How does it work?

Each contributor owns shares in the project. All income from the project is distributed according to the shares at the end of each month. (A certain agreed-upon percentage will be kept back and used for project-specific purposes - ads, specific development costs, whatever comes up. If it's not needed, it will of course be paid out instead)

How do you get shares?

New shares are handed out at each milestone and are distributed among all who contributed. Tasks and bugs will be assigned a number of shares according to their importance and difficulty. When the milestone is reached and all the tasks are completed and tested, shares will be added to everyone's pile. If you contribute a lot, you will own a bigger part of the project. The total amount of shares continues to go up as the project progresses.

Won't individual shares become less valuable the more shares are handed out?

Yes and no. New shares are only handed out when work is done on the project, and all work being done increases the value of the project. So if the project goes well the total value of your shares will go up even if your total slice of the project becomes smaller. And you will continue to receive money for as long as the project generates money - which might be years after all the work was completed. (The long tail)

What kinds of work can earn shares?

Everything that contributes to the good of the project! Code, art, design, audio, marketing, testing, you name it!

Who can join?

Anyone who's qualified and willing. This is not open source, so the entire source of the projects won't be open to the public. But every project has a lot of tasks that can be done without access to everything, and those tasks can be done by anyone. Just indicate that you'd like to do this task and the project team will review your request. If you want to work on core tasks, you need to apply to join the core team and get access. Either way, you earn shares every time you successfully complete a task.

Any downsides?

Project Shares is not a silver bullet that will allow you to quit your day job tomorrow. As long as a project is not generating any income, there's nothing to be paid out. If you work on a project in it's first few months, you most likely won't see any money. But you will build up a stock of shares that may start to pay off later.

What is the vision?

We want to create a new way to work and a new way to collaborate that's fit for the 21st century and beyond. We want to develop tools and frameworks that will allow people in home offices all around the world to come together and work on projects that have meaning for them. - Because everyone does their best work when they care about what they're working on.

And we want to guarantee fairness for everyone involved. Our ultimate goal is to turn PROJECT SHARES into a not for profit organization that operates based on three ethical principles: fairness, transparency and civility. All users will be bound to these principles and thus PROJECT SHARES will be able to mediate where possible and even enforce these principles if necessary.

No user will ever have to worry about being treated unfairly, because PROJECT SHARES will have their back!

Summary

• You own a part of the project you worked on!
  
• The more you contribute, the bigger the part you will own.
  
• You'll get a share of the profit for as long as the project generates profit.
• PROJECT SHARES is there for you when you need it