There are many [existing mechanisms] to sponsor open-source, but unfortunately none of them appreciably move the needle much. Collectively, they produce many or

There are many [existing mechanisms] to sponsor open-source, but unfortunately none of them appreciably move the needle much. Collectively, they produce many orders of magnitude less funding than is enjoyed their proprietary counterparts. When Aaron and David (the original two cofounders) were deciding whether they wanted to pursue this project, they were very concerned about whether they'd be recreating the wheel. So, they did an Exhaustive review of [other crowdfunding platforms], which we've done our best to keep up to date (although Clojurists Together is new to me, so thank you for sharing; it's on my list to make sure it gets added). In short, nobody has combined mutual assurance with sustainable, ongoing funding. As a nonprofit cooperative run almost exclusively by volunteers (myself included; I have no financial ties to the project), we're in this to hopefully make an impact on the world. If another platform adopted crowdmatching, and succeed in funding open source to the decree we hope, we'd cheer as we put down our (metaphorical) shovels. That is, we're not in competition with other platforms. We all want the same thing. [existing mechanisms]: https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/existing-mechanisms https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/existing-mechanisms [other crowdfunding platforms]: https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfunding https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfundi...