GitHub Sponsors passes $100 million for maintainers

GitHub Sponsors has paid open source maintainers more than $100 million since launch, GitHub said July 21. GitHub's own post names maintainer burnout as one of the biggest risks to the software supply chain, and admits the funding gap remains enormous.

That money reaches more than 70,000 maintainers and organizations in 103 regions, funded by over 280,000 sponsors, according to GitHub's post. Split across those 70,000 accounts, $100 million comes to roughly $1,400 each, spread over years, not annually.

The post doesn't say how evenly that money is spread. A milestone total can hide plenty of maintainers getting next to nothing.

The curve is what stands out. The first $10 million took nearly two years to raise. The most recent: five months, a sharp jump in pace for the same program.

That acceleration tracks who's funding it. Organization-funded sponsorships average close to 15 times the value of individual ones, GitHub says, and corporate money is what's pulling the growth curve forward.

Watch the org-to-individual ratio from here. If corporate sponsorships keep growing at 15 times the individual rate, funding tilts further toward companies. The maintainers who get paid will increasingly be the ones whose users are companies, not hobbyists.