> Luckily you do not need credentials to solve problems with software.

No, but you should at least provide a perspective why you will succeed (where many others have tried and failed).

The only thing I see different in their approach is trying to "empower maintainers to become entrepreneurs", in a market in which there is no actual demand (= willingness for companies to pay cash). And they try to do that with a offering that I think maintainers couldn't care less about:

- GH Issues shows all the info you need to get an overview over your backlogs funding = there ain't any amounts of relevance

- maintainers are usually quite aware of all the external dependent issues of the project, and if you really want to get an overview, a tracking issue is easy enough to create

> no actual demand (= willingness for companies to pay cash)

My company would be a lot more willing to pay a one-time bounty to fix a bug that is impacting us or build a feature that would help us then to pay a continual donation or sponsorship for uncertain benefit.

> My company would be a lot more willing to pay a one-time bounty to fix a bug

And how often do you do that today, in practice? If the pain is big enough, then I'm sure you tried to reach out to maintainers directly and see if there is a way for them to do paid work.

I think you're underestimating the amount of friction that requires and as a result how many don't bother. Let's remove the friction entirely and see what happens.

Shared some more context re: this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755640

You don't, and this isn't directed at OP, but the industry is ripe with hubris. Having a track record of success is less about pedigree, and more about building off of prior learnings and experience to solve complex problems. And leveraging your network when relevant.

Thinking that those things aren't an important asset is common and IMO a flaw.