I never understood why its so hard for Corporations (specifically, US Corporations) to just give back to these projects via corporate charity contributions. I know, this takes away from other worthy causes too in some ways, however, I think we could get massive boosts that help all tides in the long run.
After all, US corporate giving, from a cursory search, in 2019 alone was 21.09 billion USD[0] if even 1% of that made it toward open source, that would fund an overwhelming amount of projects overnight. Just 1%. And it would be extremely effective per dollar in terms of what society gets back in return.
I don't know why tech companies don't see it this way in particular.
The whole issue with OSS software is there isn't any money coming in with significant quantity to fund projects, many, many of which are fundamental to technologies we all take for granted, take the OpenSSL story for example, as alluded to in this press release when corporations got shamed for taking advantage of this project with little funding:
Now imagine if projects like this could receive real, significant ongoing funding. Maybe charity isn't right, (non profit would be a better word here I think). I see it as a net gain.
It doesn't mean it wouldn't be complicated and add more overhead to certain projects of x size though.
Please do elaborate more though if you think it would strongly result in a net negative.
Speaking to the broader issue this pertains to though, I think my point still has some merits on that basis. This is really a proxy for an industry wide problem, whether is a for profit company or not behind the open source software
After all, US corporate giving, from a cursory search, in 2019 alone was 21.09 billion USD[0] if even 1% of that made it toward open source, that would fund an overwhelming amount of projects overnight. Just 1%. And it would be extremely effective per dollar in terms of what society gets back in return.
I don't know why tech companies don't see it this way in particular.
[0]: https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-g....