You imply you'll burn through your savings for a couple years, then worry about financial support.
This is a huge red flag for me, and would strongly lead me away from using this project. Because it tells me this is a short-term effort which will die in a couple years.
MassTransit is going commercial because the offering has value, which (some) people are prepared to pay for. The people who aren't prepared to pay them are also not prepared to pay you.
Now, if you want to spend your savings and 2 years of your life making [name-redacted] 8.1 then go for it. But make no mistake, in 2 years you'll be back on the market looking for a job.
Coding is the easy part. Getting funded is the hard part. Do the hard part first, and you'll do the easy part for decades.
By all means build a community, but figure out how that community will fund your time. If the can't, or won't, then you're really not offering anything of value.
Good luck.