Free as in a bird, not as a beer. Libre and not gratis. We all understand this concept while simultaneously appreciating that open source software is, for the most part, also free of charge to regular end-users. By relying on donations and sponsorships to make revenue and keep the light on, most projects maintain a low barrier to entry for new and prospectus users. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can readily use just about any Linux or *BSD operating system, as well as any open software these OS’ run. Not to mention that anyone is welcome to study, contribute to and alter the said software. I know that I am preaching to the choir but FOSS is amazing. That said, these are hardly the only reasons for using open source software. For a sizable number of people, the payment-free model also means access to good and viable alternatives to proprietary software, which may be financially out of reach. I myself, as an undergrad student in the early 2000’s, resorted to using OpenOffice – not for ideological reasons, but rather because I couldn’t afford the MS Office Suite.

That said, projects need money to sustain the development process and, ultimately, the software they deliver free of charge to end-users. Much has already been written on the subject of sustainability of FOSS projects by people more knowledgeable than myself, so if you’re interested in the subject matter then search for FOSS financial sustainability. In a nutshell, keeping a FOSS project financially sustainable is very difficult; In the words of Andre Staltz, data shows “(…) that open source creators and maintainers are receiving low income” and “[t]his is not the first time [in history] hard-working honest people are giving their all, for unfair compensation”. The statistics vary vastly, but it is estimated that only a marginal fraction (approx 0.0001%) of people who ever, at any point in their life, used open source software have donated any amount of money to a project. It comes as no surprise then that even very large projects, such as Linux Mint, receive monthly donations that average $13K ($24k max / 7k min) from their user-base.

The question then arises, how can we do our share for the projects we work with? (by ‘we’ I mean both Pine Microsystems and PINE64 community). All of PINE64 hardware relies on community software and third-party projects, but the one piece of hardware that is solely supported by third-party projects is the PinePhone. Since the PinePhone is an experimental project in its own right, we decided to also make it a testing ground for an idea we’ve had for some time now. From the very start of the PinePhone project we were clear that we wish to work with existing and well established Linux-on-phone projects. This decision stemmed from a firm belief in these projects competences and our ability to deliver a true FOSS phone. To this end, we have now made the decision to relay all revenue from PinePhone sales to the development community and third-party Linux-on-phone projects. In doing so we hope that, on the one hand, this will help Linux-on-phone projects grow and prosper, and on the other, entice developers to commit their time to PinePhone development.

Before proceeding let me just state the following: if this model works, and all parties involved are happy with it, then it is likely to be implemented for other similar devices in the future.