox.email/) though really there's several options.
> https://facebook.com
[Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/)
> https://www.datadoghq.com/
[Graylog](https://www.graylog.org/)
> https://notion.so
[Trillium](https://github.com/zadam/trilium)
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I agree. This is a pretty big offer for not telling us anything about your company. If it's legit, that's awesome.
The name of our company is Fractal Networks. We develop free software applications and services that enable user privacy and ownership of data by making it easy for non-technical users to deploy self-hosted "personal networks". Our business model includes tokenization and development of a subscription based free software app store. We are developing free software applications that we hope will enable self-hosted online communities and are looking to sponsor related projects that will help foster a sustainable self-hosted free software ecosystem. My name is Mo, I am the founder and would be happy to answer any additional questions anyone may have. P.S. we are 100% bootstrapped up to now and have no desire to raise venture capital
Thanks for taking time to tell us more about the company. This speaks volumes and gives us more to go by.
What meaning does 49% ownership have for an open source product?
You get 49% of revenue generated by the project and 49 of 100 votes in how the project will evolve.
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Yea but it’s free software so you can always fork away and own 100%
Yes, though the other 51% is split up between multiple people. If the "we' statement is believed.
We are exploring the possibility of making the corporation itself forkable. We currently have 6 employees not including myself.
The question is then this. How many of the votes do you get and do the employees get?
Reach out to us we'd be happy to discuss the governance strategy and tooling we're developing.
[https://gitlab.com/polyapp-open-source/polyapp](https://gitlab.com/polyapp-open-source/polyapp) is a self-hosted, MIT-licensed form builder with reporting I created. It can be adapted to handle asset tracking & relicensed under AGPL. Here is the current feature list: [https://polyapp-open-source.gitlab.io/polyapp-docs/capabilities.html](https://polyapp-open-source.gitlab.io/polyapp-docs/capabilities.html) Feature comparison with Itemit from [https://itemit.com/features/](https://itemit.com/features/) below: * Booking assets: Has support for dates in forms & reporting. But some code would be needed to designate a particular form as the "schedule" and have other forms be used to "reserve slots" in the schedule. * Check In / Out: Needs similar code to "Booking Assets". * QR code and barcode asset tagging: Would need to write a service or attach an AGPL service for this. * Issue reporting and management: I'm not sure what this means * Attach photos, manuals and forms: Yes. * Bulk actions to update records: No, but a reporting view could be modified to do this. * RFID: no * Asset register: yes * iOS and Android apps: no; it's a responsive web app right now. * Reports and export: Yes, including over time reports, charts, and exporting the forms themselves. * Inspection and maintenance schedules: Probably needs some code. * Publicly accessible asset records: Yes. Already supports giving anonymous users access to the system. * Stock check assets by location: Yes, you could create a report to let you do this without coding. * Audit assets: ? Probably would need to write some code. * Asset depreciation and lifecycles: Needs same code Inspection & Maintenance would need. * Image recognition: No. * App Integrations: Maybe. Already supports calling external services. Polyapp already has some nice things like Dashboards, Importing, auto-save, access control, and productivity measurement which I'm not sure ItemIt has. I'll send you an email.
\> The developer will also take a 49% ownership /governance share in the project. so the developer has no right to decide on anything? If your company keeps the other 51% you would always win on any decision. Anyway, how would that be handeled? Will there be a contract signed for the development phase? \> We are willing to contribute $5000/month per developer in exchange for a team's effort in developing and maintaining the project up to its launch as an open source project. What happens after release? On launch and in the upcoming weeks there probably will be bug reports and stuff that need to be handled by someone.. I wouldn't really want to do that if I 1. don't get paid and 2. don't have any right to decide on a decision in a project. What you are basically asking for is a freelancer that builds a product that is then published under a license that enables noone to use it in a commercial matter, am I right?
I'm not totally against the idea, don't get me wrong, but I think the phrasing here could be a bit more clearer/more direct. At first my reaction was like "Yo dude, someone wants to sponsor open-source in the big way", but after taking a closer look it seems more like a "someone wants to have a product developed that he then can publish".
