INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Open source sustainability has been nothing short of an oxymoron
Engineers around the world pour their sweat and frankly, their hearts into these passion projects that undergird all software in the modern
In exchange, they ask for nothing in return except for recognition and help in keeping their projects alive and improving them
wealth has somehow trickled down to the maintainers of the open source projects that power them
Working day jobs, maintainers today can struggle to find the time to fix critical bugs, all the while facing incessant demands from users
requesting free support on GitHub
Maintainer burnout is a monstrous challenge.That distressing situation was chronicled almost exactly two years ago by Nadia Eghbal, in a
landmark report on the state of open source published by the Ford Foundation
source, but also a call-to-arms for more users of open source to care about its economics, and ultimately, how these critical projects can
sustain themselves indefinitely.Two years later, a new crop of entrepreneurs, open source maintainers, and organizations have taken Eghbal
up on that challenge, developing solutions that maintain the volunteer spirit at the heart of open source while inventing new economic
models to make the work sustainable
All are early, and their long-term effects on the output and quality of open source are unknown
years ago summarized the vast issues facing open source maintainers, challenges that have remained essentially unchanged in the interim
Resources are offered for free, and everybody (whether individual developer or large software company) uses them, so nobody is incentivized
zenith of its influence.The challenges, though, go deeper
Software engineers can easily forget just how much craftsmanship has gone into the open source code that powers the most basic of
npm, the company that powers the module repository for the Node ecosystem, has nearly 700,000 projects listed on its registry
Starting a new React app recently, NPM installed 1105 libraries with my initial project in just a handful of seconds
What are all of these projectsAnd more importantly, who are all the people behind them That dependency tree of libraries abstracts all the
people whose work has made those libraries available and functional in the first place
That black box can make it difficult to see that there are far fewer maintainers working behind the scenes at each of these open source
projects than what one might expect, and that those maintainers may be struggling to work on those libraries due to lack of funding.Eghbal
pointed to OpenSSL as an example, a library that powers a majority of encrypted communications on the web
Following the release of the Heartbleed security bug, people were surprised to learn that the OpenSSL project was the work of a very small
team of individuals, with only one of them working on it full-time (and at a very limited salary compared to industry norms).Such a
Open source projects often have many contributors, but only a handful of individuals are truly driving a particular project forward
Lose that singular force either to burnout or distraction, and a project can be adrift quickly.No one wants open source to disappear, or for
Yet, there is a strong cultural force against commercial interests in the community
Money is corrupting, and dampens the voluntary spirit of open source efforts
More pragmatically, there are vast logistical challenges with managing money on globally distributed volunteer teams that can make paying
for work logistically challenging.Unsurprisingly, the vanguard of open source sustainability sees things very differently
echoed by Henry Zhu, who is the maintainer of the popular JavaScript compiler Babel
community, there are always going to be extremists
teach maintainers the economics of their work.Perhaps the greatest debate in sustaining open source is deciding who or what to target: the
Aboukhadijeh (who, full disclosure, was once my college roommate at Stanford almost a decade ago) has become a major force in the open
source world, particularly in the Node ecosystem
He served an elected term on the board of directors of the Node.js Foundation, and has published 125 repositories on GitHub, including
popular projects like WebTorrent (with 17,000 stars) and Standard (18,300 stars).Aboukhadijeh was looking for a way to spend more time on
So he turned to Patreon as a means of support.(Disclosure: CRV, my most immediate former employer, is the series A investor in Patreon
I have no active or passive financial interest in this specific company
exception).Patreon is a crowdsourced subscription platform, perhaps best known for the creatives it hosts
These days though, it is also increasingly being used by notable open source contributors as a way to connect with fans and sustain their
Aboukhadijeh launched his page after seeing others doing it
His Patreon page today has 72 contributors providing him with $2,874 in funding per month ($34,488 annually).That may seem a bit paltry, but
he explained to me that he also supplements his Patreon with funding from organizations as diverse as Brave (an adblocking browser with a
utility token model) to PopChest (a decentralized video sharing platform)
That nets him a couple of more thousands of dollars per month.Aboukhadijeh said that Twitter played an outsized role in building out his
Evan You, who created the popular JavaScript frontend library Vue.js, has reached $15,206 in monthly earnings ($182,472 a year) from 231
The number of patrons has grown consistently since starting his Patreon in March 2016 according to Graphtreon, although earnings have gone
up and down over time.Aboukhadijeh noted that one major benefit was that he had ownership over his own funds
another one is to offer dual licenses, one free and one commercial
the two-clause BSD license, but adds terms requiring commercial users to pay for a commercial license after 90 days, allowing companies to
