Over at @tidelift things are getting real - we have a bunch of maintainers signed up and money available for more all the time. blog.tidelift.com/1m-to-pay-open…
On tidelift.com/about/lifter you can now dig into a bunch of details on how it works and search for a package you maintain. If you maintain anything known to @librariesio (see supported platforms: libraries.io/platforms ) you should find it in the search results.
If your package has subscribers using it already it there may be money there; if not, you can still sign up. When you sign up we will 1) notify you when the package is funded, 2) create a custom landing page and send you $250 each time we close a subscriber you referred.
If you can't use the money yourself, keep in mind that you could donate it, which we'd be happy to help you set up. Also keep in mind that each Tidelift Subscription sold supports the entire ecosystem (ALL dependencies used by that subscriber). Lifting all boats here.
One of the most helpful things you can do: ask your own employer to subscribe! Why not get robust maintenance and support on those 1000+ packages you rely on? We'd love to talk to you about that. This is a chance to stop free-riding while getting something for your money.
When you sign up as a maintainer, you can also join our forum along with a pretty cool group of other cross-ecosystem open source maintainers, to talk all things OSS maintenance or about Tidelift in particular. You can join even if you aren't earning money yet.
There's no obligation when you sign up for a not-yet-funded package; we'll tell you when there's money available and you can choose whether and when to assume responsibilities and claim it. You can also stop at any time with no penalty, once you start.
As with any business, the biggest challenge is marketing and getting the word out; I could make you all VERY sick of hearing about this from me, and still only 1% of potential customers will have heard about it. I'd greatly appreciate any shares, posts, upvotes, you can spare.
If you're an open source project, even if you don't want to sign up on Tidelift, it's still valuable to other projects in your ecosystem if you can find ways to encourage commercial users to subscribe.
People building apps on OSS stacks are typically spending millions to create and maintain their app - and it's a 1%-5% layer on top of a big pile of OSS. For both pragmatic and ethical reasons, they should be buying professional maintenance for the packages they rely on.
There's a lot more to say I guess but that's a pretty long thread already 😀Thanks for your patience and help! I hope if you're a maintainer we can get you paid, and if you're an OSS user I hope Tidelift+maintainers can jointly sell you a subscription that's 100% worth the money.
