A coalition of prominent open source developers and venture capitalists just launched the Open Source Endowment, a new funding mechanism designed to solve one of tech's most persistent problems: how to sustainably support the free software that powers the internet. The initiative comes as maintainer burnout and security vulnerabilities in underfunded projects have reached crisis levels, with critical infrastructure often maintained by volunteers working second jobs.
The tech industry has a dirty secret: trillion-dollar companies built on free software often contribute nothing back. Now a group of venture capitalists and well-known open source programmers think they've found a solution that could change that dynamic permanently.
The newly launched Open Source Endowment represents a fundamental shift in how critical infrastructure projects get funded. Rather than relying on sporadic corporate donations or maintainers burning out while working day jobs, the endowment model creates a self-sustaining financial foundation that can support projects indefinitely.
The timing couldn't be more critical. The open source funding crisis hit mainstream consciousness after the Log4j vulnerability exposed how Fortune 500 companies depend on software maintained by unpaid volunteers. That security flaw, discovered in late 2021, affected hundreds of millions of devices and cost enterprises billions to remediate. The maintainer behind Log4j wasn't even working on it full-time.
But the problem runs far deeper than one high-profile incident. Research from the Linux Foundation shows that the average open source maintainer works 40 hours per week on their project while earning zero income from it. Meanwhile, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta build billion-dollar cloud services on top of this freely available code.
The traditional funding models haven't worked. Corporate sponsorships dry up when budgets get cut. GitHub Sponsors and Patreon create unpredictable income streams. Even well-intentioned initiatives like Open Collective struggle with sustainability because they depend on continuous donations rather than endowed capital that generates returns.