try a project before purchasing it
enforceable and the software is offered as fully open source
The idea is that other open source users can always use the software for free, but for-profit uses would require a payment.Mitchell believes
that this is the right approach for individuals looking to sustain their efforts in open source
The problem is that services are exclusive to a company, and take time away from making a project as good as it can be
leap away from the notion that open source should be free in cost to all users
care about proper licensing, and that becomes the leverage to gain revenue while still maintaining the openness and spirit of open source
force a sale.Changing the license of existing projects can be challenging, so the model would probably best be used by new projects
Nonetheless, it offers a potential complement or substitute to Patreon and other subscription platforms for individual open source
contributors to find sustainable ways to engage in the community full-time while still putting a roof over their heads.Supporting
individuals makes a lot of sense, but often companies want to support the specific projects and ecosystems that underpin their software
Doing so can be next to impossible
There are complicated logistics required in order for companies to fund open source, such as actually having an organization to send money
to (and for many, to convince the IRS that the organization is actually a non-profit)
Tidelift and Open Collective are two different ways to open up those channels.Tidelift is the brainchild of four open-source fanatics led by
Fischer, who is CEO, is a former venture investor at General Catalyst and Greylock as well as a long-time executive at Red Hat
In his most recent work, Fischer invested in companies at the heart of open source ecosystems, such as Anaconda (which focuses on scientific
and statistical computing within Python), Julia Computing (focused on the Julia programming language), Ionic (a cross-platform mobile
development framework), and TypeSafe now Lightbend (which is behind the Scala programming language).Fischer and his team wanted to create a
platform that would allow open source ecosystems to sustain themselves
The idea has its genesis in Red Hat, which commercialized Linux
The idea is that companies are willing to pay for open source when they can receive guarantees around issues like critical vulnerabilities
In addition, Tidelift handles the mundane tasks of setting up open source for commercialization such as handling licensing issues.Fischer
sees a mutualism between companies buying Tidelift and the projects the startup works with
exclusivity, so if a vulnerability is detected for instance, it will be fixed for everyone.Tidelift initially launched in the JavaScript
ecosystem around React, Angular, and Vue.js, but will expand to more communities over time
The company has raised $15 million in venture capital from General Catalyst and Foundry Group, plus former Red Hat chairman and CEO Matthew
Szulik.Fischer hopes that the company can change the economics for open source contributors
software guarantees, Open Collective wants to open source the monetization of open source itself.Open Collective is a platform that provides
democratic and transparent way.Take, for instance, the open collective sponsoring Babel
Babel today receives an annual budget of $113,061 from contributors
Even more interesting though is that anyone can view how the collective spends its money
Babel currently has $28,976.82 in its account, and every expense is listed
For instance, core maintainer Henry Zhu, who we met earlier in this essay, expensed $427.18 on June 2nd for two weeks worth of Lyft rides in
SF and Seattle.Xavier Damman, founder president of Open Collective, believes that this radical transparency could reshape how the economics
of open source are considered by its participants
Back then, he built an open source project designed to help journalists accept anonymous tips, which received a grant
designed to solve those problems
Open Collective itself is both a Delaware C-corp and a 501(c)6 non-profit, and it technically receives all money destined for any of the
collectives hosted on its platform as their fiscal sponsor
That allows the organization to send out invoices to companies, providing them with the documentation they need in order to write a check
community to decide how to spend it
He also noted that in-person meetings are a popular usage of revenues.Open Collective was launched in late 2015, and since then has become
home to 647 open source projects
So far, Webpack, the popular JavaScript build tool, has generated the most revenue, currently sitting at $317,188 a year
One major objective of the organization is to encourage more for-profit companies to commit dollars to open source
Open Collective places the logos of major donors on each collective page, giving them visible credit for their commitment to open
While Patreon, License Zero, Tidelift, and Open Collective are different approaches to providing the infrastructure for sustainability,
ultimately someone has to pay to make all that infrastructure useful
Collective that could support even a single maintainer full time
License Zero and Tidelift are too new to know how they will perform yet.Ultimately though, we need to change the culture toward
can: whether with employee time or funding
If you work at a for-profit company, take the lead in finding a way to support the code that allows you to do your job so efficiently
The decentralization and volunteer spirit of the open source community needs exactly the same kind of decentralized spirit in every
Sustainability is each of our jobs, every day
If we all do our part, we can help to sustain one of the great intellectual movements humanity has ever created, and end the oxymoron of
open source sustainability forever.
