> Charter houses could solve this problem neatly. A charter house or two could easily be set up with positions offered to people who are filling these roles, providing them with a minimum of support — at the very least, free rent and free high-speed internet. These people are professionals, so this may not be enough for them — but there’s no reason they can’t get support from the charter house and make additional money in other ways. They can supplement that support by consulting, getting a real job, being a bounty hunter, etc.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm not sold on why this charter house arrangement is better (for either side involved) than just... paying people a salary.
Certainly it's easier to do regular payroll than to buy a huge house and be its landlord (really leaning into the "lord" part) and manage its residents' food + housing + transportation + healthcare needs. Most of that can be purchased with plain old money, and employers can offer insurance to employees without having to be their landlord too.
And then on the residents' side... it's bad enough now that I'll have to get a new health insurance policy if I quit my job, but if I had to find a new roof over my head, too? The power dynamic here doesn't sound great.
Like, in the context of "we want to fund a handful of random open-source contributors": if you have the funds to do this charter house thing, why not just open an LLC and use it to directly pay the people you're trying to support? Why does a literal house need to be involved?