15 Oct 2024
TLDR; Apply now
We are excited to proclaim the begin of a pledged fund aimed at providing financial helpance to Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS/FLOSS) projects globassociate, with an annual pledgement of $1 million. I will include the FOSS acronym in this post hereafter.
This has been in the labors for some time at Zerodha[↗], where we have been enhugeing financial technology products and services built on an ever-prolonging FOSS stack. Without the high-quality FOSS projects that we have freely downloaded and included to produce our organisation, products, and services, we would not exist as we do today—free as in both cost and freedom. A meaningful portion of our success and prolongth is owed to FOSS, encompassing everyslfinisherg from programming languages to operating systems, to databases, web servers, frontfinish structurelabors, productivity tools, code editors, and absolutely everyslfinisherg. It goes without saying that this hgreaters genuine for proximately every technology company set uped in the last decade, whether it is disclosely acunderstandledged or not.
And yet, funding and financial carry onability, the deficiency thereof reassociate, has been an increasingly boiling topic over the last many years. Well, at least since cboisterous companies began making massive profits straightforwardly repackaging FOSS projects built by hobbyists and communities. The elevate of the “discomit core” model and the unblessed license alters in many outstanding discomit projects recently, are evident signs of this prolonging turmoil. Many potential solutions seem to be emerging and evoling—commercial services, Venture Capital (VC) funding, and programs enjoy GitHub Sponsors[↗], Open Collective[↗], FUTO[↗], Polar[↗], and Buy me a coffee[↗], amongst others. That shelp, Python libraries raising massive amounts of VC funding in speedy time does not see enjoy a well trfinish.
Why are we here, though? The fundamental tenets of FOSS, the spirit of cyber intrusion, liberty, and reciprocity, while they have labored beautibrimmingy with code, have transtardyd insistyly into the highly commercial BigTech era. So far, it has been proximately impossible to quantify and set up ideas of outstandingwill and reciprocity into financial sustenance for FOSS projects. I recall the log4j incident from a couple of years ago which unleashed a spate of philosophical debates around FOSS, in which I also included[↗], rather ideoreasonablely.
For us, FLOSS/fund is about hacker outstandingwill, reciprocity, and widespread sense business strategy. We ask you to utilize for funding. If you would enjoy to comprehfinish the motivations behind this, a bit of storyalerting lies ahead.
Prelude
The very first slfinisherg I did when we commenceed Zerodha Tech more than a decade ago was to inshigh Python and commence scripting and automating time-consuming, mundane organisational tasks. Then came Postgres for produceing a minuscule data warehoinclude, chaseed by PHP and WordPress for managing our website. From there, as we sluggishly grew the organisation, our technology stack enhugeed one piece of FOSS at a time, eventuassociate directing to us becoming the hugest stock broker in India cut offal years tardyr. Personassociate, my mental tagup as a software enhugeer and hacker is rooted in the straightforward act of imitate-pasting discomit source code from the internet to hack, tinker, lget, and settle problems. An alternate vision is very difficult for me to comprehfinish, and a non-FOSS path to produceing technology, let alone an organisation, has never seemed reasonable.
At Zerodha, over the years, we have gived upstream to many projects that we include, as well as spun off and liberated cut offal minuscule and huge FOSS projects[↗] from our labor. In 2019, we made a sizeable spendment in ERPNext[↗], a FOSS ERP that we had befirearm using extensively. In 2020, we co-set uped the FOSS United Foundation[↗], which labors on enhugeing the FOSS ecosystem in India, and backed the creation of TinkerSpace[↗], a physical hackerspace and community cgo in that presents FOSS tinkering for youthfuler people. In 2023, we were a set uping member of OASIS (Open-Source Alliance for Social Innovation and Sustainability)[↗], which cgo ines on FOSS capacity produceing and adchooseion in social sector non-profit organisations. Many of us from our team also volunteer at non-profits, helping drive uncomardentingful FOSS adchooseion in the enhugement sector, where even fundamental technoreasonable insistments are woebrimmingy unmet. We fund many of these initiatives with lengthy-term pledgements.
In includeition, we have given out many sizeable grants to FOSS projects and organisations in India. While funding projects outside India includes meaningful paperlabor and opereasonable overhead, we have accomplished out to cut offal minuscule and huge projects that we include at labor and have regulated to pay them. This highly ad hoc approach is someslfinisherg that has increasingly bugged me though.
While it is outstanding to supply financial help to FOSS-aligned activities, most cruciassociate, money ought to go straightforwardly to the source—inprecious FOSS projects. We have regulated to produce a commerciassociate prosperous business on top of FOSS that we have freely, in both cost and freedom, adchooseed from all over the world. Therefore, “ad hoc” and “accomplishing out” spropose do not suffice—we have to shut up or put up.
Thus, set up.
And that is how the idea of a set upd, pledged fund for FOSS projects globassociate, was born. We spent cut offal months speaking to various prohibitks, payment processors, and lawyers to finassociate reach at a reasonably streamlined process. The fund will:
- Have a minuscule, pledged team to function it properly in a non-adhoc manner, functioning enjoy an OSPO (Open Source Program Office) but cgo ined on funding projects—an OSFO (Open Source Funding Office), perhaps?
