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Comment by jaboutboul | Hacker News Reader

Check out https://tidelift.com if you’re interested in something more robust that won’t take 10%. A bunch of ex-Red Hat guys who are truly open source legends behind it.

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Thanks for your comment. We have a lot of respect for anyone working to make open-source more sustainable. Here’s more information from their pricing page (https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/paying)

> What is the Tidelift share?

> We don't want to lock this number down until we have more data, but can commit that the majority of subscriber fees will be paid out to lifters.

Have you used them? What's their cut?

They're not about "cuts." First they track probably hundreds of thousands of packages/projects. They set up a subscription model where they charge based on dev team size/org size and project utilization and they provide security updates, maintenance, and legal assurances for the open source projects being used. Maintainers who sign up to help "lift" sign on for certain amount based on the popularity/ubiquity of the project. They are essentially channeling the revenues from these companies and paying out the maintainers. It the same as Red Hat charging a subscription fee and providing a whole bunch of stuff around that but Tidelift is paying maintainers directly.

You can read more about it here: https://tidelift.com/subscription and you can search through the packages and get some cool info for a maintainer here: https://tidelift.com/about/lifter

I DO NOT WORK FOR THEM. Just think this is the future of sustainable open source.

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