If only there was a way to fund open source projects so we both could have better software for the world and paid employees..

I think you can guess which government body already do this. Just take a shot.

For example, the developer of asus-linux.org who made the kernel contributions for Asus ROG laptops and the accompanying ROG Control Center recently walked away, due to exhaustion.

So are closed source developers.

Pay for your FOSS! I've paid far more for my FOSS than for any proprietary software.

If you believe in subscriptions, then subscribe only to FOSS software like Bitwarden, Tailscale/Netbird, etc.

Find your favorite FOSS projects on Open Collective and support them there.

And above all else, treat FOSS devs and maintainers with the utmost respect! They are the unsung heros who are building the only alternatives to the corpo-dystopian hellscape of proprietary, enshitified, slop software.

Send a message to a dev today, just saying thank you to them for everything, and asking if you can send them a tip if possible.

Folks, let's treat each other lovingly please, FOSS has freed us, give back what you can, and never take it for granted.

To all the devs, maintainers, tinkerers, supporters, FOSS educators, and helpful community members across the FOSS world, thank you so much, and much love. ♥️

I'm going to be honest, I have no idea how open source works. I can't imagine maintaining anything more than a tiny library that I can ignore six days of the week.

Also: open source relies on good jobs. You can only do it if you have a well paid low stress job with good hours. Those have been in short supply recently.

I think the free time covid gave, followed by the free time the layoffs gave, and AI have been patching / hiding the fact that the core model of open source is completely unsustainable in its current state.

Open source should be funded by the tax-payers, or all code should be forcibly open-source (something like AGPL)

Any other models feels like they would create perverse incentives

Also recurring donations feels like a better way than one-time tips

Same deal with lawyers that go into public interest. It pays super low, compared to corporate and similar that has money to throw at their employees.

A lot of FOSS projects are freemium based which seems viable for larger more complex projects.

In these projects it's common to see the developer get paid for adding features on top of the core version, for a SaaS version, for custom development, or for offering support.

Other projects with a lot of community interest - and a good "community manager" style organizer can attract contributors in the form of pulls, bug testing and reports, and widespread use which generates valuable marketing. These projects only exist because of the labor of love from the whole community.

It’s funny how common this mindset is in the self-hosting community: “If I’m running it on my own hardware, the software should basically be free… maybe I’ll toss a tiny ‘tip’ if I feel generous.”

The logic seems to be that since there’s no ongoing server cost, the developer’s time, skill, and effort must somehow be worth nothing and that we should magically fund the entire project through some hypothetical cloud version that they themselves will never use.

It’s like showing up to a brewery with your own growler and expecting the beer to be free because you didn’t use their glass.

I've been using CachyOS and impressed by the array of available software, and it was only in the back of my mind, the thought; "Wow, so much of this is so refined and polished. I wonder who has motive to maintain it?"

Joke's on me, the motive is hardly there - and it's a shitty time for it with Windows announcing that 10 is the last version and that there are no plans for a new one.

I'm glad Valve has a profit motive towards open source right now, but especially in a world where fewer people can donate at random, I really hoped that the model wasn't specifically built to rely just on tip jars.

I read this blog post yesterday and it was insightful.

Seems like we could solve multiple problems in one go here…

What is to be expected when the current trend among CEOs is to get the same stuff done with less employees and same salaries hence resulting in either you getting fired, resigning or doing x2 the amount of work with no real life improvements. Who would have the willingness to continue their side hobbies/project like contributions to open source when your main life is in shambles.

I don't understand much about the finances of the FOSS world, but do companies like FUTO help at all? I don't even know how FUTO makes money, to be honest.

All of the large scale projects are funded and maintained by enterprises

Should there be OSS?