What I'm suggesting is that companies should provide their devs with "gift vouchers" or some sort of credits for them to distribute to open source libraries. Open Collective already supports vouchers, but I don't see why the Github Sponsors program couldn't create "GitBucks" or something.
I think this is the most realistic path to make companies contribute a bit more to open source. Quoting myself:
I really like the concept of Open Collective gift cards, where the employer puts the money and the employee chooses the projects. Many companies give their employees a conference/training budget, so why not make OSS financial contributions part of that budget too?
But how to make this happen.
No one wants to be the only company paying (unless there are marketing reasons). Giving 100$ to a project won't make it sustainable, we'd need to force companies to give those vouchers somehow, and ensure that others get "punished" if they don't.
What about crowd funding lib's versions? Like v1 is released, there are a few issues, now contribute to the v2 campaign or nothing will happen.
It distantly reminds me of e.g. Unity assets you have to pay for. Npm could become a Code marketplace. Problem would be that you would have to turn GitHub into a Code marketplace with it, otherwise another tool would emerge compying the code from GitHub. Also, some way would have to be found to prevent a simple clone of the code from being distributed freely... you cannot secure code using e.g. DRM
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
Great read Erik.
I think this is the most realistic path to make companies contribute a bit more to open source. Quoting myself:
But how to make this happen.
No one wants to be the only company paying (unless there are marketing reasons). Giving 100$ to a project won't make it sustainable, we'd need to force companies to give those vouchers somehow, and ensure that others get "punished" if they don't.
What about crowd funding lib's versions? Like v1 is released, there are a few issues, now contribute to the v2 campaign or nothing will happen.
It distantly reminds me of e.g. Unity assets you have to pay for. Npm could become a Code marketplace. Problem would be that you would have to turn GitHub into a Code marketplace with it, otherwise another tool would emerge compying the code from GitHub. Also, some way would have to be found to prevent a simple clone of the code from being distributed freely... you cannot secure code using e.g. DRM