← Home
The Changelog · April 20, 2025 · 65m
Open Source Sustainability: The Funding Crisis
The open source funding crisis: critical infrastructure maintained by volunteers, corporate free-riding, and emerging models for sustainability.
Canon
•
The open source ecosystem creates an environment that incentivizes consuming (free, easy) and disincentivizes contributing (unpaid, demanding). This environmental asymmetry produces the sustainability crisis.
•
Open source maintainers who demand payment for their work face community backlash from users who believe software should be free. The courage to value your work is a learnable skill.