As a full-stack developer involved in world of open source, I've often encountered valuable repositories with solutions to my problems, only to find them abandoned for years. Faced with the dilemma of contributing to such projects during work hours, I thought of a solution.
That's when the concept of OpenPledge was born — a web platform designed to address this very issue by allowing users (or corporations) to financially support specific open source issues. Imagine, no more abandoned projects, and developers passionate about contributing to open source can now do so more seamlessly and as a full time job.
OpenPledge has secured investment, and we're set to launch in February. Join us in shaping the future of open source sustainability.
Share your ideas, be an early adopter, and contribute to a thriving open source community. Visit https://openpledge.io?source=hn2 now!
Any open source project adopting this model for funding will be in a perpetual cycle of chasing features and the rapid deterioration of code quality that comes with feature-driven development.
On the flip side, if a project opens an issue for "resolve security issue X" and refuses to ship a fix until it is paid for will be seen as holding the release hostage, resulting in a whole lot of negative press even though shipping a release can also be a serious amount of work.
How exactly would somebody receive negative press for not working for free? Microsoft doesn't get bad press for charging money for Office. Programmers don't get bad press from asking their employer for a salary.
Even assuming there would be some "bad press" – so what? Open source users give nothing back to the developers anyways, so there's nothing they could take away.
Our research indicates that many repositories could avoid abandonment with more targeted funding, which is why we introduced the issue-based principle. However, we acknowledge that this approach may not be suitable for all issues or open source repositories.
To address this, we're considering giving repository maintainers the ability to manage donations, such as distribution and permissions on specific issues to encourage proper development. The actual execution of these features will be tested during the beta phase, as predicting their usage beforehand is challenging.
Your feedback is valuable, and we welcome constructive criticism and ideas. Thanks once again for your input!
As a startup with a current team of two, we pride ourselves on being highly adaptable and agile. Our goal is to experience rapid growth and redefine how people perceive open source support. By achieving this before GitHub identifies the opportunity and begins development, we aim to cover significant ground, making it less viable for GitHub to launch a similar initiative.
We acknowledge the inherent risks but are determined to be innovative and swift in our approach to ensure success. Additionally, the open-source market is vast and expanding rapidly, further fueling our optimism about the potential for our venture.
The problem as I see it is that a lot of those bounties are $2,000 for $20,000 worth of work, especially since they end up getting attached to the most gnarly bugs whose true solution involves deep refactoring or building essentially whole new products. Thus the maintainers need to be willing to support the features indefinitely, and they need to agree with the architecture of the solutions, and quite rapidly you start to understand why a little cash is not sufficient to solve the most intractable problems.
I appreciate your concerns, and we've thoroughly examined BountySource and learned valuable lessons from its challenges.
Our approach involves collaborating with corporations that already leverage open source projects for their enterprise software. By having these companies donate funds to critical issues, we anticipate larger sums being contributed to open source causes than might occur otherwise.
While we recognize that we don't have solutions for every challenge in this space, we firmly believe in the ongoing involvement of open source repository maintainers in our donation process. We are committed to innovation and plan to adapt and improve with the help of the community using our platform. We encourage the community to actively participate in finding solutions for these challenges, as we believe it can lead to a sustainable model that brings significant value in the long run.
Thank you again, and we welcome any additional feedback you may have.
I'm not sure you addressed the point: one-time donations do not solve the problem of companies trying to get free labor over time, even if they are larger donations. This is a problem that has to do with scoping, and setting the right expectations for companies, contributors, and maintainers.
Possibly related: some issues might be cool and interesting to work on while others are dull and boring. A lot of times the former becomes the later after getting passed the MVP stage. This might create an abundance of contributions that are flimsy, and that nobody wants to maintain over time for peanuts.
I think it's cool you all want to get this eventual community involved but you gotta provide the solutions to the most foundational challenges, otherwise how are you adding value in the market?
As for company donations, we are actively building personal connections with initial donors. We believe that having established collaborations with well-known entities will instill greater trust in the community. This approach aligns with our strategy to showcase tangible partnerships as we grow.
Additionally, we're taking a unique approach to entering the market. Our initial strategy involves concentrating on one technology stack at a time, such as exclusively covering JavaScript. By doing so, we aim to influence and reshape the culture within that specific open source community. After we will have one community covered we will slowly spread to other branches :)
We recognize the inherent risks in this endeavor, as with any ambitious project. However, we are optimistic and fully committed to giving it our best shot. The initial investment serves as a necessary head start to help us lift off smoothly.
Your support means a lot to us, and any encouragement from the community is highly appreciated as we embark on this exciting journey. Thanks again!
We understand the value of having something tangible for the community to try. As a startup actively working on our beta version, we're working hard to gather a group of early adopters to test our initial version and validate the platform functionalities. That's why we're encouraging you to subscribe to our "waitlist."
Your support is crucial to our development process, and we appreciate your patience as we work towards bringing a meaningful and functional platform to the community. Thanks once again!
You're absolutely right; there are already platforms enabling users to donate to open source projects or various services.
Nevertheless, the concept of donating to specific open source issues and rewarding the person who resolves those issues isn't widely popular on existing platforms. While Bountysource came close, it never quite reached its full potential. We believe that a slightly different approach, with an emphasis on smaller communities initially, can make a significant impact.
Thanks again for your feedback!
