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Just correcting the quadratic funding link: https://fundoss.org - launching soon!

Open Collective team member here. All the money involved in this initiative goes to Open Source Collective 501(c)(6). As a non-profit, all revenues are reinvested back into the mission of building health and sustainability in the open source ecosystem. We're not really "raking in the big money" but if we do, it will all go toward supporting open source.

FWIW I agree with you about copyleft licenses, philosophically. But we've taken the approach of being very pragmatic when it comes to working with corporate sponsors, and we can't make them accept certain licenses, etc. Our approach is to build up funding for open source projects so they can be stronger and healthier and have the power to advocate for what they want to see in their ecosystem.

alannallamaon Funds for Open Source

Open Collective team member here. I totally agree that the gig economy approach is unhealthy. A big goal of ours is to help open source creators earn a decent living making open source that can rival what they'd get paid working for a commercial company. We've managed to facilitate that for quite a few projects, but as an ecosystem we have a long way to go. We need way more companies to step up to the plate and way more money flowing in. We also support projects who build companies and commercial offerings out of their open source projects, as long as they remain genuinely open source, and have many Collectives with parallel companies in addition.

alannallamaon Funds for Open Source

Open Collective team member here. This particular initiative is aimed at funding from major sponsors. Our platform also has crowdfunding functionality so projects can fundraise from individuals, too.

Almost all the corporate funding we facilitate is no strings attached, meaning the project creators and maintainers stay in the driver's seat when it comes to prioritisation. Some projects opt to make other commitments to funders but that's totally up to the project.

alannallamaon Funds for Open Source

Open Collective team member here. You're so right! We have been able to form partnerships with many big tech companies and grantmaking foundations, and it really opens up possibilities for projects to access them. Since we collectively represent so many projects we can use that scale to open doors, and on a practical level once we're in their supplier systems and have gone through their due diligence processes once, future funding is much easier.

alannallamaon Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

This is one of the times when the value of fiscal sponsorship really shines. For example, if you sign up with Open Source Collective [1] (which I'm on the team of), we can form a contract with the payer and receive the funds, then distribute them to you as the maintainer.

We do this kind of thing all the time for projects under our umbrella. We have lawyers on tap and lots of experience in this area, and we take on all the responsibility for tax reporting, legals, compliance, banking, invoicing etc etc.

If your project has >100 stars you can set up a Collective instantly.

[1] https://oscollective.org

alannallamaon Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

Hello, Open Collective team member here!

We do have quite a few open source projects running bounty programs.

Here are some examples:

* https://www.jhipster.tech/bug-bounties/ * https://www.mautic.org/blog/community/funding-mautic-communi... * https://docs.opencollective.com/help/contributing/developmen...

You can connect your GitHub Sponsors to your Open Collective and use both channels to fundraise and resource bounty payments.

More on that here: https://docs.opencollective.com/help/collectives/github-spon...

alannallamaon Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

I agree with your frustration about the green movement's knee-jerk rejection of nuclear power, but in NZ anti-nuclear policy was a very galvanising touchpoint for the environmental and anti-war movements, so there's a bit more context there. Nuclear-free and the Springbok protests are referenced constantly as progressive wins.

alannallamaon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2019)

Open Collective | Remote | Full Time

Seeking a full stack engineer who’s excited about open source, making communities sustainable, and transparent finances.

Open Collective is on a mission to help communities around the world be sustainable. On Open Collective, groups like open source projects, meetups, and movements can collect and spend money transparently, invite collaboration, and make their communities thrive.

We think you’d be great at this if you:

* Have experience in a full time full stack engineer position using JavaScript. * Are comfortable in a remote environment that is at the same time highly collaborative. * Are able to contribute to our two main stacks: GraphQL API (powered by Node and PostgreSQL) and our Web App (powered by Next.js, React and Apollo). * Are excited about contributing to our mission!

https://opencollective.com/hiring

alannallamaon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2019)

Open Source Collective | Marketing & Fundraising | Remote

Part Time or Full Time | Contract

The Open Source Collective is a non-profit working for the common interests of those who create and use open source software.

Seeking passionate open source sustainability advocate to take us to the next level with skills in sales, marketing, partnerships, and fundraising.

https://www.oscollective.org/hiring

Send questions & applications to hello@oscollective.org

alannallamaon GitHub Sponsors

Open Collective already offers many of these features.

alannallamaon Ursula Le Guin has died

We will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality.

― Ursula K. Le Guin, accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards

alannallamaon An introduction to Scuttlebutt, the lovely decentralized social network [video]

Feel free to volunteer to write subtitles! I'm sure the filmmaker would appreciate the help.

alannallamaon We Offered Matching Funds for Open Source – Here’s What Happened

You make a good point that the financial decision-makers and the engineers are often not the same people at companies, and this adds to the disconnect in how open source is valued. What do you think about the ideas presented at the end of the article suggesting some ways to address this, e.g. companies setting aside a fund for open source that their developers could decide how to spend?

