How Microsoft’s FOSS fund supports the open source ecosystem

Microsoft FOSS Fund is one of the many ways the company supports the open source ecosystem that we all depend upon for so much. Every quarter the company's FOSS Fund typically awards $30,000 USD split across 1-5 projects in order of most-voted. Past recipients include LLVM, Debian, serde, YAML, mermaid.js, and NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access). Projects have used the funding for everything from paying for security audits to hiring graphic designers to create logos.

In this article we'll explore:

• How Microsoft taps employees to identify projects to fund

• What you should consider when building your own open source funding program

Building bridges to the open source community

The FOSS Fund, inspired by Duane O'Brien, was established by Microsoft's open source program office (OSPO) in 2019 and made its first sponsorships to open source projects in 2020.  Projects are identified through  employee nomination and voted on by employees who have contributed to open source in some way in the last few months. Microsoft is able to tap into the knowledge and passion employees have for their dependencies as both an opportunity to support those projects, but also to build awareness of impact, need and advocacy beyond any one project. Now Microsoft is one of many companies participating in the FOSS Funders group.

"Microsoft's FOSS Fund helps us build connections between Microsoft employees and open source communities," says Microsoft Open Source Programs Office Principal TPM Emma Irwin. "Being able to evaluate dependencies for sponsorship, contribution, or other opportunities is a competency like any other in engineering and has to be taught and practiced."

How Microsoft FOSS Fund works

Any Microsoft employee can nominate a project used by Microsoft, but only employees who have contributed to open source in the last six months are eligible to vote on the winners. Around six thousand employees voted in the last round.

To be considered, a project must meet the following requirements:

• Be used by Microsoft products and/or services.

• Have an OSI-approved open source license.

• Have a way to receive funds that our procurement and legal teams approve.

• Have transparent governance about where and how funds are directed.

• Not be owned, or primarily maintained by Microsoft employees.

Projects must have public facing details about how sponsorships are distributed, for example in the form of a FUNDING.yml file or in the GitHub Sponsors pane. The goal here is to ensure that the community is not surprised by the direction of funding.

Irwin says GitHub Sponsors is the preferred way to handle donations because it's already established as an accepted vendor, and makes it extremely easy to make payments. "We've heard from people at other companies that they prefer to use GitHub Sponsors when possible too," Irwin says. She emphasizes that while it's a preference, it is not a requirement: The Microsoft FOSS Fund has paid projects through fiscal sponsors like NumFocus, SFI, and other means.

Words of advice

Irwin says that other organizations looking to create their own funds for open source software should start by setting goals and identifying metrics that teach employees about their dependencies and ways of investing that actually help---be that contribution, sponsorship or beyond. "You need to think about, given your budget, how many different projects  you are able to sponsor and what metrics you should use to find them," Irwin says. "For example if you want to focus on sponsoring single maintainer projects even one sponsorship can make a huge difference and you might be able to do more of those."

Keep adjusting as you go. "Treat the whole process as a continual learning opportunity," she says. "Keep asking what problem or problems you're trying to solve and how the funding will help."

Irwin also emphasizes that investment in open source is a cycle, with no beginning or end - it's important to regularly evaluate the impact of  these efforts on the sustainability of your dependencies over time and to look for emerging needs. "FOSS Fund is a one-time award" she says. "Projects need ongoing contributions to be sustainable."

That means more companies stepping up to keep open source projects thriving, with upstream contributions and, yes, funding.

If you're ready to start sponsoring the open source projects you depend upon, or you're a maintainer looking for sponsorship, sign-up for GitHub Sponsors today.