Open source is unfair. Many maintainers are burnt out, their repos overflowing with issues to resolve and pull requests to review. They don’t get enough code contributions because it’s hard to incentivize the talent they need. And often their employers fail to accommodate their open source work. On the other hand, some contributors put a lot of energy and dedication into open source, but need financial support to keep going. We believe that maintainers and contributors deserve better. We’re adding an open source system on top of git and code hosts that will accomplish this. Please listen out for an announcement in the coming days.

Not to belabor the point, but we’ve all read the articles, seen the comments, and heard grumblings from the community that there is something seriously unfair in the way the gains of open source are distributed. We understand the problem. When you get a lot of people and organizations depending on your project, it comes with a lot of unreasonable demands. It can be hard to swallow the lack of appreciation of some corporate developers, often pressured by management; that expect immediate bug fixes, new features, or security patches. And you’re not even getting paid for it. Of course, it’s not only about money. We must ‘pay it forward’ to others in open source - it’s how we all got to where we are as developers. However, when your project becomes a dependency to very powerful organizations, the relationship can start to feel more like you’re a vendor in a supply chain than a voluntary contributor.

We’re Silicon Valley outsiders that span from cybersecurity, finance, and art. We are united by a shared vision. One that dignifies the work of contributors. That self-sustains open source and makes it more secure. And ensures open source remains free to all users. All we did was listen to you, the open source contributor. Please stay tuned for an announcement coming soon.