[robertskmiles]

I don't think that the analogy between speculative physical projects and open source software projects is that strong. Kickstarter enables people who have the idea and the people, but just lack the funds. Generally with an open source software project there's no funding required, one or two motivated hackers can build the first version on their home machines without any extra resources required, and then as the project grows they can get input and funds if necessary from their userbase.

Kickstarter is about lowering the barriers to entry for new products, but the barriers to entry for an open source software project are extremely low already. Perhaps a structure to make starting up new projects easier would be useful, but it wouldn't operate like kickstarter.