Just about every industry, and just about every organization, in one way or another, uses open source software. And they’re not just using it commercially. Hospitals, governments, charities, scientific and social researches, and non-profits make use of open source, and are even reliant on it. The advances that these organizations make because of open source may not be financially-driven or particularly profitable, but they are undoubtedly significant. Combined with the monetary gains made from using open source in commercial enterprise, and one can see the staggering amount of value that open source can produce.
All this value being produced however is often not captured by the people who most deserve it: the handful of developers behind these open source projects.
Open Source Needs Support Too
Open source is not profit-centered. It was founded primarily on the ideals of hastening and refining the development of software by people who are simply passionate about building software, not necessarily profiting from it.
But while open source at its core is and should be free for all, the developers behind it clearly still need outside support, particularly the financial kind. Open source projects still need funding for maintenance, support and further innovations, not to mention the daily living expenses of the developers behind them. Because of these constant and underlying needs and the lack of financial support, open source projects often take a back seat to real-world employment. As a consequence, the pace at which open software development occurs is limited, depending on the resources available to the developer.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that while open source projects produce massive amounts of value, it is often the for-profit companies and SaaS startups making use of these software that capture almost all of the value.
Why Fund Open Source Developers?
All these facts point to one general conclusion: open source projects and developers need to be funded. But if they’re essentially making something that’s supposed to be free, then why fund them? Beyond simply giving them the recognition and returns that they do deserve, funding open source would actually make open source software even better. It would give developers not only the incentive but the time and resources to improve open source software, and given its ubiquity, would result in making the world a better place.
How You Can Support Open Source Projects Now
Most of the infrastructure and technologies we rely on now depend on open source, so it is only reasonable to give something back to it, even if it is being given to us freely. Giving back through tax-deductible donations whenever you can or pledging through a more fixed sponsorship program is a good way to show your support for open source projects, and is especially helpful to those that are not backed by large corporations. It’s also a great way of showing your appreciation and recognizing the value of their contribution to your business or organization.
Such donations can go a long way for a lot of open source projects and developers, and can even be life-changing for some. Donations made in US dollars can mean even bigger amounts in other countries, so for some open source projects based outside of the US even a small donation can have a big impact. In some cases, they could even allow these developers to work on open source full-time.
But there are certainly many other ways you can support open source projects other than just directly doling out some dough. Promoting the tool to others, contributing code and other fixes to the project, even providing feedback can help. Directly partnering with these projects, especially if your organization depends on the software can be beneficial for both parties as well. It gives these projects the consistent support they need, while also providing your organization with reliable support for your use of these open source tools.
Thank you for sharing this useful article
Good Article very informative .
Before I started developing/supporting OSS (on a couple of very small projects,) I never gave a thought to just downloading free software and using it.
Now, I try to give feedback when I can – especially just to say “Thank you.” Usually, all a developer hears (if anything) are bug reports and feature requests. A simple “thank you” goes a long way toward making my day. Someone telling me what they’re using my software for lets me know my efforts are worthwhile.
This is especially true for small projects because since we don’t have user licenses or fees, there’s really no way to know how many actual users are out there. The number of downloads helps and the statistics here are great, but there are undoubtedly many downloads that don’t translate into users.
On my personal project (hosted here,) I’m only sure there’s one user (me.) On the somewhat larger project (hosted elsewhere) I do end user support for, there’s a small group of people on our forum and new people keep showing up with questions, but I have no idea if we have a couple hundred or a thousands of users.
Great article. People now rely on open source and take it for granted. Thanks for sharing.