Why We Are Funding Open Source Software
TLDR
- NEAR Foundation is contributing ~$35,000 towards funding Open Source Software on NEAR via quadratic funding via Potlock
- Any open source project building on NEAR is eligible to apply after getting approved on the Potlock public goods registry
We are happy to announce that NEAR Foundation is continuing to support builders through the Open Source quadratic funding round. While we are just finishing up the NEAR Retroactive Builders round for those who have built something impactful on NEAR, we are doubling down on NEAR builders who are building open source. Rather than builders who already built, we welcome new builders in the ecosystem that are contributing to the open source community.
The Importance of Funding Open Source.
Every single person building on NEAR and almost every software project ever benefits from the contributions of open source. Whether it is standards, the internet, the programming languages we use, and all the literal blockchains themselves, we literally wouldn’t have a job without OSS. Especially in the Web3 community where we don’t trust, we verify, auditability of code is essential to make sure we are interacting with known parties. Moreover, in an environment with increasing regulatory scrutiny, it is important that not only our code is distributed in a decentralized fashion, but that code bases continue to live on outside of the original contributors. A recent paper in Harvard estimates the value that open source has generated is $4–8 trillion and firms would spend 3.5 times on software if open source didn’t exist. Ultimately open source helps build censorship resistance software, saves engineering capacity, and propels innovation through a porous contributor network. Despite this, open source remains incredibly underfunded, often relying on single volunteers maintaining a lot of critical infrastructure. : According to Gitnux, only 21% of open-source maintainers are paid for their work. Since funding models are limited in the traditional space with donations, corporate sponsorships, and rarely venture capital, This makes it very difficult for contributors to plan long term strategy for open source and creates bottlenecks up the dependency graph.
Why NEAR Foundation is supporting
One of the healthiest indicators of a thriving ecosystem and a sufficiently decentralized community is the number of open source developers. According to Electric Capital’s Developer report, despite NEAR being one of the developer ecosystems in Web3 and one of the top 25 by market cap, and top 5 by users, we currently have < 200 full time developers. Now imagine the magnitudes of impact we’d have if we drove just a fraction of the billions in our ecosystem and millions of monthly active users to support thousands of additional developers. This vibrant open source ecosystem would continue to proliferate founders and builders to reach MVPs and iterate on full products, creating a flywheel effect for open source in not only the NEAR ecosystem but the entire Web3 space, as NEAR is the underlying chain abstraction stack.
This is why It is important we have plural mechanisms for supporting the developer ecosystem on NEAR. We continue to have a support network for open source developers through communities through DevHub, startup programs like NEAR Horizon, grassroots DAOs like Build DAO, automated bounties through Heroes and community led funding rounds through Potlock. The more rounds, network, and funding opportunities for builders the more we push the narrative of “if you build it, they will fund” across the NEAR ecosystem.
Unlike other verticals, NEAR Foundation funds, Open Source, is easier to understand in terms of impact funding in the ecosystem. The transparency inherent to open source allows for easier tracking of contributions and upstream dependencies, ensuring developers can build upon existing tools with confidence, and lets us iterate and improve OSS based funding rounds to come.
About the Round
The Open Source Software (OSS) Round will last around 5 weeks, 2 weeks for application from Monday April 8 -Sunday April 28th, then 3 week matching period. The round will be facilitated by Banyan Collective. The mechanism for determining how the pool is calculated is Quadratic funding on NEAR Protocol via Potlock to calculate the matching pools. This public goods funding protocol ensures equitable distribution, where contributions from unique individuals result in larger portions of the pools.While donations go directly to the project, how the pot / matching pool will be divided among participating projects is determined by the Quadratic Funding mechanism, ensuring that projects with widespread community support receive a proportionate share.
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To qualify for the round
- Must be building an Open Source Project on NEAR
- Sign up with your project account, get approved as a public good on Potlock, then apply to the round itself
Metrics for Evaluating Funding Round Success (qualify for more funding rounds)
- Amount of projects impacted / attested to impact
- Longevity of a projects, number of contributors, stars, etc
Want to directly support open-source software development
- If you are building an Open Source project on NEAR, apply before this Sunday’s deadline (April 28th)
- If you are looking to support your favorite open source projects, donate when the round is live from April 29th
- If you want to continue to sponsor the round potlock.org/how-to-sponsor
For direct support, join the Potlock telegram community and subscribe to updates here.
Some Love to Those Supporting OSS
Are you interested in avenues for funding and tracking open source developers? Here are some projects we love!
- Drips.network — allows people to stream to their open source dependencies
- Tea.xyz — streams rewards via staking automatically through software dependencies via known package managers
- Ecosyste.ms and Open Source Observer allows for easier tracking of open source software and their contributions
- Open Collective — allows open source repositories to have fiscal sponsorships for traditional financial access (supported $100 million + for open source communities0
- Gitcoin — funded millions in Open Source funding through quadratic funding
- RetroPGF — supported million in open source projects in the Ethereum Ecosystem
- Open Source Software Capital — the first and only early-stage VC exclusively dedicated to backing leading COSS (commercial open source) startup founders on a global basis since 2018.
