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FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

(floss.fund)
415 points joice | 2 comments | 16 Oct 24 09:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.443s | source
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Kovah ◴[16 Oct 24 11:44 UTC] No.41857972[source]▶
I wonder what projects will end up receiving money from this fund. It's nice that more funds are available, but my best guess would be that these will go to projects which probably don't really need them anyway.

From my experience, open source projects are either big and massively funded, able to pay their own developers a salary, or the projects end up in a void filled with burned-out maintainers whose only appreciation is an occasional $15 donation and issues filled with negativity and sometimes even hatred.

replies(1): >>41858681 #
skeeter2020 ◴[16 Oct 24 13:10 UTC] No.41858681[source]▶
Doesn't this target exactly your second case? Successful projects in terms of usage and impact that can't be maintained by volunteers alone?
replies(1): >>41859549 #
1. kijin ◴[16 Oct 24 14:37 UTC] No.41859549[source]▶
What does a one-time donation between $10k and $100k do to help the second case? Perhaps it will allow the maintainer to take a few months off and work full-time on the project, or maybe hire someone to clear the backlog. But what happens afterward? Without a clear pathway to making the project self-sustaining, you've merely postponed maintainer burnout by a couple of years at best.

The biggest problem with occasional $15 donations is that they're occasional. Sustainability requires a somewhat stable ARR.

replies(1): >>41859933 #
2. asicsp ◴[16 Oct 24 15:06 UTC] No.41859933[source]▶
>Perhaps it will allow the maintainer to take a few months off

Depends on where you live too - $10k would take care of 5 years for me.

From my experience though, it is better to figure out a way to sell something in addition to the open stuff.