Open source development has been the reason for the rapid growth of tech. Yann LeCun, the famous proponent of open source projects, takes every opportunity to elaborate on how vital open source development is. 

The sustainability of open source projects, however, is dependent on the financial returns it sees over time. “There is a lot of unnecessary friction today to sponsor specific features, issues or milestones for open source projects,” said Birk Jernström, the founder of Polar. 

The company, founded in 2022, is a platform that manages the subscriptions and payments for people who create and support open-source software. It also offers tools for working with data.

Many open source projects start with being freely available and eventually seek funding. Red Hat for example, known for its Linux distribution, monetised by selling subscriptions for technical support, updates, and training to businesses. This model helped fund continuous open-source development while providing enterprise-level services. 

Alternatively, Blender, a 3D creation suite, supports its development through the Blender Development Fund, donations, and paid services like professional training and Blender Cloud subscriptions. 

For smaller projects, platforms like Patreon or Open Collective let supporters donate monthly or per project. GitHub Sponsors allows direct donations to developers. These models rely on voluntary support, which may not match the actual effort needed for development.

However, Polar takes it a step further and allows funding for specific features, issues, or milestones. This drives the project in the direction that is valued by the customers. It motivates the developer who would know they’ll get paid for hitting clear goals. 

Jernström clarified the difference from existing funding platforms, pointing out, “There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this and that’s what we want to build, one platform for multiple solutions.”

Polar is changing open-source funding 

GitHub is keen on giving developers the options to choose how they want to monetise their work. In 2019, they launched GitHub sponsors, but as one user pointed out, it is nothing more than ‘coffee money’ between persons. Polar, according to Jernström, gives maintainers the option to be ‘entrepreneurs’. 

There have been donations in the past with platforms like Open Collective, and Stack Aid, among others, allowing individuals and companies to pledge financial support directly towards specific issues or feature requests in open-source projects. Polar intends to go beyond this ‘coffee money’ funding and provide a steady stream of income. 

Jernström explained, “Donations and sponsorships are great when they happen. Problem is, they rarely do. In order to drive meaningful (full-time work) capital to OSS initiatives, I believe it has to charge for add-on value and that such services and subscriptions are mutually beneficial.”

Polar facilitates the sale of add-on services, subscriptions, or premium features, and inturn maintainers can craft offerings that align with their project’s goals and community’s needs. The platform takes a 10% commission including the 5% charges for Stripe transactions. 

“As an ecosystem, we should be focused on how we can get 10x, 100x and then 1000x funding. Five percent of nothing is nothing. That’s the real problem in OSS today. Let’s fix that first,” he said. 

This could include anything from offering paid support, consulting, custom development work, access to premium features, or early access to new releases.

This is an upgrade from voluntary support to making it easy for backers to financially support the issues and features they care about. By handling the financial transactions, tax considerations, and potentially even compliance issues, Polar lets developers focus on working on the projects itself. 

Ease and transparency

Transparency has always been very important to open source funding. For example, the open collective for example is designed around transparency, with all financial transactions visible to the public by default. Expenses, income, and budgets are tracked and displayed on the platform, and contributors can see how funds are used and allocated.

Polar goes the same route and has complete control over which issues or features they want to highlight for funding through the platform. This ensures that they can align any external funding with their project’s roadmap and priorities. 

Maintainers can set goals for funding specific initiatives within their projects, providing clarity to potential backers about what their contributions will support.

Andreas Kling, a key contributor to the SerenityOS and Ladybird who uses Polar for funding, said, “We’ve been using Polar for funding GitHub issues for a couple of months now, and it always makes me super happy when I see someone collect a reward!”

SerenityOS is a Unix-like OS with a classic desktop interface and user-friendly design, supported by an active developer community. Ladybird is its companion lightweight web browser, offering fast and secure browsing seamlessly integrated with the OS. 

Kling added, “I’m super happy to see Polar take on the task of becoming a Merchant of Record and abstracting away much of the complexity for all developers.” 

By addressing these critical and often overlooked aspects of open-source project maintenance, Polar is setting a precedent for how platforms can support the sustainable development of open-source software.