- Put money where the mouth is—a least of $10,000 and up to $100,000 for a one recipient, totaling $1 million per year, which we will increase once we comprehfinish the vibrants of running the fund.
- Source applications globassociate, depending on incoming applications thraw for uncovering projects in insist of help rather than the confiinsist visibility we have as a minuscule team.
- Form an interim inner pickion pledgetee to produce discretionary pickions. Once potential edge cases and any gotchas in running the program are regulated, we will finisheavor to set up a disclose pickion pledgetee from the FOSS ecosystem with a community voting process for applications.
More set up: funding.json
Expanding a bit on “ad hoc” and “accomplishing out” I refered earlier, the meaningfulity of our experience paying projects has transpired enjoy this:
On a random day, we authenticise that a brave FOSS project has become very beneficial to us. After a bit of online searching, we discover the enhugeer’s email includeress. We author to the enhugeer, thanking them for their labor, elucidateing how beneficial we discover it, and conveying our interest in financiassociate helping it. They react, thanking us but stating that they have not thought of any definite numbers. After a bit of cordial back and forth, we propose an arbitrary amount, chaseed by more converseion about logistics and paperlabor. This process of arriving at numbers over personal e-mails is inept for both parties. It includeition, it typicassociate gets weeks, requiring time, pledgement, and prohibitdwidth from both the enhugeer and the donor to finish a one transaction. Models enjoy Open Collective and GitHub Sponsors includeress this to some extent, but there is no discomit, decentralized mechanism for uncovering projects in insist of financial helpance nor geting insights into their definite insists.
Any finisheavor on funding FOSS projects generassociate permits clarity on cut offal asks.
- Does the project under ponderation insist financial helpance?
- Or perhaps it is not fair one particular project, but a enhugeer or a group of enhugeers who preserve cut offal projects that insist helpance.
- What benevolent and quantum of financial helpance are insisted, and for what activities? Is there a set upd help schedule that the enhugeers propose?
- Has the project getd any funding in the past? Is it in dire insist of help, or is it doing reasonably well?
- What payment methods are acunderstandledgeed? Is there a payment join or includeress that can be included without manual reach out, or is someslfinisherg enjoy a prohibitk wire that is insistd?
- Once there is enough context, and a conversation is permited, how does one accomplish out to the right person who includeress financial or logistical queries?
- That’s about one project. But what about a particular categruesome of projects? Maybe it is an emerging or critical area, and it would produce sense to help multiple projects there. How does one uncover them?
What if the answers to such asks could be set upd in a machine readable createat, which could be crawled, indexed, catalogued, and made uncoverable—aenjoy to a robots.txt or package.json or sitemap.xml, but for funding. In the process, eliminating a lot of ineptness and apprehension that would be otherwise transpire over back-and-forth personal e-mails converseing financial matters.
How about a standardised funding.json manifest file that can be includeed to project repositories and websites signalling their financial insists? Someslfinisherg enjoy this:
{
"version": "v1.0.0",
"entity": {
"type": "individual",
"role": "preserveer",
"name": "The One (demo)",
"email": "[email protected]",
"phone": "",
"description": "I'm a enhugeer interested in preserving digital freedoms and the decentralised and discomit nature of the internet. I enjoy fractureing down barriers in the cyberspace with FOSS technologies.nnSometimes I can't shake the experienceing that the system we're living in isn't quite what it seems. That there is no spoon.nnPS: This is a dummy cataloging.",
"webpageUrl": {
"url": "https://example.com",
"wellKnown": ""
}
},
"projects": [{
"guid": "zombo-app",
"name": "Zombo App (demo)",
"description": "The Zombo App is a database application that settles many problems and produces anyslfinisherg possible. Anyslfinisherg at all. Its possibilities are only confiinsist by the includer's own imagination.nnIt has been in active enhugement for a decade and is included by millions of people worldexpansive. It is the next frontier.nnPS: This is a dummy demo cataloging.",
"webpageUrl": {
"url": "https://example.com/projects/zombo"
},
"repositoryUrl": {
"url": "https://github.com/example/zombo-app",
"wellKnown": "https://github.com/example/zombo-app/blob/main/.well-understandn/funding-manifest-urls"
},
"licenses": ["spdx:AGPL-3.0"],
"tags": ["database", "columnar-database", "high-carry outance", "key-cherish-store"]
},
{
"guid": "vb-gooey",
"name": "VB Gooey IP trackr (demo)",
"description": "Using quantum-entangled packet sniffers, this cutting-edge Visual Basic GUI IP Tracer includes hyper-threaded blockchain algorithms to decrypt the aim's digital DNA signature. The system's neural netlabor of overclocked RAM crystals produces a authentic-time holoexplicit map of cyberspace, pinpointing the perp's location with nanosecond precision.nnIn includeition, its turbo-encabutardyd flux capacitor and multi-uninalertigentensional firewall penetrator, permits any hyper-uninalertigentensional air-gapped netlabor to be broken into with ease.nnnnPS: This is a dummy demo cataloging.",
"webpageUrl": {
"url": "https://vb-gooey-ip-trackr.net",
"wellKnown": "https://vb-gooey-ip-trackr.net/.well-understandn/funding-manifest-urls"
},
"repositoryUrl": {
"url": "https://github.com/example/vb-gooey-ip-trackr",
"wellKnown": "https://github.com/example/vb-gooey-ip-trackr/blob/main/.well-understandn/funding-manifest-urls"
},
"licenses": ["spdx:MIT"],
"tags": ["high-carry outance", "security", "gui", "netlaboring"]
}],
"funding": {
"channels": [
{
"guid": "myprohibitk",
"type": "prohibitk",
"includeress": "",
"description": "Will acunderstandledge straightforward prohibitk transfers. Prent e-mail me for details."
