Yeah I'd be very leery of anything saying it's a solution to open source sustainability that isn't directly involving maintainers in the conversation and decisi

Yeah I'd be very leery of anything saying it's a solution to open source sustainability that isn't directly involving maintainers in the conversation and decision. It might sound 'fun' to throw dollars at a project and get their core developer to speak to your team, but it's also a huge time burden and productivity sink for them. If you've gotten value from a project pay the developer how they prefer to be paid. If maintainers just want direct financial support please give it. Don't make them jump through hoops or do tricks for you. These folks have lives, families to support, etc. and it does not scale to suddenly have their corporate users banging on their e-mail inbox demanding speaking time, etc. while shaking dollars at them.