Fwd: Could this idea work for KDE as a non-profit organization?

[Guilherme]

Hi. I'm new to the KDE community and I'm trying to brainstorm ideas to help
KDE grow even further. By looking at other projects like Elementary OS, I
thought if it would be possible to apply their business model to a
organization like KDE. I'm not sure if it's something possible or if
there's legal issues with this approach, however, I still thought it would
be something worth talking about, since it could still be used for a
fruitful discussion between the community members.

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Since KDE is a non-profit organization that depends on donations and
sponsors, it's important to find ways to stay sustainable and also broaden
the use of KDE softwares and technologies over time. In order to do so,
it's possible to draw inspiration from other successful projects like
Elementary OS.


1. KDE would have a program where third party developers would be
encouraged to make apps using KDE Frameworks and possibly get paid for
doing so. Using KDE technologies would be a requirement.

2. KDE would handle payments and infrastructure. (Or have a company do
that).

3. KDE developers would have automated tests and also review apps manually
before approving them.

4. Partner distros would be able to offer those "paid" apps through
Discover. Ideally everything would be done in Discover directly, without
external webpages.

5. Payment would work on the "pay what you want" model. The user could
either pay nothing, a suggested value or more. So basically it wouldn't
really be a paid product, but more like an optional donation for the app
developers and KDE, like Krita already does with it's paid version.

6. If the user chooses to pay, part of the money would go to the app
creator. That would be the incentive that would make third party developers
make apps exclusively for KDE. (Keep in mind nothing would prevent people
from repackaging and distributing them elsewhere. They'd still be free
open-source software and available in other platforms. Payment would be
optional). This worked pretty well for Elementary, as they already have 188
apps made specially to their distro: https://appcenter.elementary.io/

7. Another part of the money would go to KDE e.V. As a non-profit
association, any profit would need to be reinvested back into KDE. (This is
the tricky part, as I don't know if this is okay for KDE to do).

8. The rest of the money would go to distros participating in the program.
Distros not in the program wouldn't be able to accept payments in Discover.
That would encourage the adoption the program and of KDE Plasma, since
distros would have a financial incentive to participate and ship it. For
instance, if a user uses Kubuntu and buys an app there, part of the money
would go to Canonical, if the person uses KDE Neon, it would go to KDE, if
the person installs Discover in a distro that's not part of the program, no
payment options would show up.

Basically:

Having a way of "selling" apps would help adoption of KDE Frameworks (as it
would be a requirement and third party developers would have a chance of
getting paid for their apps), it would also increase adoption of KDE Plasma
and KDE technologies by distros (as they would have a financial incentive
to use KDE) and it would help KDE eV. financially too.

All those benefits would tie in perfectly with the Promo Team long term
goals of increasing contributors, increasing the use of KDE technologies
and also increasing the use of KDE by distros, while also ensuring a
revenue stream to be used to further grow KDE.


Of course, I don't expect anything of this to be easy, quick, cheap or even
possible to do. But it's good to discuss about ideas.

----------

This is something I tried discussing with the Promo team, and they liked
it, however, this is something much broader than just promotion and they
thought it could be discussed further here. Is this something possible? Any
ideas or opinions about this?

Thanks for reading.
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