I remember Marak from the very early days of Node.js on IRC. He was extremely active answering tons of people's questions. I don't know him personally, although

I remember Marak from the very early days of Node.js on IRC. He was extremely active answering tons of people's questions. I don't know him personally, although he helped me a lot on IRC back in the day. I was excited watching Nodejitsu startup and sad to see it kind of disappear. In a lot of ways people like Marak and TJ Holowaychuk have done so much for the community that it wouldn't look the same without them. Let's not forget about the infamous node.js rap https://soundcloud.com/marak/marak-the-node-js-rap https://soundcloud.com/marak/marak-the-node-js-rap We often talk about the responsibilities of companies to pay open source engineers. I think this would be great but in my experience companies are very often looking for ways to cut costs to meet goals. Giving money to open source is likely one of the first things that would get cut in these situations. I'm not saying that is a good thing but a reality. That being said if the donations are so small that they aren't going to move the needle for a goal either way then it is unlikely to be cut. I don't know what the sweet spot is but it would be cool if it became standard for software companies to expect to give some portion of their budget to open source. This also leaves the question open for what the responsibility for individuals are. I'm not proud to say it but I haven't given very much money to open source developers. However, I have a list of about 10 that have had a very positive influence on my career. I would bet I'm not alone. I do feel conviction over this and posts like this are helping me re-evaluate this.