A dream, an epiphany, a problem or a bug - most open source projects take birth here. Not so different from startups - at least most of them. However, the beauty of Open Source projects is the trajectory of evolution wherein, it starts with one person or a small group of people solving a problem to a larger group of people that is bound together by this powerful sense of purpose, working together towards a common vision.
Open Source projects build communities, startups build teams.
Aviyel started with an epiphany about open source projects that led to the discovery of an anomaly. The questions that struck us were :
For the enormous amount of value that is created by the open source community, how are they actually doing? We believe things can be better.
How many of the amazing open source creators and communities have gotten their projects to where they want to? We believe the number should be higher.
The hundreds of thousands of open source contributors and maintainers who build the lego blocks of technology should be able to hit sustainability . Aviyel believes in sustainability. We believe the creator should be able to follow their dream, get their idea to fruition.
Contributors and creators would be at their personal best if they can take the money variable out of the equation. They should basically reach a state of financial freedom, which is our definition of financial sustainability. Money is not the driver or the glue, but a tangible incentive.
“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake...”
― Sir Francis Bacon
How? Here is what we think :
Create a scalable monetisation avenue for the projects, while preserving the open Source character.
Empower strong incentivised communities around projects.
Drive discovery, adoption and growth.
Donations move the needle ( a bit ), but are not scalable. Period.
Donations are an indication that people appreciate the unmeasurable value that one creates.
One of the key parameters that drive the adoption of open source projects amongst businesses and developers is the confidence of sustainability. Technology leaders are most often only comfortable using open source components in their stack if they have a guarantee on its longevity along with other aspects, like the license, support infrastructure in the form of documentation and community.
At Aviyel, we believe guaranteed and structured exchange of knowledge builds confidence, adoption and is the most seamless monetisation avenue for open source projects. We take this one notch higher and imagine all conversations as an exchange of value, and consider this as the foundational block of Aviyel.
We are building a platform that opens up seamless exchange of ideas, issues, discussions, tasks and knowledge between the open source community (creators, maintainers and contributors) who create on one side; and the developers and businesses who would love to adopt on the other side. Aviyel is working to monetise streamlined knowledge sharing + time.
“Money is like manure, it's only good if you spread it around.”
― Francis Bacon
Sustainability naturally brings the opportunity of more growth. Amazing Open Source projects attract believers and a community is formed organically around it. We are excited to explore how a bit of manure in the form of incentivisation can nudge the community. We believe it will thrive, drive ownership and affirm the sense of belongingness.
This is our mission at Aviyel. This is what we at Aviyel have decided to spend our life’s primetime on. This is what we are trying to achieve. We truly hope to make an impact, a difference - sustainability.
If contributing and creating amazing open source projects is your thing, please do checkout Aviyel to learn more about our ideas and thoughts. We are building some exciting stuff and will be launching soon.
Share your ideas, talk to us and if you share our enthusiasm why don't you join our family 🤗
It is only day zero @Aviyel
Top comments (1)
Great initiative to support opensource projects. Building a community and feedback loop is always challenging for new open source projects and authors. Also the funding aspect to scale projects. I was reading this stack overflow blog the other day, a widely used opensource project like openssl recieved only 2000$ in donations per year before a major security vulnerability Heartbleed was reported. It took that vulnerability for the enterprise users of the project to seriously think about supporting openssl.