Funding Open Source like public infrastructure

Summary

To protect the digital foundation of essential government services, governments should invest in Open Source as public infrastructure and shift from consumption to contribution. Fifteen years ago, I laid out a theory about the future of Open Source. In The Commercialization of a Volunteer-Driven Open Source Project, I argued that if Open Source was going to thrive, people had to get paid to work on it. At the time, the idea was controversial. Many feared money would corrupt the spirit of volunteerism and change the nature of Open Source contribution. In that same post, I actually went beyond discussing the case for commercial sponsorship and outlined a broader pattern I believed Open Source would follow. I suggested it would develop in three stages: (1) starting with volunteers, then (2) expanding to include commercial involvement and sponsorship, and finally (3) gaining government support. I based this on how other public goods and public infrastructure have evolved. Trade routes, for example, began as volunteer-built paths, were improved for commerce by private companies, and later became government-run. The same pattern shaped schools, national defense, and many other public services. What begins as a volunteer effort often ends up being maintained by governments for the benefit of society. I suggested that Open Source would and should follow the same three-phase path. Over the past fifteen years, paying people to maintain Open Source has shifted from controversial to widely accepted. Platforms like Open Collective, an organization I invested in as an angel investor in 2015, have helped make this possible by giving Open Source communities an easy way to receive and manage funding transparently. Today, Open Source runs much of the world's critical infrastructure. It powers government services, supports national security, and enables everything from public health systems to elections. This reliance means the third and final step in its evolution is here: government...