I set a $20/month open-source donation budget for myself
After reading the blog post from Babel, I realized that I could set a budget for myself to fund open-source projects that I use the most.
I use many open-source projects at work and in my side projects. But I rarely make donation for these projects (I did donate some open-source projects such as Vue.js). I used them for FREE.
I maintain open-source project too. I understand how difficult it is. It's not only about coding, but maintainers also need to design the product (API), make decisions, think about the project's direction.
Most OSS maintainers do it as a part-time job without being paid, but they deserve.
$20 is not much for my income, but I think it means a lot for the open-source community. I can use this $20 to donate at least 4 projects ($5/project average). And I can change which projects to donate every month.
Currently I donate these projects and individuals:
- EGOIST A friend of mine being full-time OSS maintainer
- chakra-ui My most used React UI component library
- dayjs My most used moment.js alternative.
- react-query My most used React query solution.
- next-auth My most used OAuth library for my Saas projects
- Logseq Open-source Roam Research alternative I am using.
You could set a budget for yourself too. It's the best way to help OSS projects be sustainable. Even $1/month means a lot!