A new funding model for open source software
I think that this essay is fundamentally brilliant, but doesn&#x27;t come out and yell the self-evident truth: the ONLY way this ever takes off is if Github does it.<p>And man, do I ever hope that they do.<p>There&#x27;s no other entity in the ecosystem that even approaches the role Github plays, with all due respect to Gitlab and the rest of the also-rans. It&#x27;d be wonderful if they did the same thing, but in the end, they are going to be the contrarian 2%.<p>It&#x27;s important to remember that GH sponsors isn&#x27;t even out of beta, yet - you still have to apply and make sure that all of your tax docs are in order.<p>One small proposal I&#x27;d make is that I suggest Sponsors and Pool could exist happily in parallel. I believe that there&#x27;s a meaningful difference between being the patron of a developer and feeling like you&#x27;re backing a creator with feelings and a story and a family... and wanting to be a good citizen that has an approved list of projects that I benefit from and want to support.<p>I can sponsor Matz, get his updates and feel good about knowing I am counted as a supporter AND set aside $$$ per month to contribute to all of the tools I use in my projects simply because it&#x27;s the right thing to do and I want those projects to exist for the long term. They are completely different initiatives. Patreon vs Humble Bundle, if you will.<p>Perhaps most critically, Github could keep absorbing the cost of processing payments to sponsored developers but also announce that they plan to hold back 3% of your monthly pool amount to cover CC processing fees. I think most people would be more than fine with this.<p>But if Github isn&#x27;t on board, this is all just speculative fiction. Please, if you work at Github, make this happen.