Foreword to those who play TMW: I am not proposing that you get charged to play! TMW would have to compete a lot harder before ever being in a position to ask you to pay for access. Rather, this post probes ways that you could get paid for contributing when you ask.
This article argues that reward doesn't motivate people, but we shouldn't be looking for mere "reward", devoting time and effort costs. Some of us, especially the more skilled, cannot ignore the costs of taking time from other things to work on TMW.
Commissions, bounties, Street Performer Protocol, donations, ads, and "Summer of Code" are some methods you might see an open source project using for paid development.
A commission is when someone pays you to create something, like a new monster. It can be an upfront payment or you might only get paid when it is finished exactly how the recipient would like. A bounty on the other hand is when one or more people put a substantial amount of money together and offer it to whoever can succeed in implementing the wanted feature.
SPP is more complicated. The Wikipedia article describes a system that individuals don't have the means to try through the 'net. It would require a goal meter and a way to reimburse the people who pledged. I think it would work well for people in the recording industry who want to make a lot of money before releasing a song to the internet for free download as described here
There's also the controversial method of letting people buy special gears that will give them bonuses or do some trick. It would have to be considered carefully, if at all. Being able to pay for an advantage would spoil other player's fun.
Depending on what TMW's community is like at the time, you could develop a monster or something. Do all the work alone without posting WIP, try to have it scripted and drop-in ready, and then post an example of the finished work. I think it would be best to post the full sprite sheet with watermarks and scaled down a little, have the first frame show in full quality though. Show enough of it to prove you've done the work, and then say that you will give the community the full version when you receive a certain amount of money. If no one pays you, just release the damn thing on xmas to the Awesome Stuff Box.
But can people trust that you will keep your word and release it when paid? This can present a problem if the community isn't prepared. Being banned doesn't hurt as much as being ripped off, but I guess such dealings can only be conducted at the participants own risk unless someone has more to say about how to ensure the promise is fulfilled.
Whether or not you can make money here depends strongly on what the community is like at the time. The amount of people, their ability to offer money, and if they think it is worth it.
The casual contributor might benefit from putting a 'donate' button in his sigblock and wiki user page.
Other things I've found truly worth reading:
- John's Guide to earning an income from a Free and Open Source project
- The Magic Cauldron and other such books by Eric Raymond.
- Micropayments are likely to make it much easier for open source to thrive. The easier and quicker sending and receiving money becomes, the more opportunity there is to devote time.
- There are other books and articles about open source economics. You should post them in a comment if they are worth reading.
