Investing in open source products is 80% easier when done with the help of
a software development agency.
Open source software development is a catalyst for growth and change in IT. It is used everywhere, and there’s hardly any business that doesn’t rely on it day-to-day.
Become part of the 30-billion-dollar industry tripling in size every five years. Invest in open source software of your choice and have a say in its development.
Why Contribute via Agency
Technical Audit
Get an unbiased perspective on your project’s feasibility and scalability before donating your money. Our seasoned software architects will conduct a comprehensive technical audit of the open source solution of your interest, while BAs will share their forecast of the product’s adoption.
New Features
Submitting feature requests through Redwerk reduces the waiting time by 50%. By taking over a big share of software testing and maintenance tasks, we allow open source developers to work on new functionalities and do what they love best.
Bug Fixing
We help open source development teams fix known bugs faster. Our process is efficient and straightforward: we go to the project’s bug tracker, search for small yet critical issues that we can handle independently, and see our pull requests merged into the base branch in no time.
Security Patches
Another crucial part of our work as a software development agency is refactoring and rewriting outdated and vulnerable code to increase the product’s security. With our help, open source developers can release software updates frequently and consistently.
Timely Reporting
Hearing back from the open source community may take a while, yet it’s easier to stay informed when sponsoring the project through Redwerk. Writing code alongside open source developers, we’ll keep you posted on the progress and push your ideas to the top of the roadmap.
Proper Documentation
Lack of relevant documentation is what cripples many open source projects. Our developers, QA engineers, and PMs are used to documenting project essentials in simple, easily digestible terms. We’ll ensure your project’s longevity by collecting and regularly updating all the related materials.
How Redwerk bridges the gap
How We Work
Our cooperation strategy is simple: we advocate for transparency, ease of communication, and value from day one.
1. Share Your Vision
Do you need to improve performance, restore a lost feature, add an important functionality, or simply make sure the software is properly maintained? Share your product vision, and we’ll clearly outline the deliverables and associated costs required to achieve your goals.
2. Prioritize Features You Want
Once we have a complete picture of your project, we can move forward and decide on the essentials that should be implemented in the first place. We always prioritize most important tasks and thus deliver value from the very beginning of the project.
3. Pay Safely, Also With Crypto
As a software development agency, we build solutions with users’ security and data protection in mind. We adhere to the same rule in terms of payments, putting our clients’ safety first. For this reason, we have integrations only with credible payment systems and also accept several cryptocurrencies.
We’ve Done This Before
Freenet
Freenet is an open source solution for censorship resistance on the web. It has a global user base, and its mission is to ensure freedom of expression and anonymity online.
Our client wanted to sponsor this project and hired us to contribute as developers and handle related administrative tasks. Closely collaborating with the Freenet core team, we managed to:
- Refactor the codebase
- Improve the UI
- Enhance security
- Restore a centerpiece functionality
- Upgrade 4 popular plugins
Looking to sponsor an open source project?
Let’s talkWhy Us
Flexible and Agile
Since 2005, we’ve learned how to be flexible and agile both in doing business and developing software. We’ll help you overcome open source software roadblocks, be it an annoying bug, a missing feature, or a security concern.
Speed and Scale
Take control of your donations and implement the product features you need when you need them. We’ll handle all the negotiations with the open source core team to ensure the speedy development of your requested features.
Cost-Effective
We build partnerships on mutually beneficial terms, and we want you to know exactly where your money goes. We’ll deliver the utmost value within the allocated budget and clearly document our monthly expenses in a report.
Software Security
We conduct static and dynamic code analysis as well as comprehensive technical audits to determine the product’s security posture and predict risks. Working in sync with open source developers, we can quickly patch potential exploits and release the update.
Shared Maintenance
One of the biggest advantages of open source products is the ability to share software maintenance costs with the open source community. We’ll help you gain the most out of your investment without breaking the bank.
FAQ
We covered some of the most popular questions on sponsoring an open source project through Redwerk. If you have another query, please send us an email or schedule a free consultation, and we’ll take care of it.
Can’t I just donate directly to the core team?
Of course, you can. However, everything depends on your end goal.
If you sponsor an open source project with a pure marketing intent and don’t use the product at all, then direct donation is a sound decision.
On the other hand, hiring a software development agency is a better alternative if you plan to use and further develop the open source product. Why? Here are some apparent benefits:
- you’ll have full visibility of your finances
- you’ll be able to release features you’re most interested in
- you’ll delegate all the communication and administrative tasks while focusing on growing your business.
Does the core team also benefit from sponsorship via an IT agency?
Yes, a lot. While receiving a donation is helpful, the open source core team would need to spend extra time & money on searching for more volunteers or hiring developers.
When sponsorship is done through a software development agency, the core team gains immediate access to its resources, which includes a PM/BA overseeing the project’s progress, experienced developers mastering multiple technologies, as well as professional software testers and sysadmins.
Why do open source projects heavily rely on sponsors?
Many open source products are built on developers’ passion for coding and sheer enthusiasm. It takes time to develop an interest in the product within the open source engineering community and the general public.
Lack of volunteers and limited funding are the primary reasons open source projects age before reaching their users. Therefore, any contribution to open source projects is highly valued and recognized as a matter of honor.
Do you offer only technical support?
No, we also provide administrative and semi-technical support. We ramp up independently managed delivery teams with a PM taking care of all the communication, planning the development effort, and managing deliverables.
For web solutions, we can conduct a comprehensive SEO audit and competitor research. Sponsors interested in growing the product’s user base can count on our help with marketing, preparing educational guides and tutorials, and addressing user queries on forums and social media.
Oleh from Redwerk improved the styles of our main theme (Winterfacey). It now works much better for small devices like phones. Thanks to Redwerk, Freenet 0.7.5 build 1485 adds checking for Ogg Theora video files and Freenet can now display video safely. There is also a "Send confidential message" button on the friends page, so these messages are no longer hidden in a dropdown list. Also thanks to Redwerk, Freemail_wot is updated to v0.2.7.4 with better detection of contacts missing from WoT.
See how we modernized codebase of #1 open-source P2P solution for anonymity online
