Announced the formation of a non-profit foundation Open Source Endowment, aimed at providing grants to significant open source projects. Unlike existing funds that distribute incoming donations, the Open Source Endowment is based on the idea of forming endowment capital (endowment), allowing for uninterrupted financing without depending on fluctuations in the technology market, budget cuts and the volume of donations received at the time.
In the Open Source Endowment, donations are not directly distributed to grant recipients, but are invested in a portfolio of low-risk securities. Only the income received from investments is used to pay grants, which is approximately 5% per year. A similar model of non-profit foundations has become widespread for financing scientific research at universities. It is noted that the Open Source world is in many ways similar to a research university and has a similar culture based on reputation, and similar functions – the joint creation of intellectual property for public good, peer learning within thematic communities and the commercialization of only a small part of the results.
Funds will be provided to the most significant open projects in the form of micro-grants of approximately $5,000 aimed at carrying out work to improve stability and security or reward maintainers. Only independent projects that are not affiliated with corporations, are not associated with startups, and do not receive venture capital funding are allowed. The first payments are scheduled for the second quarter of 2026.
Grant recipients are nominated through a special form on the website, after which, from the applications received using the risk assessment model and when Community participation selects winners deserving of funding. The selection takes into account indicators such as number of downloads, size of dependent projects, involvement in critical systems, code base size, security status, number of active contributors, maintained status, dependency on individuals (