HACKER Q&A
📣 francis-io

Where to start with employer contribution to OSS


With the recent news of open source projects burning out due to lack of support, I'm looking to suggest to my small employer that we start making financial contributions to some projects, but I have no idea where to start. I know this might only be a small amount of money, so I'm keen to make it go as far as possible, but I don't know where to start.

Where can I find a list of open source projects and dependencies used the most? Is "used the most" even the best place to focus?

Are Github sponsors or a Patreon style model a good approach?

Does anyone have any experience proposing this to an employer. Does any resources exist to lay out the value and impact in a clear way?

  👤 mtmail Accepted Answer ✓
Some package managers can create lists of packages that look for funding, e.g. https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/commands/npm-fund This way you can show your employer which modules they rely on.

Not all open source projects/authors look for funding, for idealistic purpose, easier not to deal with tax implications or they want to stay independent and avoid "We sponsor you, why didn't you implement feature X?" situations.

> Are Github sponsors or a Patreon style model a good approach?

As company I want to minimize the number of monthly invoices so this centralization has a benefit. We https://opencollective.com/ as well.