The mission
There are several reasons to why I started OpenRoot. For one is because I feel and see the struggles of independent open-source developers. Im sad that many do not get the recognition they deserve because their projects never get noticed or found by the public, even though they solve a real problem and could be useful for many people around the world.
Many of these projects don’t get enough eyes on them or enough users. It’s something I’ve struggled with myself. As a developer, it’s really hard to also do the job of marketing and distribution. Its outside our scope. This isn’t something we chose as our profession or necessarily want to be doing.
Many open-source developers already build projects out of goodwill. They don’t necessarily want anything in return, but it’s still hard to distribute their work and get it noticed, even though its all free to use. Their projects get passed by, or they don’t know how to distribute them well enough for people to start using them.
Additionally Its always been a dream of mine to crate a community of like-minded people who can interact and collaborate freely and create something amazing together. Now I feel like there’s finally an opportunity to do that, and for a good cause.
I hope we can help many open-source developers, bring them together and grow the program.
Helping projects take root
That is why I started OpenRoot, a community where we can help each other. OpenRoot is a project to support open-source developers and help their projects take root, get their first users and get seen.
We help promote projects for free. Within the developer program, you also get a chance to earn something for your project and the hard work you’ve put into it. I believe open-source developers deserve to get rewarded for work that many people benefit from.
It can feel like only a few projects get seen. If you’re accepted by something like Y Combinator, your project can get a lot of attention. But I believe there are many transparent, free alternatives out there that don’t get seen because they haven’t had that opportunity or access to a large audience.
Thanks to our partners and supporters, we are able to launch a program specifically for open-source developers. They can get free support, promotion on our social channels and rewards as their projects grow.
Its important to me that this program always remains free to join and participate in for people with a suitable idea or project. We want to help projects grow, provide resources to keep building and help developers stay motivated.
Finding fair ways to reward developers
For me, its essential that OpenRoot is a project for public good, therefore I established it as a non-profit organization
Ive wrestled with decisions about fair rewards and what would actually be a good metric to reward open-source developers for. We don’t just want to reward stars gained on GitHub. We also want to understand which metrics best show that an open-source project is useful.
That could be downloads, returning users or monthly active users. Im still considering which metrics best describe whether a project is useful to the public and successful, rather than just having many GitHub stars.
Getting the idea out there
Even for this project, its been hard to find people or places to get the idea out there and help people understand what this actually is, everyone is selling a product or a service nowadays.
In many communities, people are skeptical about anyhting posted there, regarding its actual goal. Mentioning this kind of program can lead to a ban or restriction before theres much chance to explain it.
We aren’t selling developers anything. For now, OpenRoot is a program, a community and a newsletter. You can help support us by subscribing to the newsletter or partnering with us.
Hackathons and challenges
I’m also thinking about the different challenges and hackathons we could host.
I’ve been considering hackathons that help address a community need or problem, as well as more general open-source challenges. I haven’t decided where to start with those yet, but they’re something I want to explore.
You can learn more about what we’re building at openroot.dev.
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