# Software Royalties Brainstorming ###### tags: `Brainstorming` `Revenue` ### Problem Statement and Vision A key challenge with open-source is that developers often don't have a financial incentive to invest their time and energy into open-source projects. Grey Software's royalties program will allow developers to build equity in our projects from their contributions and receive a fraction of the project's ongoing revenue. ### Overview One way we plan to compete with proprietary software goliaths asymmetrically is by offering open-source software developers the opportunity to build equity with our products, and earn passive royalty income as the app generates revenue. These products will be a part of Grey software's app collection, which means they will have versions with exclusive features for sponsors. By sponsoring Grey Software on Github, people can access exclusive features within the apps in our collection. When we have a profitable month, we will distribute the profit to the open-source developers who gave their time and energy to build the products that helped generate revenue for the organization. ### Why is this a valuable idea? The world needs to reward open source contributors for the work they do. At the moment, many open source organizations can't pay their open source contributors a living wage. This model allows organizations to offer open source contributors an alternative means of building wealth. ### Example scenario Grey Software wants to launch a web extension that allows people to hide distracting elements on LinkedIn and Twitter So they can focus on meaningful work instead of being forced to consume the drama of the day. Grey Software contracts designer Raj Paul and engineer Avi Davé to help build and publish the extension. With the help of public building tools such as GitLab, HackMD, and Figma, the project lead Arsala can visualize and contextualize each contributor's time and energy expenditure into the extension. When the extension is launched and generates profitable revenue, Raj, Avi, and Arsala will generate passive royalty income. ### FAQ **Is there an implementation of this idea elsewhere so that we can learn from the successes and failures of others?** **What are some possible algorithms we can use to ensure a fair distribution of software royalties?**