eZ Open Funding
Friday 09 June 2006 1:31:00 am
When you submit a project to the eZ Open Funding program, an eZ employee will typically be chosen as the main contact and project manager. This member of the eZ crew will handle all technical queries and forum posts related to the project. The submission form will look something like this:
The Open Funding project submission form on www.ez.no.
The new project will be displayed in a list that also shows the status of all projects (some delivered, others still open for funding). A short description for each project is also displayed.
A list of projects open for joint funding.
When you click on the project name, a page with project details is displayed:
This page displays the current status of a specific project, a description of the required functionality, the people who have offered to provide funding and the amount of funding that remains to be covered. The expiry date indicates when the people funding the project require the functionality.
It is important to note that anyone can comment on the project's features and technical details. However, only those committing to fund the project are allowed to decide what functionality will be included and how it will be implemented. This illustrates how Enterprise Open Source as a business model combines community cooperation with market-driven development.
When you press the Help Fund button, a page similar to the following will be displayed:
Contributing funds to an eZ Open Funding project.
Each project usually has both a technical and a financial contact. This ensures that technical people are not encumbered with questions about administration and vice versa. We have also received feedback suggesting that some participants might want to stay anonymous, for example a large corporation who may not want to disclose their involvement in Open Source projects.
The forms shown above are prototypes of the forms that will be implemented on the eZ web site. They may change in response to feedback.