Is it time to tip open source developers? Here's one way to do it
(2023/04/07)
- Reference: 1680890527
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/04/07/thanksdev_open_source_funding/
- Source link:
In 2016, the Ford Foundation published a report on the lack of financial support for public source code and there's still a massive funding gap, but a new scheme may sort that out.
The [1]report [PDF], titled, "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure," begins, "Our modern society – everything from hospitals to stock markets to newspapers to social media – runs on software. But take a closer look, and you’ll find that the tools we use to build software are buckling under demand."
Seven years on, funding free and open-source software is still an issue, despite projects like The Linux Foundation’s Core Infrastructure Initiative and Mozilla’s Open Source Support awards program. Though various funding platforms have emerged, like [2]Open Collective and [3]GitHub Sponsors , financial support for open source maintainers continues to be uneven.
[4]
Some well-known developers have been able to quit jobs at prominent companies [5]to work full time on open source projects, buoyed by corporate sponsors. Others, [6]like Denis Pushkarev , maintainer of the core-js library, and [7]Christofer Dutz , creator of Apache PLC4X, have found it more difficult to monetize their code creation and maintenance.
[8]
[9]
When developer André Staltz looked at funding data from Open Collective and GitHub in 2019, more than half of projects [10]didn't generate enough revenue to support their maintainers above the poverty line.
Helping out in increments
Armin Nezhat, co-founder and head of growth at [11]thanks.dev , believes the distribution of funds can be made more even by letting donations flow down the dependency tree.
"Startup companies depend more and more on open source," said Nezhat in an interview with The Register . "And when you look at the MIT license, software is free as is but the maintenance and the maintenance time is not."
Nezhat described the burden faced by developer John Reilly, who maintains TypeScript loader for webpack ( [12]ts-loader ), in terms of responding to support requests from major companies that use ts-loader.
[13]
Reilly, he said, "is getting 16 support requests from Microsoft, four from ByteDance, three from Mozilla, three from Atlassian, and the list goes on. Like every single one of these maintainers is getting slammed by these big enterprises, which have hundreds of engineers."
[14].NET open source is 'heavily under-funded' says AWS
[15]Open source community split over offer of 'corporate' welfare for critical dev tools
[16]Creator of Linux virtual assistant blames 'patent troll' for project's death
[17]NIST and uni friends to design open source research chips, Google to bankroll the fabs
Money is coming into the open source ecosystem to encourage maintainers to continue to develop and support their software but it doesn't reach everyone. That's at least partly a consequence of the complexity of open source projects, which may have dozens or [18]even hundreds of dependencies – packages of code that perform specific functions. Just one npm package has on average [19]79 dependencies , and web apps often integrate many such packages.
Few people, if any, have the inclination to make donations to the maintainers of every single software package they rely on. It's just too much effort to do manually.
The idea behind thanks.dev is to take donations via GitHub or GitLab accounts and spread them across the dependency tree three levels deep, at up to eight decimal places on the dollar. Funds can be [20]skewed toward, or away from, specific projects or ecosystems , but the system is mainly automated.
Thanks.dev presently supports itself through a voluntary tip percentage that, if more than zero, gets deducted from donation amounts along with a Stripe payment processing fee prior to distribution.
[21]
This is not the first time this has been tried: Open Collective [22]proposed something similar in 2018, a project called [23]BackYourStack . But judging by discussions among those who backed the initiative, it never took off [24]for a variety of reasons .
So far, [25]Cash App , [26]Sentry , and [27]Sourcegraph have signed on, and their dependency trees now flower with modest donations. Sentry's contributions include $7.17 for github.com/actix, $8.82 for github.com/axios, $5.43 for github.com/blakeembrey, $28.74 for github.com/brianc, and so on. That doesn't end open source funding concerns but if enough open source users warm to the idea, it may help spread the wealth a bit.
"What we're trying to do is create awareness in companies and in organizations that this is your dependency tree, and these are the people that you depend on," said Nezhat. ®
Get our [28]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.fordfoundation.org/media/2976/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure.pdf
[2] https://blog.opencollective.com/funds-for-open-source/
[3] https://github.com/sponsors
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://words.filippo.io/full-time-maintainer/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/15/corejs_russia_open_source/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/13/opensource_apacheplc4x_payment/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sources_sustainability_problem/
[11] https://thanks.dev/
[12] https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-loader
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/01/net_open_source_heavily_underfunded/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/sourceware_open_source_openssf/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/linux_ai_assistant_killed_off/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/nist_google_chips_open_source/
[18] https://github.blog/2019-01-31-keep-your-dependencies-secure-and-up-to-date-with-github-and-dependabot/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/socket_npm_safe_javascript/
[20] https://thanks.dev/static/how
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://medium.com/open-collective/introducing-backyourstack-39747ccdf2a5
[23] https://backyourstack.com/faq
[24] https://github.com/backyourstack/backyourstack/issues/1090
[25] https://thanks.dev/e/gh/cashapp/dependencies
[26] https://thanks.dev/e/gh/getsentry/dependencies
[27] https://thanks.dev/e/gh/sourcegraph/dependencies
[28] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The [1]report [PDF], titled, "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure," begins, "Our modern society – everything from hospitals to stock markets to newspapers to social media – runs on software. But take a closer look, and you’ll find that the tools we use to build software are buckling under demand."
Seven years on, funding free and open-source software is still an issue, despite projects like The Linux Foundation’s Core Infrastructure Initiative and Mozilla’s Open Source Support awards program. Though various funding platforms have emerged, like [2]Open Collective and [3]GitHub Sponsors , financial support for open source maintainers continues to be uneven.
