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Building a bridge over hungry monsters for open source sustainability

Building a bridge over hungry monsters for open source sustainability
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani / Unsplash

Launching next week: Open Source Wishlist

Every open source security incident teaches us something new; but more often than not we are reminded of past lessons. Projects and maintainers need help, succession plans, modern security practices, trusted governance as well as moderation and funding strategies. Minimally.

Despite years of experiments and well-intentioned initiatives, most maintainers of critical projects still receive little or no sustained support, leaving them to shoulder enormous responsibility in their personal time. Open Infrastructure is not Free - a Joint Statement on Open Source Sustainability

Although projects and funders would both nod their heads in agreement - that solving these problems for sustainability are worthy and achievable goals, that's where the conversation hits a wall. There is no standard and discoverable way for projects to ask for support, and even then, there's no standard way to evaluate the success of such interventions making funders uncertain (educated guesses).

It sometimes feels like projects and funders are on opposite sides of a canyon filled with hungry (bad actor) monsters, each side unsure how to bridge the distance, each desperately wanting to. Monsters ready to eat us all.

How I imagine maintainers and funders trying to understand each other (speaking across a giant canyon filled with hungry bad-actor monsters)

Enter the Open Source Wishlist

I mentioned that there is no standard way to ask for and measure impact of sustainability support, but there are a lot of established best practices, metrics, resources and people who can bridge that canyon. There is a way to operationalize sustainability support in a way that's highly visible, built on those standards, NOT dependent on any one foundation or company; one which provides not only funds to maintainers, but actual human help from established open source practitioners

Really!

oss-wishlist.com main page: Make open source sustainability a reality See what your dependencies actually need. Sponsor the work. Track measurable impact. A community project launching November 2025 Open Source Maintainers Create a wishlist of services your project needs for long-term health and sustainability. Wishlist Sponsors Fulfill specific, validated needs in projects you depend on. See exactly how your support creates impact. Open Source Practitioners Get paid to strengthen open source sustainability with work that values your expertise.
Open Source Wishlist - Arriving November 12th, 2025



Catalogue of services and resources (Open Source Wishlist catalogue!)

Screen capture of Resources and Services: Catalogue of Services & Resources Each service addresses a critical risk to project sustainability and which require expertise and time. Each resource is meant as a 'capture' for those things projects need, which require dollars (like infrastructure, tokens etc). Security Audit Service Currently Unavailable Comprehensive security assessment including dependencies, repository configuration, and OpenSSF Scorecard alignment Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Strong security practices protect the integrity and reliability of the software supply chain your products and services depend on. Learn more Practitioners needed → Developer Relations Strategy Service Build awareness, engagement, and community around your project with a strategic approach to developer relations and community outreach. Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Developer relations grow adoption, collaboration, and shared innovation capacity across the ecosystem, strengthening the foundations your teams build on. Learn more Project and Community Governance Service Establish trusted governance, contributor guidelines, and decision-making processes for technology choices, funding, and AI/alignment Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Governance provides the structure and clarity needed for consistent decision-making, legal confidence, and operational continuity across critical open source dependencies. Learn more Funding Strategy Service Guidance for maintainers to set funding goals, increase visibility for grants, credits, and other opportunities. This service helps you develop a strategy for success - no promises, just practical help to create a strategy and plan. Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Diversified funding strategies sustain critical open source dependencies, reducing reliance on single sources while ensuring long-term maintenance and stability. Learn more Maintainer Relief Support Service Hands-on help to catch up on maintainer tasks - PR reviews, issue triage, documentation, release notes, and community channels. Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Preventing maintainer burnout and getting projects back on stable footing ensures critical dependencies remain healthy during high-volume periods or resource constraints. Learn more Leadership Continuity & Succession Planning Service Comprehensive onboarding program to establish, vet and setup for success - new trusted project leaders. Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Succession planning ensures continuity in essential projects, reducing operational and security risk as contributors or maintainers change over time. Learn more Moderation Strategy Service Policies, workflows, and tooling to keep your community healthy, inclusive, and safe—clear guidance for moderators, predictable enforcement, and reduced maintainer load. Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact: Effective moderation minimizes disruption and keeps collaboration productive, helping projects remain focused and dependable under growth or stress. Learn more Hosting and Infrastructure Resource Cloud hosting, CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure resources for open source projects to ensure reliable deployment and operations. Learn more Ready to get help for your project? Create a wishlist with the services you need and share it with your community Create Your Wishlist
Catalog of available resources and services
  1. Project maintainers choose from set of known 'sustainability' levers as 'wishes'. These are 'services' like Governance and moderation strategy but also resources like Infrastructure.
  2. Those wishes are discoverable by 'Wishlist Sponsors' in a few different ways including a analysis of their SBOM and through the dependency FUNDING.yml.
  3. Wishlist sponsors can fund one or more of those wishes.
  4. Open source practitioners (paid or pro-bono) are dispatched to help maintainers implement the wish according to a rubric for success.
  5. Sponsor reports are generated based on the rubric score, and crossed off the wishlist
  6. Sponsors can report back on 'impact' (that wish will no longer in their dependencies).

Launching as a pilot next week!

This project has been a creative outlet for me as I recovered from layoffs, and find new inspiration. It is entirely open source, open content and volunteer - run. Contributions to format, content, playbooks will all be warmly welcomed. We will have up to 10 practitioners for the first pilot and as many maintainer wishes as we can muster.

Thanks to everyone, especially Christos Bacharakis who has taken time to give to contribute their ideas, insights and support. If you are interested in being part of the pilot either as a maintainer, sponsor or practitioner please get in touch at info at oss-wishlist.com .

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Jamie Larson
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