Towards a sustainable solution to open source sustainability
title: Towards a sustainable solution to open source sustainability
date: 2020-06-24 08:00:00
desc:
A few years ago, Heartbleed epitomized a massive open source sustainability problem for critical parts of the internet infrastructure. The bug, which affected the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library, notably compromised the confidentiality of 4.5 million US patient records and cost the industry an estimated $500M.
It was soon revealed that the root-cause of the issue was that OpenSSL was precariously understaffed. Open source sustainability became a major theme overnight. Stories of maintainer burn-out made the headlines. And tentative solutions started to emerge, most of them donation-based.
In this talk we’ll explore a number of existing strategies to fund open source and make it more sustainable, from patronage to dedicated ad networks. And we’ll defend the idea that the best path to open source sustainability is to help companies understand the tangible business value they can get from contributing to open source.
timezone: GMT
image: https://on.notist.cloud/slides/deck5423/thumb-0.jpg
notistSlug: towards-a-sustainable-solution-to-open-source-sustainability
notistID: 5JrQdv
talkSlug: sustainability
slug: 2020/openjs-world/sustainability
year: 2020
notistUrls:
- https://speaking.unlockopen.com/5JrQdv/towards-a-sustainable-solution-to-open-source-sustainability
- https://speaking.unlockopen.com/5JrQdv/
- https://speaking.unlockopen.com/5JrQdv
event: OpenJS World
address: Virtual
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url:
pdf: https://on.notist.cloud/pdf/deck-2b03fe12a5f6cf50.pdf
video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/HZZrbVKAC-4?feature=oembed
slidedeck:
![“\[P\]art of the reason much of open source is so good, and often so superior to closed-source commercial projects, is the natural boundary of constraints. If you are not being paid or otherwise compensated directly for your work, you’re less likely to needlessly embellish it. You’re solving the problems for you and your mates, likely in the simplest way you could, so you can get back to whatever you originally intended to do before starting to shave the yak.” —DHH, The Perils of mixing open source and money, Nov 12, 2013.](https://on.notist.cloud/slides/deck5423/large-32.png)
