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Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

endowment.dev

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Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#81

Post by kvinogradov »

3rodents wrote: post #73
shimman wrote: post #62

Highly skeptical of undemocratic organizations whose founder immediately talks dismissively of government programs. Comments from OP aren't helping either. Just another Silicon Valley bro that wants to be in-charge of something with zero democratic control. Very typical in the current environment, which is why it should be soundly rejected.

The project has involvement from people who have spent decades dedicated to these ideas — it doesn’t seem like a vanity project or a play for control. The most cynical view is that it is beneficial to the OP because it provides access to potential investments, which, sure, isn’t a pure philanthropic venture, but that seems a pretty small price to pay. The people involved are the people you would surely want running t…

The thing is that our endowment is focused on the "old" non-commercializable OSS projects, while VC is about "new" and commercializable stuff. The irony here is that these two things in my life lie on opposite sides of the spectrum—both in scope and risk tolerance.

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#82

Post by ShaneCurcuru »

whit537 wrote: post #12
bombcar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different than something like https://opencollective.com (which, for example, Actual Budget uses: https://opencollective.com/actual )

Open Collective (OC) is great! It's primarily a payments platform. Open Source Collective (OSC, which is related to OC in convoluted ways I don't fully understand) is a fiscal sponsor of OSS projects, and is also great. :^) Open Source Endowment (OSE), on the other hand, is a pile of money that earns interest that then gets distributed to OSS projects. So conceptually some projects either fiscally hosted by OSC or us…

Open Collective (really Open Finance Consortium Inc.) is a US 501(c)(6) nonprofit that runs a payments and accounting platform, providing fund acceptance and budget services to a ton of different community collectives and funding groups, making it easier to connect funders with groups that are often not incorporated.

Open Source Collective is a separate 501(c)(6) organization that actively supports funders wanting to support FOSS projects or communities specifically. They share some board members, and they simply use Open Collective to do all the finance work, while also offering some level of advice and other IP holding services: https://docs.oscollective.org/welcome-and-introduction-to-os...

Open Source Endowment is different, in that it's soliciting 501(c)(3) donations, which the OSE board and membership will use for the endowment to choose FOSS projects/communities to provide grants for.

This topic should be a FAQ page on the OSE site, especially for funders who just want to donate "to some good FOSS" without knowing where to find it. When you donate to OSC, you pick specific collectives to give to (and it's not tax deductible). When you donate to OSE, you're giving to the endowment, that the OSE Members setup policies for how/where/when to provide grants to projects/communities (and it could be tax deductible).

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#83

Post by verdverm »

dewey wrote: post #80
verdverm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the VC "class", similar to the Epstein Class, nowhere near as bad or vile, but have definitely been one of the primary reasons the wealth gap and inequality have risen and continue to rise

With your strong feelings against VC, I hope you are aware that HN is the message board of one of the leading VC firms? > but have definitely been one of the primary reasons the wealth gap and inequality have risen and continue to rise That's a pretty big leap you are doing there.

You can click my handle to see I've been a part of the HN community longer than yourself, I'm fully aware of the many associations

I have /rant'd on YC and the dilution of help to their startups after they stopped heeding their own advice to "do things that don't scale"

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#84

Post by trueismywork »

numbsafari wrote: post #44

Something I’ve been curious about for a while is why more universities don’t get involved in sponsoring critical projects. In theory it could provide an interesting non-academic path for students and professors and, as you’ve pointed out, the funding model of the U would make sense here. I’m curious… would you consider having a “faculty” of “tenured” maintainers who receive livable funding and support based on a hist…

They do. Most big breakthrough software even today is made by university and national labs

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#85

Post by whit537 »

verdverm wrote: post #83
dewey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With your strong feelings against VC, I hope you are aware that HN is the message board of one of the leading VC firms? > but have definitely been one of the primary reasons the wealth gap and inequality have risen and continue to rise That's a pretty big leap you are doing there.

You can click my handle to see I've been a part of the HN community longer than yourself, I'm fully aware of the many associations I have /rant'd on YC and the dilution of help to their startups after they stopped heeding their own advice to "do things that don't scale"

> I've been a part of the HN community longer than

Dang, got me beat, too. :) gg

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#86

Post by trueismywork »

kvinogradov wrote: post #2

Over the last few years I've talked with hundreds of people in the dev community, and almost everyone shared the same concern: there's no sustainable funding for critical OSS maintenance, and without it the modern world runs on an increasingly fragile foundation. I have personal experience with university endowments, and at some point noticed that the open source world is remarkably similar to a top research universi…

Tax dollars to find software

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#87

Post by kvinogradov »

verdverm wrote: post #75
whit537 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our bylaws are pretty standard: https://endowment.dev/docs/bylaws/ What part of them is "undemocratic" in your view?

One is a board that decides whether something they do is a conflict of interest or not. Are you getting your ethics cues from SCOTUS? Are you aware the kinds of language that are in the legal docs on GH, and what that enables?

There are strict regulatory rules for 501c3 nonprofits (for instance - no private benefits for nonprofit insiders) and guidelines on how to implement them, for instance, via CoI policy, which we have: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/form-1023-purpose-...

Re: Open Source Endowment – new funding source for open source maintainers

#89

Post by verdverm »

whit537 wrote: post #78
EarlKing wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So.... you just created a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization to offer grants for product development. Yeah, this will end well.

Here are a couple salient portions of our IRS application to put your mind at ease. :^) > In limited circumstances, the Foundation may make grants to organizations that are not described in IRC Section 501(c)(3), or to individual OSS developers, maintainers, researchers, and educators. These grants will support persons and organizations engaged in developing, maintaining, securing, documenting, or conducting research…

clear and plain language on the website will do wonders compared to legal like comments with emoticons on HN
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