Investing in Open Source: The FOSS Contributor Fund

Table of contents

1. Introduction
   1. Getting Involved in Funding Open Source
   2. The FOSS Contributor Fund
   3. The FOSS Fund Blueprint
2. 1. Project Eligibility
   1. Project Usage
   2. Project License List
      1. Lesson Learned: Don’t Keep a Rigid Project List
   3. Project Funding
      1. Lesson Learned: Don’t Fund Projects That Haven’t Requested Funding
      2. Lesson Learned: Don’t Fund Projects That Have Strong Corporate Backing
   4. Project Ownership
      1. Lesson Learned: Avoid Employee-Owned Projects
   5. Recent Awards
   6. Project Reputation
   7. Indeed: Finding Flexibility in Project Criteria
      1. Discovering Projects at Indeed
3. 2. Voter Eligibility
   1. Voter Eligibility Goals and Behaviors
   2. Your Criteria Will Have Effects Within Your Organization
      1. Hacktoberfest Example
   3. The Behaviors You Encourage Will Have Effects Beyond Your Organization
      1. Sentry Example
      2. Kubernetes Example
   4. Encouraging Open Source Participation
      1. Lessons Learned: Don’t Limit Who Can Nominate
   5. Building Organizational Expertise
   6. Building Program Engagement
   7. Showing Up Authentically
      1. Respect the Project
      2. Trust the Voters
      3. Do Better Next Time
   8. Indeed: A Broad View of Voter Eligibility
4. 3. Funding Amounts
   1. How Much Do You Have?
      1. $100,000 or More
      2. $20,000–$100,000
      3. $10,000 or Less
   2. How Often Do You Vote?
      1. Monthly Voting
      2. Quarterly Voting
      3. One-Off Voting
   3. Indeed: Experimenting with Budget and Voting Cadence
   4. Other Ways to Fund
      1. Salesforce
      2. Microsoft
5. 4. Voting Framework
   1. How Do I Further Curate Eligible Nominations?
      1. Curating for Volume
      2. Curating for Culture
      3. Curating for Legal Considerations
   2. How Do I Get the Word Out About Participating in the FOSS Fund?
   3. What Tools Can I Use to Make the Entire Process More Efficient?
      1. Hosted Polling System
      2. Chat-Hosted Polls
      3. Hosted Survey Forms
      4. In-Person Voting
   4. Indeed: Finding a Framework That Works for Us
   5. Other Ways to Vote
      1. Johns Hopkins University
6. 5. Iteration
   1. Frequent Iterations
      1. Don’t Change Big Things Frequently
      2. Don’t Worry About Small Errors
   2. Infrequent Iterations
      1. Don’t Make Changes Without Clear Intention
      2. Don’t Read Too Much into the Data
   3. Indeed: Deciding When to Make Changes
7. 6. Blueprint Implementation
   1. Securing Funding
   2. Communication
   3. Voter Identification
      1. How Can I Identify Voters Who Aren’t on GitHub?
   4. Voting
      1. Condorcet Internet Voting Service
      2. Slack Polls
   5. Payment
   6. Iteration
8. 7. Beyond the FOSS Fund
   1. Should We Focus on Funding Projects or Funding People?
   2. How Can a FOSS Fund Help You Invest in Your Open Source at Scale?
   3. How Can Internship and Fellowship Programs Bring New Maintainers into Projects?
   4. More Questions
9. About the Authors