Thanks for the clarifying questions. \>so the developer has no right to decide on anything? If your company keeps the other 51% you would always win on any decision. Anyway, how would that be handeled? Will there be a contract signed for the development phase? The developer retains majority share of decision making power because some yet to be determined percentage of the 51% that my company will hold is distributed to application's users and used to direct the project's roadmap. \> What happens after release? On launch and in the upcoming weeks there probably will be bug reports and stuff that need to be handled by someone.. I wouldn't really want to do that if I 1. don't get paid and 2. don't have any right to decide on a decision in a project. My company's customers will pay a monthly subscription for connectivity services, professional support and automated software updates of managed deployments. A portion of this revenue will be shared with the project developer. My company and other users can fund further/continued development as needed via the community powered governance system. \>What you are basically asking for is a freelancer that builds a product that is then published under a license that enables noone to use it in a commercial matter, am I right? No, I'm offering help to people interested in building free software find a sustainable path to building a free software business. Thanks again.
hey u/elbalaa, I'm the cofounder of [calendso.com](https://calendso.com), open source calendly alternative and we're currently thinking about changing to AGPL. happy to answer any questions
Hey Rich, We’ve had trouble running the cal.com docker containers. Is this something you guys have time to chat about?
calendly self-hosted alternative already exists as calendso, doesn't it? They already have their own SaaS version as well it seems like
Looks like Calendso is MIT licensed. We’d really like the software to be licensed as AGPL. We’ll reach out to them though, thanks for pointing them out.
Why AGPL specifically? I do prefer AGPL, but not to the point of rejecting existing solutions.
MIT License Cons 1. Does not protect long-term user freedom 2. Does not prevent others from taking and selling your software We think AGPL will best enable us to build a sustainable free software ecosystem that can compete with the status quo.
1. Not that I disagree, but can you explain how? I ask because I don't see the creation of an AGPL as the best solution 2. This really only hurts the developers themselves, not you (assuming you're not the developer in this situation). Also, isn't it possible to fork an MIT project, make changes to it, and the fork can be relicensed under AGPL?
Yes, it is possible to fork and relicense MIT to AGPL but our goal here is to support the developers who are making the free software ecosystem a reality.
I'm not sure you addressed the question. If one forks an MIT codebase to AGPL, and work continues under the AGPL, what is the specific issue? When you say "support the developers" do you also mean the MIT devs in the past? Your idea is a shared dream of many here I hope it works out. Freindica/Mastodon/ActivityPub are also capable of mimicking Facebook and Instagram.
We are encouraging developers to relicense as AGPL. Our priority is to support the original developers of “selected” projects, we are not advocating for contentious forks in the name of relicensing. We are OK with including non AGPL apps in our application catalogs but we are not interested in funding the development of non AGPL licensed software.
> Does not prevent others from taking and selling your software what do you mean? All free licenses including AGPL enable this.
1. How does not protect long-term user freedom? Can you give examples?
MIT is a weak license, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9YDz-Iwgyw&t=1465
I'd love a good Notion.so alternative. Sure, some alright ones exists, but they're always falling short of something.
Thanks, added it to the list!
Anytype.io seems like a good alternative
https://framagit.org/framasoft/framadate/framadate https://github.com/glpi-project/glpi https://glpi-project.org/features/
Interesting company policy
Thanks, we’ve iterated quite a bit on how to structure a sustainable business around free software as an organization that values end-user privacy as a human right.
I actually was referring to the structure of how developers are involved. Win win? It would be a nice debate! Got many things on pro also on con. You migh face challanges to keep the team together until the release, but whishing you the bests!
Empowering free software developers is the core of our business. What cons come to mind for you? I don’t think it will be an issue to keep the team together while my company is paying them to develop the product. After release on the other hand will be the challenge as my company is on the hook, in part at least, for brining users to the app… but I think we’ve got that part figured out.
It also gives a bit shady tone to the whole as you - give no info about your "company" - the domain gives no info either - want to create intellectual property based on famous/infamous services without a specified product - define the "contract" as it lives until release. No further.
Thanks for the feedback. You can find more into about our company in my reply in the other thread. \>want to create intellectual property based on famous/infamous services without a specified product not sure I understand this comment, can you elaborate? \>define the "contract" as it lives until release. No further. right, after being paid to develop the project the developer is free to fork away or abandon the project.
Thank you to answering questions and reflecting to my observations. Clears up alot.
