Open Source Funding Survey

#opensource #discuss

Hey there! For a while now, I've been pondering about funding in open-source projects and if it is an issue or not. When Github introduced its Sponsors feature not too long ago, it kinda refreshed my interest in the topic.

Github Sponsors is by no means the first attempt at addressing funding issues in open-source. There have been plenty of attempts by various people prior to that, some of which you can read about in this really well put-together article: https://hackernoon.com/why-funding-open-source-is-hard-652b7055569d

Some of them are doing well, like Patreon or Open Collective, but I'd argue that only a very limited amount of open-source projects can raise significant amounts of funding using platforms like these. And I feel like Github Sponsors won't be shifting the landscape of open-source funding either, especially considering that it's only available in 32 regions, excluding most of the developing countries in the world.

What does the open-source community think about this?

I can't tell and I'd assume opinions vary a lot. So I got together with 2 friends of mine and we decided to design and put up a survey which attempts to shed some more light on how the open-source community feels about the funding situation as it currently is.

If you are interested too, and want to provide your view on the issue, we'd really appreciate if you could take a few minutes to share your thoughts on https://opensourcefunding.github.io/

We will publish the results of the survey later on and we're really looking forward to learn more about how the community feels about this. We hope the results can amplify the voices of the open-source community, contribute to improving the situation for open-source maintainers, and thus, secure open-source projects in the long term.