Snowdrift: A crowdmatching (crowdfunding) platform for public goods

On a more serious note, Snowdrift may actually be more relevant here than just the tech stack. Elm’s creator @evancz has long grappled with the compromises of funding methods for FLO projects like his programming language. Back then he talked about typical funding methods such as being backed by large companies, and the perverse incentives that tend to arise. While it’s not ready just yet, Snowdrift may offer exactly the solution he is looking for. I volunteer for Snowdrift because I think there’s a major need for it in the world. Some teasers from his thread:

I have thought a lot about how to support folks like that in a full-time role so they do not need to make trade-offs like that to meet the expectations of some users, but even if there was a magic wand to get money for that, I’d want to be extremely careful about the long-term incentives it would create.

The main point is that I really think that people underestimate the role of funding in supporting good working relationships in open source languages.

And then of course there is his brand new talk about the Economics of Funding Programming Languages.

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