They do $10k once a month to various projects and have been doing so since 2020. Curl was just one month of many. Microsoft sponsors open source in other ways as well, this is just one way to allow open source contributors from within Microsoft to choose specific projects to direct donations towards.
Note: I do not work for Microsoft, I merely possess the ability to read.
On the one hand, if multiple companies would donate $10k, it might be a good source of income. But I think a problem for projects is that it is not really predictable. You can only leave your job or decide to work part-time if you project has a reliable income stream, but drops of money at random points of time does not really make that possible/
Besides that, it seems Microsoft usually donates 10k every month. Given that that is probably less than the monthly salary of many Microsoft employees, it’s only a paltry amount compared to the profit that they extract from FLOSS (though Azure, WSL, etc.)
Microsoft delivers a lot of value. So not saying this directed at them. It’s the whole status quo. These sponsorships are just handouts. Maybe you’ll be lucky that your critical open source dependency will get a pittance. cURL delivers tens of millions of value, probably more. Maintainers and contributors must become stakeholders in the code they create themselves.
To my mind, it’s more PR stunts. All FOSS projects aren’t in the running—just ones on Microsoft’s GitHub code forge that have opted into their Sponsors payment platform. The motive would seem to spark FOMO to get projects to flock back to or lock in from leaving GitHub (because every big bad news cycle, there’s usually a small exodus and a lot of the biggest projects, like Freedesktop, left long ago) in a chance to win their lottery. GitHub keeps a 10% of the transaction towards orgs in the process. This feels like a marketing run to monopolize the dev payment space so they can skim off some cash, and require every developer to have a Microsoft GitHub account and feed all that data to their machine.
My tinfoil hat is on pretty tight, but a centralized, proprietary, closed-source platform built atop the shoulders of FOSS definitely feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
[ Disclaimer: I work for MS, but this is my perception of the programme and not based on an official statement by anyone who runs it. ]
I believe that the main purpose of this is actually inward focused. Microsoft is gradually undergoing a culture transition from open sourcing things only if there is a very compelling reason to do so to open sourcing by default unless there is a very compelling reason business case for keeping something proprietary. Programmes like this are there to try to normalise contributing things upstream within the company. Any employee who contributes to any open-source project during a given month is eligible to vote (and to nominate projects). The project that gest the most votes gets some money but that’s a secondary benefit: the main goal is to get folks in the company talking about the open-source projects that they contribute to and want to support. The winners are also listed in an internal newsletter and so this increases the visibility of cURL in teams that have historically never thought about the F/OSS ecosystem as anything other than a competitor. In the long term, hopefully this will increase the number of MS employees who contribute to cURL.
I’ll still remain skeptical that this isn’t just an Embrace. Turning a new leaf may be possible, but you still have a publicly traded company so I’m curious what value this is providing the shareholders.
Two things: First, we are a massive consumer of open source software and that’s only going to grow. We benefit from a thriving ecosystem. Second, Azure attach. We make enormous piles of money from renting computers to run Linux (and much smaller, but still noticeable, piles of money from renting computers to run FreeBSD) to a large number of customers. A lot of disruptive technologies come out of open source and we have a vested interest in ensuring that people think of Azure as the place to run them.
If I compared to politics, wealthy donors donating is rarely about wanting to help the candidate, but asking for favors in return. Luring people to Azure seems the “now you scratch mine” favor then. I’m still not buying the purely goodwill aspect.
Really, Microsoft? $10k? Is that even enough to be useful to most projects?
They do $10k once a month to various projects and have been doing so since 2020. Curl was just one month of many. Microsoft sponsors open source in other ways as well, this is just one way to allow open source contributors from within Microsoft to choose specific projects to direct donations towards.
Note: I do not work for Microsoft, I merely possess the ability to read.
It reads like it will be $10,000 a month, for ten months though, no?
It’s 1k a month for ten months
The description could definitely be clearer. I’m still not sure after rereading that several times.
On the one hand, if multiple companies would donate $10k, it might be a good source of income. But I think a problem for projects is that it is not really predictable. You can only leave your job or decide to work part-time if you project has a reliable income stream, but drops of money at random points of time does not really make that possible/
Besides that, it seems Microsoft usually donates 10k every month. Given that that is probably less than the monthly salary of many Microsoft employees, it’s only a paltry amount compared to the profit that they extract from FLOSS (though Azure, WSL, etc.)
Microsoft delivers a lot of value. So not saying this directed at them. It’s the whole status quo. These sponsorships are just handouts. Maybe you’ll be lucky that your critical open source dependency will get a pittance. cURL delivers tens of millions of value, probably more. Maintainers and contributors must become stakeholders in the code they create themselves.
To my mind, it’s more PR stunts. All FOSS projects aren’t in the running—just ones on Microsoft’s GitHub code forge that have opted into their Sponsors payment platform. The motive would seem to spark FOMO to get projects to flock back to or lock in from leaving GitHub (because every big bad news cycle, there’s usually a small exodus and a lot of the biggest projects, like Freedesktop, left long ago) in a chance to win their lottery. GitHub keeps a 10% of the transaction towards orgs in the process. This feels like a marketing run to monopolize the dev payment space so they can skim off some cash, and require every developer to have a Microsoft GitHub account and feed all that data to their machine.My tinfoil hat is on pretty tight, but a centralized, proprietary, closed-source platform built atop the shoulders of FOSS definitely feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.[ Disclaimer: I work for MS, but this is my perception of the programme and not based on an official statement by anyone who runs it. ]
I believe that the main purpose of this is actually inward focused. Microsoft is gradually undergoing a culture transition from open sourcing things only if there is a very compelling reason to do so to open sourcing by default unless there is a very compelling reason business case for keeping something proprietary. Programmes like this are there to try to normalise contributing things upstream within the company. Any employee who contributes to any open-source project during a given month is eligible to vote (and to nominate projects). The project that gest the most votes gets some money but that’s a secondary benefit: the main goal is to get folks in the company talking about the open-source projects that they contribute to and want to support. The winners are also listed in an internal newsletter and so this increases the visibility of cURL in teams that have historically never thought about the F/OSS ecosystem as anything other than a competitor. In the long term, hopefully this will increase the number of MS employees who contribute to cURL.
I’ll still remain skeptical that this isn’t just an Embrace. Turning a new leaf may be possible, but you still have a publicly traded company so I’m curious what value this is providing the shareholders.
Two things: First, we are a massive consumer of open source software and that’s only going to grow. We benefit from a thriving ecosystem. Second, Azure attach. We make enormous piles of money from renting computers to run Linux (and much smaller, but still noticeable, piles of money from renting computers to run FreeBSD) to a large number of customers. A lot of disruptive technologies come out of open source and we have a vested interest in ensuring that people think of Azure as the place to run them.
If I compared to politics, wealthy donors donating is rarely about wanting to help the candidate, but asking for favors in return. Luring people to Azure seems the “now you scratch mine” favor then. I’m still not buying the purely goodwill aspect.
That’s patently false. GNOME uses self-hosted GitLab, and QEMU uses hosted GitLab, both recipients of the fund.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/06/microsoft-chucks-gnome-10000-from-their-foss-fund/
This is true. This find is separate from the $500 campaign for GitHub Sponsers