[4]
Some well-known developers have been able to quit jobs at prominent companies [5]to work full time on open source projects, buoyed by corporate sponsors. Others, [6]like Denis Pushkarev , maintainer of the core-js library, and [7]Christofer Dutz , creator of Apache PLC4X, have found it more difficult to monetize their code creation and maintenance.
[8]
[9]
When developer André Staltz looked at funding data from Open Collective and GitHub in 2019, more than half of projects [10]didn't generate enough revenue to support their maintainers above the poverty line.
Helping out in increments
Armin Nezhat, co-founder and head of growth at [11]thanks.dev , believes the distribution of funds can be made more even by letting donations flow down the dependency tree.
"Startup companies depend more and more on open source," said Nezhat in an interview with The Register . "And when you look at the MIT license, software is free as is but the maintenance and the maintenance time is not."
Nezhat described the burden faced by developer John Reilly, who maintains TypeScript loader for webpack ( [12]ts-loader ), in terms of responding to support requests from major companies that use ts-loader.
[13]
Reilly, he said, "is getting 16 support requests from Microsoft, four from ByteDance, three from Mozilla, three from Atlassian, and the list goes on. Like every single one of these maintainers is getting slammed by these big enterprises, which have hundreds of engineers."
[14].NET open source is 'heavily under-funded' says AWS
[15]Open source community split over offer of 'corporate' welfare for critical dev tools
[16]Creator of Linux virtual assistant blames 'patent troll' for project's death
[17]NIST and uni friends to design open source research chips, Google to bankroll the fabs
Money is coming into the open source ecosystem to encourage maintainers to continue to develop and support their software but it doesn't reach everyone. That's at least partly a consequence of the complexity of open source projects, which may have dozens or [18]even hundreds of dependencies – packages of code that perform specific functions. Just one npm package has on average [19]79 dependencies , and web apps often integrate many such packages.
Few people, if any, have the inclination to make donations to the maintainers of every single software package they rely on. It's just too much effort to do manually.
The idea behind thanks.dev is to take donations via GitHub or GitLab accounts and spread them across the dependency tree three levels deep, at up to eight decimal places on the dollar. Funds can be [20]skewed toward, or away from, specific projects or ecosystems , but the system is mainly automated.
Thanks.dev presently supports itself through a voluntary tip percentage that, if more than zero, gets deducted from donation amounts along with a Stripe payment processing fee prior to distribution.
[21]
This is not the first time this has been tried: Open Collective [22]proposed something similar in 2018, a project called [23]BackYourStack . But judging by discussions among those who backed the initiative, it never took off [24]for a variety of reasons .
So far, [25]Cash App , [26]Sentry , and [27]Sourcegraph have signed on, and their dependency trees now flower with modest donations. Sentry's contributions include $7.17 for github.com/actix, $8.82 for github.com/axios, $5.43 for github.com/blakeembrey, $28.74 for github.com/brianc, and so on. That doesn't end open source funding concerns but if enough open source users warm to the idea, it may help spread the wealth a bit.
"What we're trying to do is create awareness in companies and in organizations that this is your dependency tree, and these are the people that you depend on," said Nezhat. ®
Get our [28]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.fordfoundation.org/media/2976/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure.pdf
[2] https://blog.opencollective.com/funds-for-open-source/
[3] https://github.com/sponsors
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://words.filippo.io/full-time-maintainer/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/15/corejs_russia_open_source/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/13/opensource_apacheplc4x_payment/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sources_sustainability_problem/
[11] https://thanks.dev/
[12] https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-loader
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/01/net_open_source_heavily_underfunded/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/sourceware_open_source_openssf/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/linux_ai_assistant_killed_off/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/nist_google_chips_open_source/
[18] https://github.blog/2019-01-31-keep-your-dependencies-secure-and-up-to-date-with-github-and-dependabot/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/socket_npm_safe_javascript/
[20] https://thanks.dev/static/how
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZDCShU-n8YtZ9JL@wMlAWAAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://medium.com/open-collective/introducing-backyourstack-39747ccdf2a5
[23] https://backyourstack.com/faq
[24] https://github.com/backyourstack/backyourstack/issues/1090
[25] https://thanks.dev/e/gh/cashapp/dependencies
[26] https://thanks.dev/e/gh/getsentry/dependencies
[27] https://thanks.dev/e/gh/sourcegraph/dependencies
[28] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Good luck with it, but
doublelayer
That sounds very similar to the tip proposal. Both of them require that somebody who uses the code decides to voluntarily pay well for it. I'm not sure how yours differs other than the fact that you're focusing on big companies whereas the tip proposal works for any size of company. Unless either is widely adopted, it's likely to produce some relatively small donations.
It's also likely to limit which projects get support; the big tech companies already donate large (for us, not for them) amounts to open source projects, but not to every project that gets used somewhere in their company, since that's less tracked. That's why the Linux kernel gets a ton of donations from big tech companies, because it's a single, large project that they understand that they rely on a lot. The tip proposal appears to be focused on automatically following dependencies to distribute the funding to all of them, which will work better for the deep tree that is Node dependency hell and not bad for a structured package repository like Python has, but not so well for a bunch of libraries pulled in from GitHub or internal clones.
Good luck with it, but
I predict it will be a drop in the ocean. It might start off with some good intentions but will then fade away to a smaller trickle. The only realistic way for open source devs to get reasonable income for their work is if the big hardware and software companies that use open source reach into their pockets. When we buy a laptop with Windows already installed (yeah I know it's nasty), we don't give MS our money directly. The real question is why are companies that make billions in profits so tight fisted? Would it really hurt MS to lob somebody a few thousand? Even that would be better than the tips.