Maintainers of widely used open source software are not adequately funded, and that is a real and unsolved problem.

Their wordsThis experiment started from the observation that despite being critical for the functioning of the Internet—and, by extension, the economy—the role of open-source maintainer has not yet found a sustainable manifestation.

Their wordsHell even worse, a lot of the libraries that underpin the fabric of what we all call the digital economy have trouble getting enough money to pay for food.

Their wordsWhat should we do about open source maintainers not getting the funding they need? It’s a very real problem, and one Kevin has explicitly asked us to talk about before we criticise his solution to it.