A conversation with a Fediverse core developer revealed the structural problem: donation models fail, and even specialized contributors can't make a living.…
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.
Fueling Open Source with Vibes & Money
Economists think Open Source is a business model. Devs know better, and fund it accordingly.
The Open Stack | LinkedIn
Notes from the field on sustainability, funding, and the systems we rely on
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.
Sustainable Open Source: The Maintainers Perspective or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Love Open Source
How We're Funded
IOI is supported through a mix of philanthropic support and financial commitments from institutions, consortia-based organizations, and more. As a sustainability focused not-for-profit initiative, we are keenly aware of the strains that exist on the current funding landscape for open infrastructure non-profits. We are dedicated at IOI to exploring revenue
Open Systems Foundation
Building open infrastructure for a thriving planet.
Reframing “Open Source AI” with Meredith Whittaker: AI Impact Summit 2026
Prosperous Software Movement | Open Source Observer
Bringing sustainable funding to public goods by revenue-sharing towards dependencies
StratosFund - Fund open source projects in the Atmosphere
A unique funding model for open source projects in the Atmosphere. Help your favoirite projects bring your most requested features to life.
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Sure, we have open source, federated replacements for Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. How do we get creators to use this stuff? One consideration involves the ability to pay for things.
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 ...
Ideas on a Financially Sustainable Atproto | Alex | Offprint
Explore a new funding model for Atproto that moves beyond grants and VC. Discover how StratosFund enables sustainable, community-driven open-source development.
The Missing Middle of Open Source
Why serious, maintainer-driven projects struggle to sustain themselves—and what it will take to fix it.
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
techcrunch.comEarly on in my time here I was sketching out a Bandcamp alternative hosted on the ATmosphere. The necessary affordances weren't there to make the market work (private data), but there was also not a way to get funding to build it because there is no moat or ROI. The data model is open, competition
Ted Han★ 韓聖安
I've been talking about this for months with others. SaaS products built around data moats are not a thing in the Atmosphere. The whole point is that users data should not be enclosed. This is a space that requires other types of business models.