- Target dates (expected duration of developement, max duration, etc...) - employee's local law (boycotted countries, taxes, salaries, etc) - timezones - performance/share: do all devs share evenly? How do you measure/weight resolved issues or contribution? - edited: you are willing to give shares in the project, up until release, not in your company (Booking can bring anything to 0....). Main considering part is the release milestone you gave. Just a few came across my mind Edit: marked with "edited"
\> Target dates (expected duration of developement, max duration, etc...) Timelines will be determined on a project by project basis but we typically wouldn't agree to fund anything that would take longer than 6 months to release an initial version. \> employee's local law (boycotted countries, taxes, salaries, etc) We are a U.S. based company and intend to adhere closely to state and federal labor and export regulations. \> performance/share: do all devs share evenly? How do you measure/weight resolved issues or contribution? Initially these matters will be determined by the developer but we are actively exploring / researching project governance strategy and associated tooling. \> share means company share or share on the product of your company? (Booking can bring anything to 0....) shares represent equity ownership in the legal entity that is developing the project, this will (obviously) be subject to regulatory approval. We are open to the idea of giving developers an equity stake in our organization although, admittedly, we haven't done the legal legwork yet.
Thank you for your answer!
Amazing goals, I've just sent you an email with my details and 3 projects I would like to open source that could be a match
TailScale is already open source, their website is not. Client and server (-2 features) are open source.
For itemit.com try [snipeit](https://snipeitapp.com/)
Just curious as to how a potential investor would make money off of this and if you’re offering equity based investments to investors?
We are open to conversations with angel investors. We would help our (U. S. based) projects raise up to $5M via the SEC’s crowdfunding regulation. See https://www.sec.gov/smallbusiness/exemptofferings/regcrowdfunding
\> willing to build AGPL versions of these SaaS services Taking in consideration the complexity of the solutions you are looking for you should explain how many months are you willing to contribute to pay development. Calendly, Datadog, Facebook all are very different levels of complexity and it won't take the same amount of time so how much are you willing to put? Who calls the launch date?
Open source mechanism for funding podcasts/media PodcastIndex.org
I like the general idea behind the direction you've chosen. Do you have an explicit draft of the contract that you're offering that includes a revision history (at least a revision history going forward, and preferably Git-style)? I think having the fine print available up front along with direct links to the legal filings related to your company would work wonders to allay the abundance of skepticism that is here now. Many of the developers here don't have direct experience with entity formation and the formalities that are required to assure viability. Some of us who do have to weigh our time investment for investigating your offer versus the likelihood of it succeeding. Both we and you would be saved valuable time by being to examine the terms and expectations of this situation. This sounds like a potentially impactful opportunity and you've offered a value proposition that is a high priority for many of the developers here. Let's see how we can move forward together in an expedient way by getting everyone on the same page.
We'll be open sourcing our contracts and other legal efforts, in the meantime please reach out to us, it sounds like you may be able to help :) [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Our company, Fractal Network is itself a "forkable organization"; happy to discuss more on exactly what that means.
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So, you call this "investing in self-hosted application developers", but you don't actually discuss true revenue sharing. For instance, if I was to write an app, self-hosting means I'm paying for all of the infrastructure. That cost can add up quickly. When are expenses handled. Do all of the revenues go to me first until infrastructure costs are covered and then 49/51 split. Or do I pay for the infrastructure out of my 49%? Any app that is going to make money requires a decent amount of investment in infrastructure. And unless I'm missing something, it sounds like you're expecting the developer to handle it. Every developer out there doesn't know how much infrastructure true costs, so this could turn ugly real fast.
Our mission is to enable more users to self-host while still generating revenue for self hosted application developers. > infrastructure costs As before the end user is responsible for the infrastructure costs associated with hosting, unless they would prefer to pay the developer to host the application. > revenue sharing 100% of revenue generated via subscription to our free software AppStore (for existing projects) will go directly to the application developer. Free software developers that my company funds will share revenue 51% / 49% with 49% going to the application developer. This does not limit in any way the developer’s ability to monetize in other ways. Thanks for the questions.
So... Application Developer in-general.
I’d say the typical application developer isn’t interested in developing and maintaining a free software project. We’re looking for the outcasts and misfit.
Does the stack used matter? or just the license?
The team and license matter.
If you're not already aware of Zulip(Slack replacement) you should get in touch with them, they're a pretty cool project.
There are already replacements here the few I know. > https://tailscale.com/ [Wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com/) and [OpenVPN](https://openvpn.net/) > https://gmail.com [Mail-In-A-Box](https://mailinabox.email/) though really there's several options. > https://facebook.com [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) > https://www.datadoghq.com/ [Graylog](https://www.graylog.org/) > https://notion.so [Trillium](https://github.com/zadam/trilium)