ASAPbio will request funding for 5 years. Full or partial funding may be available on the longer term, but bidders should describe sustainable business models that would be compatible with their organization(s) and with the principles of the Central Service. These might include submission fees or fee-for-service arrangements. In our view, unfavorable business models include those where the provider of the service may have a conflict of interest in providing support for preprints as a public good. The Sustainability Plan is provisional and does not commit the bidder(s), ASAPbio, or the Governance Body to execute the plan provided in this RFA.
The Commons, as designed and executed by COS, will be a free, open-source service. The initial creation and scaling of the service will require the most capital investment. We expect that this period of support will be funded by grants and philanthropic contributions. There is opportunity for significant savings from economies of scale with COS’s advanced, layered, and composable infrastructure. Nevertheless, public goods infrastructure must confront the reality of sustainability.
COS is developing a community-based funding and governance model that will foster a sustainable public goods infrastructure. This model applies to The Commons and all of the other use cases of the shared infrastructure:

1. Transparent accounting of the costs to build and maintain all public goods services
2. A distributed financial responsibility model in which each community’s responsibility is identified as the proportion of its use of the services using layered accounting of costs
3. When not violating donor privacy, transparent accounting of contributions to financial and operational sustainability by communities and stakeholders
4. Simple pricing and transparent accounting of funding shortfalls can facilitate stakeholder-wide problem-solving for the value of maintaining the public goods infrastructure. Like other public goods, ongoing investment reflects the community’s valuation of the services.
5. Community-based governance to define strategic direction, maintain the services, and ensure sustainability of those services providing value meeting or exceeding their costs.

A successful financial responsibility model must address the free rider problem and organizational constraints on willingness and ability to contribute. Developing, testing, and refining this concept will be an iterative activity, and will follow from lessons learned by similar efforts (e.g., arXiv). The RFA suggests that a sustainability plan should be in effect after the five-year funding period. We expect to initiate the transition to a distributed funding model immediately with understanding that full testing and adoption is a multi-year effort. Progress on the model and actual evidence for sustainability will be a primary activity for COS and the technical partners, the Governing Board, and for the funding community supporting The Commons.
COS operates by key principles for advancing public goods. These principles are part of the COS’s strategic plan and are relevant for sustainability. Public goods infrastructure cannot be entrusted to a single organization. COS’s sustainability framework embraces community governance:

1. COS prioritizes reuse or connection to existing open tools and resources.
2. All COS-maintained tools and services are open-source and publicly available.
3. COS maintains terms of service, privacy, and security standards that are user-centered.
4. COS ensures that data accumulated through its services will remain accessible and avoid user lock-in.
5. COS operates as a community-based organization with inclusive representation.
6. COS tools and services should be maintained by an inclusive community of stakeholders.
7. COS members are dedicated to serving the mission over serving the interests of the organization.

Lastly, as a provider of public goods, COS does not need to survive as an organization for the services to survive for the community. All products have open, liberal licenses. If COS disappears, other groups can operate services that are still providing value for the community.

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