I'd argue that money's been in OSS since its inception.
To try to put a number on it, here's a random study that 50% of oss is people at their paid job: https://dirkriehle.com/2013/08/22/paid-vs-volunteer-work-in-...
But anecdotally that number is consistent with my experience.
When we created the GNOME Foundation in 2000, it was in part to manage the commercial vendors and money involved (Compaq, Eazel, Helix Code, IBM, Sun Microsystems and VA Linux Systems, see the press release https://www.gnome.org/press/2000/08/red-hat-joins-industry-v...).
This was not at all unique to GNOME, same kinda stuff around all the major projects at that time.
One thing I think is new and constructive is more ways to pay maintainers without asking them to join a giant company.
Re:GitHub Sponsors
by throwaway_7718 on Thursday May 23, 2019 @07:32AM
(#19990694)
I feel the same way, honestly. Thinking of it in a different way - torvalds and gregkh get paid by the Linux Foundation. Say it went bankrupt, they would surely need to get other jobs, unless they were sponsored by the community. Many developers of the kernel today are sponsored by their employers. The question is, how many of them would do it (out of sheer enthusiasm) if they aren't getting paid to?
Re:GitHub Sponsors
by eclipseo76 on Thursday May 23, 2019 @11:36AM
(#19992701)
Who's forcing anything? It's op-in. I welcome our capitalist overlord with open-arms if they want to sponsor my volunteer work. It's a win-win scenario.
Open source has worked fine being just volunteer for the past several decades. In fact I'd argue it's one of the only ecosystem that keeps on being awesome. I don't think adding money to the equation will change any of this. In fact it might risk making it worst.