San Francisco Billboards Urge Tech Companies to Support Open Source Software

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Drivers in San Francisco are encountering new billboards calling out tech companies for not financially supporting the open-source software they rely on—a campaign initiated by the recently launched Open Source Pledge.

The Open Source Pledge asks businesses that utilize open-source code to contribute $2,000 per developer to support the projects they depend on. While 25 companies have signed up so far, co-founder Chad Whitacre aims to encourage larger firms to participate.

Whitacre, who serves as the head of open source at application monitoring company Sentry, noted that his employer has been funding open-source maintainers for three years. “We do dollars per developer, the thinking being it’s the developers and software engineers on the staff at a company who benefit the most from open source, who become more productive because of open source,” he said.

Some businesses, such as U.S. retailer Target and Indian online exchange Zerodha, have begun financing open-source development in similar ways. The importance of supporting open-source developers is underscored by Randall Munroe’s xkcd comic “Dependency,” which illustrates how critical software is often maintained by a single individual.

Whitacre acknowledges that attracting major tech companies will take time but remains optimistic. “These billboards are obviously a cheeky way to get people’s attention, and they’re working,” he stated. “I am hopeful that, if we are persistent, five years from now Microsoft will join, Google will join, and Facebook will join.”

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