Show HN: Tea protocol, our $250K open-source grant

[devshogun]

tea (https://tea.xyz) is shaking up the digital world by addressing the long-standing issue of inadequate compensation for open-source developers. Solving this issue is more urgent than ever, which is why we have decided to deploy $250K in grants ahead of the launch of the protocol. This initial stage aims to support maintainers of open-source projects that have a material impact on the open-source software ecosystem and a teaRank greater than 30 ahead of the tea Protocol Incentivized Testnet.

Don’t know what teaRank is and unsure if your project qualifies? You can check your project’s teaRank here (https://tea.xyz/rewards-for-oss-contributions) and learn more about what this represents on the protocol here (https://docs.tea.xyz/tea/i-want-to.../learn-about-proof-of-contribution/what-is-tearank)

*The Unsung Heroes*

Despite forming the backbone of the internet and modern technology, open-source developers like Max Howell, the creator of Homebrew, have historically received little to no compensation. This discrepancy is particularly stark when compared to the massive profits generated by corporations built on open-source software.

*The Urgent Need for Change*

The lack of proper incentives has led to decreased motivation and potential abandonment of projects, posing a threat to the very infrastructure of our digital lives.

*The tea Protocol: Empowering Developers*

The tea protocol strives to establish an environment where open-source contributions are not only acknowledged but also appropriately rewarded, ensuring a sustainable future for the unsung heroes of the digital world. Central to the *tea* protocol is its vibrant community of project supporters and vulnerability reporters, who are incentivized to actively participate in identifying and addressing software vulnerabilities.

tea's $250K grant is a step towards a future where open-source developers are celebrated and rewarded, marking the beginning of a new, more equitable era in open-source.

If your open-source project meets the requirements mentioned earlier such as it having an impact on the OSS ecosystem and having a teaRank greater than 30, then we would love to have you apply for the grant (https://wkf.ms/48UDBLy).

[skeptrune]

It's really cool to see more folks investing in and trying to support the OSS ecosystem. Hopefully some great contributors apply and receive the grant.

This also seems like a fairly good case for and use of a governance token. Given the noise AI generated CVE reports and even PR's generate, there is a case for a token being useful. I'm not sure that's TEA, but it's good to see folks giving it a shot regardless.

[quickthrower2]

Sounds lovely.

I would like to know how much money you have from grants and who is paying for them, and what you get out of it as a private (?) company.

Also is there a human element in the decision or is it all algorithm. I can imagine for $250k people might try to game it. Or just create leftpad type stuff and hope it gets a lot of dependencies and downloads with low effort.

It has crypto vibes, is it a token?

[jotaen]

Question: is tea only targeted at the subset of open-source projects that are available through package managers? (I.e., libraries mostly.) Like npm packages, Rust crates, Debian packages, etc.?

[mxhwll]

Great question jotaen. For our ITN we do indeed require the open source to be in a package manager. We support 6 package managers at launch including npm, pypi, gem, brew and apt.

We intend to aggressively expand this (I have soft spot for Swift) but also have plans for eventually decentralizing this properly relying only on release tarballs that can be signed proving attachment to the wallets registered with the tea protocol.

I'm fully aware just how much amazing open source is outside package managers but we really believe in doing this problem well and that also meant limiting ourselves at the outset to established and reputable third party data.