FINOS Executive Director Gabriele Columbro, recently spoke with Linux Insider about the launch of GitHub Sponsors, a program that seeks to financially "support open source developers as recipients of paid sponsorships."
"GitHub Sponsors, launched in beta last week, is a new funding mechanism that enables open source users to make recurring payments, much like crowdfunding services such as Patreon and managed open source subscription services backed by creators and maintainers, like Tidelift."
"Efforts like Github Sponsors are very complementary to the mission and work of open source foundations like the Fintech Open Source Foundation, and others like Linux Foundation and Apache," said FINOS Executive Director Gabriele Columbro.
Early stage open source projects need angel and pre-seed money just like startups, he told LinuxInsider, noting that programs like GitHub Sponsors will be a great way to help get maintainers of open source projects the money they need -- especially for their initial incubation.
"Of course, this is until they may be ready to take advantage of shared services, cooperative technical and tooling platforms, and types of developer communities that open source foundations provide to projects ready to scale," said Columbro.