Economists think Open Source is a business model. Devs know better, and fund it accordingly.
Open Source infrastructure deserves a business model
Open Source infrastructure is essential, invisible, and chronically underfunded. A more sustainable approach may be to connect the cost of running that infrastructure to the organizations that rely on it most.
Open Source Software and Corporate Influence — Andrew Lilley Brinker
Open source software projects are frequently enmeshed with the interests of corporations. We should update mental models of who works on open source accordingly, and build or modify power structures to be more resilient to corporate capture.
It’s time to rethink Open Source
Why developers give away valuable work for free — and what can be done to take that money back.
Open Source Explained — Open Indie
Musings on the concept of ‘open source’, in the broadest possible definition of the term. Also an invitation to become a participant in ...
About | Open Source Ecology
The mission of Open Source Ecology (OSE) is to create the open source economy. An open source, libre economy is an efficient economy which increases innovation by open collaboration. To get there, OSE is currently developing a set of open source blueprints for the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a set of the 50 most important machines that it takes for modern life to exist – everything from a tractor, to an oven, to a circuit maker.
Home - Open Source Collective
Open Source Collective is a non-profit fiscal host for open source projects. Get Transparent fundraising, money management, and legal representation
Open Source, Incentives, and Why 'Monetize Later' Often Backfires
How misaligned incentives undermine open source projects — and why 'monetize later' often leads to the very restrictions open source was meant to avoid.
Open source is the electric vehicle of digital policy
Open source is very popular these days, not least due to the open-source strategy that the European Commission announced last week as part of the tech sovereignty package. While there is a lot to criticise about that strategy (exaggerated goals, misleading numbers etc), the one thing I would like to
Open Source is a cost-allocation system
Because the right to use the software is not tied to payment, the license does not connect the people who benefit, the people who decide, and the people who bear the costs. Projects have to build those connections deliberately through governance.
Sustainable Open Source: The Maintainers Perspective or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Love Open Source
Reframing “Open Source AI” with Meredith Whittaker: AI Impact Summit 2026
The Missing Middle of Open Source
Why serious, maintainer-driven projects struggle to sustain themselves—and what it will take to fix it.
Roadmap: Open Source
After years of investing in open source software, we’re releasing our thinking on what positions these companies as emerging technology giants.
Economic incentives is a big problem with AI in open-source spaces. Finding is unevenly allocated, and AI leads to further disparity. Instead of spreading money around the dev community, it'll go to AI companies. Open source thrives on humans. We don't need rockstars, we need resources.
Lucca @ Northsky 💚💜
they should be giving out more of that to the community as grants and focusing on protocol governance and standards and bringing new people into atproto.
I can see a whole lot of people agreeing with this. Kinda the same with open source in general, but few open source projects are social protocols seeking widespread adoption. It's a particular flavor of narrative disconnection from reality we have to bridge out of to get out of our own way.
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Every @proto developer sounds like this to me:
We just launched the Open Source Endowment, the first endowment dedicated to supporting Open Source maintainers, with $693,000 raised already. The world depends on Open Source, but making our ecosystem sustainable is a complex task. I hope that, with community consultation, the Endowment can help 🙏
A VC and some big-name programmers are trying to solve open source's funding problem, permanently | TechCrunch
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