From the "money people" perspective it would likely be more of a marketing/branding/recruitment/staff engagement expense (because those are the budget lines where they'll see value for the investment) - but at the end of the day the important thing is supporting critical open source projects.

alannallamaon $185M in 5 days: Block.one sets new ICO record with its EOS token

Can someone please explain this about ICOs for me: are people investing because they believe the company itself will create real economic value resulting in dividends based on their coin holdings, or is it all about secondary market gambling and betting they'll make a profit off coin speculation?

alannallamaon Why Is NumPy Only Now Getting Funded?

This is exactly the problem Open Collective[0] exists to solve. Often times, there are people who want to financially support a given open source project, but there is no channel by which to do so. Creating the financial channel is the first step toward a much needed culture change where the assumption is you will support the open source you rely on, especially if you're making money off it.

[0] http://www.opencollective.com

alannallamaon How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

I used to work a job in Japan that involved a bunch of foreigners fluent in Japanese from different countries (so Japanese was the only common language, but none of us were Japanese) gathering for regular meetings. If there weren't any Japanese bosses present, we'd just drop all the cultural/social restrictions on the language and use it as a tool with our international frame of mind.

Of course we all operated in Japanese in a professional setting daily, so knew the "correct" way to speak, but also had the ability to just drop all that when we wanted (which Japanese people basically never do). Totally different way to use the language, and if any Japanese people happened to overhear, it kind of blew their minds.

I found it very interesting to unpick all the different levels of linguistic, cultural, and social meanings and conventions in the language.

alannallamaon Preact: Countering the Perception That Open Source Must Be Free

Well, the article specifically discusses Open Collective vs Patreon, referencing VueJS. What do you think of the differences mentioned there?

alannallamaon Preact: Countering the Perception That Open Source Must Be Free

You can kind of already do this via the Open Source Collective: https://opencollective.com/opensource (but not as fully featured as what you're suggesting)

alannallamaon Preact: Countering the Perception That Open Source Must Be Free

"1% to Open Source" has a nice ring to it. And that should go for not only individuals' pay, but 1% of company revenue from businesses that use open source as well.

alannallamaon Preact: Countering the Perception That Open Source Must Be Free

Yeah that's always a tricky stylistic choice - I include them because I know some readers prefer to scan headlines as opposed to reading every word, and I want to help them take something useful away, too. Though I do really appreciate thorough readers like you so I hope it's not too off putting :)

alannallamaon Preact: Countering the Perception That Open Source Must Be Free

Makes sense that you'd only want to pay for things that provide you with value directly. I think that applies when donating a small amount to support a project you make use of, when you get something in return (like a t-shirt or sticker), or as you say to fund specific features or changes you want. That also goes for sponsors: they should get value in return, and they do, like exposure and reputation in the dev community, a platform for their recruitment message, etc. To me, this dynamic seems quite different from ads, which are non-consensual and not tied to a direct value exchange.

alannallamaon New Zealand Will Give You a Free Trip If You Agree to a Job Interview

There are a few similar programmes coming out like this. If you're an entrepreneur interested in NZ and working on social impact, you should also check out the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. Gives you access to the Global Impact Visa, and residency after 3 years.

http://ehf.org

alannallamaon Blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

If any developers are thinking about getting started with accessibility, I would definitely encourage you to!

Here's a short video of my co-founder talking about our journey with this in our startup, and how you can take some first steps: https://youtu.be/g0bjrTCKxZw

alannallamaon The Loomio Cooperative Handbook: How we run a worker-owned tech startup

Yes! I agree that what we need is real world examples and experimentation. Loomio will have a presence at the next Platform Coops conference, so hope to see you there :)

alannallamaon The Loomio Cooperative Handbook: How we run a worker-owned tech startup

Thanks! I'll check that.

Meanwhile, you can find our repo here: http://www.github.com/loomio/loomio

alannallamaon The Loomio Cooperative Handbook: How we run a worker-owned tech startup

Thanks! A big part of our mission is to demonstrate it's possible to do a co-op tech startup and run a company more in line with democratic values. If being transparent about how we've done it can help, that's awesome. Best of luck with your endeavors!

alannallamaon The Loomio Cooperative Handbook: How we run a worker-owned tech startup

Not very codified. We've done an OK job tracking them over the years and have good records, but haven't yet made decisions about under what conditions they would be paid out. We can't attribute specific dollar value to them at this point, or legally they would count as debt (which we don't want on the books). We aren't making enough money to be close to paying them out any time soon, so we're leaving that discussion to a later date.

Success would look like the co-op financially thriving to the point we can continue to grow the business, pay back our investors, and pay out Loomio points to everyone who has given their time and effort to get us this far (including a risk multiplier on the earlier work), and then moving to having surplus to distribute to co-op members and, especially, to fund other social impact projects aligned with our mission of a more democratic, fair world.

alannallamaon The Loomio Cooperative Handbook: How we run a worker-owned tech startup

Yes I've watched some of his talks. Good stuff.

alannallamaon The Loomio Cooperative Handbook: How we run a worker-owned tech startup

This is correct. Coordinators do serve some of the same functions as a manager, but the difference is they are appointed by the people they are managing. We call this "dynamic hierarchies by consent". Coordination also rotates, and many members have been in the role and then moved on from it.