[aordano]

I think a possible solution may be paying not in terms of money.

For a free and open source project, the ultimate goal IMO is growth and usability, to fulfill the reason why the software itself exists, and that can be done by donating that money in the shape of a hiring dedicated to work on the software. Some companies already do this, and i don't see why the practice couldn't be more established as a way to ensure a quid pro quo with the community.

[GordonS]

I have a few small-time OSS projects, the most popular only has ~50 stars on GitHub.

A couple of years back, someone asked if they could donate $250 to me - that was the first (and until now, only) time anyone did such a thing. I was really happy about it - not so much about the money, but more the fact they liked the project so much they were willing to hand over money.

Anyway, I asked if they could donate it to a charity instead, and I suggested a few that have personal meaning. They were quite happy with that, and actually donated $500 instead :)

[pessimizer]

That would only work for the largest companies hiring for the largest FOSS projects, without some sort of independent administration.

[jimmaswell]

Hiring a full time dev just for FOSS submissions probably isn't justifiable to most employers, but diverting just a little employee time seems reasonable, especially if it's directed at bugs/feature improvements impacting the devs' use of the thing.

[pessimizer]

Instead of a little time from a lot of employees (which might be as much a burden for the project as a blessing), it might be better for many companies to pay into a pot that provides someone's salary, while one of the companies donates the desk. This is what I meant by administration.

[xboxnolifes]

An issue with that is that even if you use a FOSS solution, your devs might not have the domain experience to contribute. Of if they could, it may be pretty inefficient to or take a while to get up to speed to get any meaningful contributions in.