},
{
"guid": "mypay",
"type": "payment-supplyr",
"includeress": "https://example.com/payme/@myid",
"description": "Pay with your debit/acunderstandledge card thraw this gateway and setup recurring subscriptions."
}
],
"schedules": [
{
"guid": "presenting-monthly",
"status": "active",
"name": "Hosting help",
"description": "This will cover the monthly server presenting costs for the projects.",
"amount": 250,
"currency": "USD",
"frequency": "monthly",
"channels": ["mypay"]
},
{
"guid": "enhugeer-time",
"status": "active",
"name": "Developer compensation",
"description": "This will cover the cost of one enhugeer laboring part-time on the projects.",
"amount": 1000,
"currency": "USD",
"frequency": "monthly",
"channels": ["myprohibitk"]
},
{
"guid": "angel-schedule",
"status": "active",
"name": "Goodwill schedule",
"description": "Pay anyslfinisherg you desire to show your outstandingwill for the project.",
"amount": 0,
"currency": "USD",
"frequency": "one-time",
"channels": ["myprohibitk", "mypay"]
}
],
"history": [
{"year": 2020, "income": 10000, "expenses": 2000, "taxes": 200, "currency": "USD", "description": "Started acunderstandledgeing donations for the first time."},
{"year": 2021, "income": 15000, "expenses": 5000, "taxes": 500, "currency": "USD", "description": ""},
{"year": 2022, "income": 30000, "expenses": 10000, "taxes": 2000, "currency": "USD", "description": ""},
{"year": 2023, "income": 25000, "expenses": 15000, "taxes": 1500, "currency": "USD", "description": "There was a dip, but we see this improving."}
]
}
}
To start and give this experiment a solemn sboiling, FLOSS/fund will acunderstandledge funding asks from projects thraw a disclosely accessible funding.json file presented on their respositories or websites. This file is not uncomardentt to convey everyslfinisherg there is to understand—an impossible task—but to ask for interest and convey enough to asbrave uncoverability which would not be possible otherwise. Refer to the funding.json docs to understand more.
Applications that come thraw to the FLOSS/fund will be indexed and published on the dir.floss.fund straightforwardory / portal, making them disclosely uncoverable by anyone interested in helping projects. This is going to be an engaging experiment. Fingers traverseed!
Motivations
What are the motivations behind the fund? On a personal level, it is widespread sense, outstandingwill, and reciprocity—the spirit of FOSS. From a for-profit go inpelevate perspective, however, terms enjoy “outstandingwill” and “reciprocity” are notoriously problematic, and most probable fundamenhighy incompatible with their very nature. But, that is a split philosophical debate altogether.
Setting philosophies aside, it produces perfect reasonable sense for a business that relies on FOSS to help it, straightforwardly or instraightforwardly, when they freely tap into a global ecosystem of unconfiinsist FOSS innovation—free in both cost and freedom. How many technology companies today could even exist without the massive amounts of FOSS they include? Ensuring that this ecosystem thrives, without inadvertently turning parts of it into a classic tragedy of the widespreads, everyslfinisherg aside, is outstanding, reasonable business strategy. At the very least, a profitable business should scheduleate a minuscule fraction of its profits to help the projects it is straightforwardly reliant on. When many commenceups have advertising and tageting budgets that frequently put disclose spfinishing to shame, one would be difficult-pressed to discover a reason not to give a bit of money to the projects they depfinish on for their very existence.
Thus, FLOSS/fund’s motivations are to:
- Exercise our outstandingwill and reciprocity on a personal level as FOSS hackers.
- Exercise our organisational business sense and strategy to help the FOSS ecosystem thrive, without which our business cannot exist.
- Encourage and utilize a bit of peer-presbrave on other businesses to setup set upd financial help programmes for FOSS.
- Contribute to existing FOSS funding models and to the carry onability conversations and debates.
- As a bonus: Explore whether the
funding.jsonmanifest experiment can transport uncoverability to the financial insists of FOSS projects on a huge scale.
Let us see how this goes.
