How Does Open Source Get Funding?

Open source is built by individuals from around the world. While some are volunteers, students, or hobbyists, many are paid developers working for software vendors, consultants, or integrators.

On the organizational side, many popular projects join FOSS Foundations - typically non-profit organizations that serve as an independent home or fiscal sponsor for the project. Most Foundations handle legal, IP, fundraising, and infrastructure services for projects; other Foundations do more. Many other projects are independent, or are hosted by a company or just by an individual with a website. Read FOSS Sustainability for more ideas about keeping open source projects health.

How Are Open Source Foundations Funded?

• TL;DR FOSS is a comprehensive high-level explanation of most open source concepts.

• Who Pays For FOSS Foundations is a brief overview slide deck about how some major foundations are funded, and includes limited data on how many code contributions are by paid employees/contracors, versus indepednents or volunteers (i.e. unpaid).

• Looking for a Foundation? There are three great directories and one guidance site:
  • FLOSS Foundations has links to many organizations important to open source.
  • FOSS Foundation Info is a metadata directory about the organizations behind the foundations.
  • OSSFoundations List includes brief listings of a wide variety of software-related Foundations.
  • Need help picking? Try Choose A Foundation for advice on which one to join as a project.
• FOSS Governance collects governance and policy documents from many Foundations.

How Are Individual Projects Or Maintainers Funded?

Many important open source projects don’t have major fiscal sponsor. How can they seek funding on a smaller scale?

• Open Source Collective provides a simple and transparent fiscal hosting model for FOSS projects and others.

• PayDev’s Awesome OSS Monetization site is a comprehensive and categorized listing of different funding methods and tools.

• OSS Fund is a listing of existing monetization platforms focused on typical FOSS project activities.

• FOSS Funders is a listing of corporations that regularly fund FOSS efforts, either directly or through sponsorships.

• Nadia Eghbal’s lemonade-stand list of resources discusses how smaller FOSS groups can find funding.

• NPO Public Filings is a GitLab repo with many tax forms for major FOSS Foundations already organized.

• Join people talking about Sustain OSS, where a number of open source leaders lead discussions and programs to help sustain the maintainers.

What types of non-profit foundations are there?

• Most Open Source Foundations are some type of non-profit organizations, which file IRS 990 forms in the US or other forms in Europe and elsewhere.
  • ProPublica has an excellent non-profit finances finder that often includes both PDF and structured XML downloads of multiple tax years of non-profits.
  • The IRS publishes selected years of 990 forms (required for non-profits in the US).
  • Many foundations in the US are IRS determined 501(c)(3) public charity organizations; donations may be tax deducible; public charities must serve charitable purposes in their actions.
  • Some foundations in the US are IRS determined 501(c)(6) business league organizations; donations are not tax deductible; business leages typically serve the interests of their sponsors.
  • The FOSS Foundations Metadata directory is collecting basic tax status and budget data on the biggest foundations.
• Europe and some other countries have other subtle variations on “public charities”, as well as a variety of kinds of grants from consortia or governments to study some open source areas.

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