> Surely companies should want an active relationship with the developers of their most important and fundamental projects as well.
This sets up a false dichotomy. We _do_ have active relationships with the developers of our most important and fundamental projects.
> establish a business relationship to satisfy what open source licenses leave lacking
We do this. We pay on contract for work we need. This is separate from that.
> the results they are hoping for
The result we are hoping for at a company level is to give a more-or-less fair amount of money in return for the value we have received over the past year from sponsorship-seeking Open Source maintainers. I think of this as IOR instead of ROI—we are paying for value already received. This result is achieved. :)
Our hypothesis is that through social validation we can encourage other companies to follow suit, and if we're successful enough this could create opportunities that don't exist now. The $25k/yr scenarios you describe would be the bottom rung of this. FOSSFunders.com is where we're pursuing this. Wish us luck! :)
To be clear, I’m not criticizing, I think this is wonderful and good leadership. I’m just painting the larger picture for other readers. Sentry’s initiative is a good example that other companies can follow, I just want to make sure we don’t give the impression accidentally that this is a whole solution.
Super glad to hear that there are business relationships being established where needed. That helps strengthen the ecosystem.
This sets up a false dichotomy. We _do_ have active relationships with the developers of our most important and fundamental projects.
> establish a business relationship to satisfy what open source licenses leave lacking
We do this. We pay on contract for work we need. This is separate from that.
> the results they are hoping for
The result we are hoping for at a company level is to give a more-or-less fair amount of money in return for the value we have received over the past year from sponsorship-seeking Open Source maintainers. I think of this as IOR instead of ROI—we are paying for value already received. This result is achieved. :)
Our hypothesis is that through social validation we can encourage other companies to follow suit, and if we're successful enough this could create opportunities that don't exist now. The $25k/yr scenarios you describe would be the bottom rung of this. FOSSFunders.com is where we're pursuing this. Wish us luck! :)