[dllthomas]

Incidentally, Snowdrift.coop is happy to have projects doing scientific research. The basic criteria are that 1) the project is producing some non-rival good, and 2) that good will be made freely available under an appropriate license (which basically boils down to the equivalent of one of CC0, CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA).

Government support works when you can get a majority of the people to agree they want something enough to pay for it. It works less well when the public good primarily serves the interest of a minority. In principle, even if government support was effectively tackling all the things it was appropriate for, there could be room for Snowdrift.coop in coordinating more niche things.