Open source isn't a tip jar – it's time to charge for access

Opinion Time and again, I see people begging for companies with deep pockets to fund open source projects. I mean, after all, they've made billions from this code. You'd think they could support the code's creators and maintainers. It would be only fair, right?

Screw fair. Screw asking for dimes. You can't live off one-off charity donations. Trust me, I've been on the boards of several small nonprofits. Dpending on what people put in a tip jar is no way to fund anything of value.

So you'll excuse me if I'm not blown away by the fact that Anthropic, AWS, GitHub, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and others – total market cap in the ballpark of $7.7 trillion – have donated $12.5 million in grants to the Linux Foundation, OpenSSF, and Alpha‑Omega. If you make $100,000 a year, that's about 16 cents ...