💸 Open Source Funding: When "voluntary" is no longer enough

Imagine your favorite program only works because someone somewhere fixes a bug at midnight in their spare time.
Sounds heroic – but it's actually a problem. Because: Almost everything that's digitally important is based on unpaid work. By volunteers. In their spare time. No vacation, no pizza vouchers.

And we only notice when things crash – see Log4j 2021 or xz 2024.
Suddenly it became clear: Our digital infrastructure depends on a few tired developers with GitHub accounts and caffeine in their blood. 😅

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🚨 What's happening right now

Suddenly politicians, authorities and corporations are talking about money. Yes, really: Open Source should be paid!
The German Sovereign Tech Fund now supports projects like Apache Maven to maintain critical software professionally.

This sounds like a revolution: from "Thanks for the volunteer work" to "here's budget, please secure and sustainable".
But: Whoever pays has a say. And that's exactly where it gets interesting.

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🧠 The big questions

• Will Open Source now become a subsidy machine or remain independent?
• When will corporations finally take responsibility instead of just taking?
• And how long will it take until the whole thing sinks into bureaucracy again?

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🔮 Three future scenarios (slightly exaggerated, but close)

In 1 year:
Every second Open Source group is writing grant applications, half of them despairing over Excel forms.

In 5 years:
There are funding hybrids from state, companies and community. Sounds like chaos – but could work.

In 20 years:
Open Source is as important as electricity. States argue over digital sovereignty. And somewhere in Brussels a "Committee for Free Software and Moral License Policy" is meeting. 🏛️

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📊 Short and sweet

• 1,877 participants at the Java User Group 2025 – Open Source is no longer a niche topic.
• Three IT veterans with 60 years of experience show that voluntary work is no longer enough.
• Projects like "Support & Care Maven" show what sustainable funding can look like.

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⚖️ Opportunities vs. Risks

Plus points:

• Security through paid maintenance
• More stability, fewer panic alerts
• Promotion of technological sovereignty

But:

• Political dependencies lurk everywhere
• Funding can make projects unequal
• Bureaucracy kills innovation faster than any bug

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💬 Conclusion (and small provocation)

Open Source is the infrastructure of the digital age – but we treat it as if it were a hobby project.
Without fair payment, everything remains on shaky ground.
Politicians talk about digital sovereignty – but often forget who writes the code for it.

And to all students:
If you think Open Source is cool – don't just write code.
Also ask yourself who pays for it when you no longer want to work for free someday. 😉

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Source: Java User Group Switzerland, "Work in the Open Source World" (2025)