Thirty years of voluntary funding schemes haven't paid open source maintainers because asking doesn't scale. The real money already flows — to JFrog, Docker, Sonatype — at the registry layer. The fix: registries charge companies for supply (they already do), then route a slice automatically to the maintainers who make that supply worth having.
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.
Paying people to work on open source is good actually - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
If you have a problem with maintainers getting paid then you have a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate.
Some startups are going ‘fair source’ to avoid the pitfalls of open source licensing | TechCrunch
New alternative category to 'closed source' could help companies monetize software in the open -- without going all-in on open source.
It's time to pay the maintainers
Or, what Voltron can teach us about improving open source development.
Open source has a funding problem - Stack Overflow
Relying on volunteers to maintain every open source project isn't long term sustainable. Funding open source projects could keep development moving, but would that funding be raised and who would pay for it?
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.
Is This the End of Open-Source? | Built In
Open-source licensure empowers governments and moneyed interests over devs. A reckoning might be on the horizon.
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
The Money In Open-Source Software | TechCrunch
It’s no secret that open-source technology -- once the province of radicals, hippies and granola eaters -- has gone mainstream. According to industry estimates, more than 180 young companies that give away their software raised roughly $3.2 billion in financing from 2011 to 2014. Despite the growing popularity of open-source software, though, many open-source companies are not financially healthy.
Money, Money, Money - Writing software, in a rich (wo)man's world by Russell Keith-Magee
One Startup's Heretical Plan to Turn Open Source Code Into Cash
With a new kind of license, open sourcers are trying to strike a balance between getting paid and preserving their values.
Open Source Endowment — World's First Endowment Fund for OSS
The Open Source Endowment provides truly sustainable funding for critical open source software through a community-driven endowment model.
Is open source wealth distribution fair?
These concrete value propositions can convince companies to pay open source maintainers.
Please welcome @railway.com as the newest member of @opensourcepledge.com 🎉 They rely on OSS projects like @vite.dev, @tanstack.com, @drizzle.team and @tailwindcss.com, and they're doing their part to sustain the ecosystem, from which we all benefit. Read all about it:
Railway Runs Open Source, Now We're Funding It
blog.railway.comWe 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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