While I agree that direct payments to maintainers are great, they almost always amount to a laughable salary / pennies for years of professional work. I would

While I agree that direct payments to maintainers are great, they almost always amount to a laughable salary / pennies for years of professional work. I would never start a serious open source project — I contribute for fun but trying to make a living from it is painful and the community yells at you bc you bring money into OSS.