[markphip]

A $500K donation to the maintainers of the open source projects used by a company is significant. Full stop. There is no other hand. It is also not the only contributions they make. If all companies made decent sized donations to the open source projects they rely upon the whole ecosystem would be more vibrant and sustainable.

Microsoft also has its FOSS Fund which donates $10K each month to a project that is nominated and voted upon by its FOSS contributors. https://github.com/microsoft/foss-fund

[hellerve]

Fair enough, but should $500k coming from a $10M ARR business be received with the same applause as $500k coming from a >$1B ARR business?

Both are valid opinions, I think, but personally I tend to be more impressed by the smaller business.

At any rate, as I said, it’s a great start.

[markphip]

Is there even one $10M ARR business that has donated $500K even one time? Maybe I am just missing this as these companies do not get the attention of GitHub but I have been involved in open source for 20+ years now and I have little memory of any companies that are donating. The only contributions I tend to see is the companies that have FTE to work on some of the open source projects that matter to that company.

What about all of the banks, oil, retail etc. with enormous ARR? Every company relies on open source. Most do not contribute money or people to the effort. We ought to be celebrating and encouraging more of this.

[hellerve]

> Is there even one $10M ARR business that has donated $500K even one time?

I don’t have exact figures for most of these companies, of course, but I have seen many small consulting or teaching businesses contribute a lot of money to OSS (here’s one such example, I don’t know the company, just a quick look on Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/frontendmasters). That’s because they rely on the success of those software systems to continue making money, of course, but I don’t think that’s any less true for the big payers.

> What about all of the banks, oil, retail etc. with enormous ARR?

I in no way meant to single out GitHub or insinuate that what they were doing was bad, that’s why I tried to end on a high note (to emphasize yet again: _it’s a great start_). What I’m trying to say is that I hope it doesn’t stop there, for GitHub or anyone else. The incentive to do it is higher when there’s good PR coming out of it, and that is mostly true the first time around. I’m hoping that there are more incentives at play than just PR (genuinely, not in a “but I don’t think so” way).

[0des]

Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.

[jcouball]

I had a friend who always misquoted that as “don’t kick a gift horse in the mouth.” That seems more appropriate for this thread.

[0des]

The term originates from the concept of receiving a free horse and having the audacity to check its teeth so as to judge the quality and value of the gift as that was the means at the time of judging a horse's age, longevity and health.

[joshmanders]

$500k donated by any business is a lot and should be praised and encourage others. They don't HAVE to do anything, but they are taking the initiative to help out. Can't say the same about other companies.

[jrochkind1]

What is the $10M ARR business that has donated $500K to open source? I will do my best to give them even more applause.

[hellerve]

You might want to check out the sibling thread.

[jrochkind1]

It isn't leading to me any other business donating $500K to open source yet, 10MM ARR or otherwise.

[morelisp]

Is GitHub's 500k "a donation" or "a budget for bizdev/marketing"? How would you tell the difference?