
Stripe Open-Source Retreat - gdb
https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-open-source-retreat
======
cvburgess
I wish more companies and hacker spaces would launch programs like this. With
so many companies relying on open source, giving projects a little bit of
stability is crucial.

The no-strings attached is also a huge deal. Versus being employed, this
program lets people work on something that they are passionate about without
the risk of the company assigning them to a new project that they aren't
interested in.

~~~
blhack
Well, okay:

If you're an open source developer that needs space to work on their project
in Phoenix, you can come to heatsync labs (a hackerspace) and work on it every
day you want to for free.

Check it out here:
[http://live.heatsynclabs.org/](http://live.heatsynclabs.org/)

We can't give you money, though (since we don't have a ton of it; we're a non-
profit).

[By the way, this is kindof meant in jest: anybody can come and work on their
projects here if they want to, and that has always been the case.]

~~~
coolsunglasses
I'm a programmer that does open source and teaches classes in his free time. I
live in Austin, but all the coworking spaces here charge more money than I'm
comfortable paying, would somebody be willing to sponsor me or offer a
reduced-rate?

I can provide Github profile for proof.

~~~
dbla
I'm also in Austin and have been hanging out at Center61
([http://www.center61.com/](http://www.center61.com/)). It's a pretty nice
space for social entrepreneurs. Their definition of social entrepreneur is
flexible and I bet your open source work would qualify. At $25/mon it's pretty
affordable too.

------
jjallen
I thought this meant that Stripe was retreating from open-sourcing internally-
developed software.

A potentially better title is "Stripe offering open-source retreat for select
software developers".

~~~
phaemon
jjallen was downvoted, but I thought exactly the same thing. I was full of
righteous indignation, which was promptly defused by the actual article.

I'm very happy to be mistaken!

------
chriskelley
I'm interested to know where ideas like this originate within the company.
Outreach like this is great for their brand within the dev world, though this
may be more altruistic than CTF (semi-recruitment tool). There's no question
that both initiatives are clever enough to make one wonder how they come to
life internally. Love the idea(s)!

~~~
jorgeortiz85
We have an internal mailing list called "Crazy Ideas". No idea is too crazy.

Greg emailed the list two weeks ago with a proposal for the open-source
retreat. The reaction internally was quite positive. He polled open-source
maintainers externally to see whether this was something they'd be interested
in. The reaction externally was quite positive too.

Greg hammered out the details and shipped it.

~~~
droopyEyelids
This idea has been making me smile for like the past 40 seconds.

------
tericho
I'm generalizing here but I would hazard to guess a good majority of OSS
project maintainers (myself included) do so in their spare time and have full-
time jobs. It's unrealistic to leave a job for a 3 month "retreat", regardless
of how great the opportunity is.

I'm not suggesting it won't work, I think it's a fantastic program and I'm
rooting for its success. I'm just suggesting you may want to consider remote
opportunities (maybe with occasional visits for in-house tech talks) for
future iterations which would undoubtedly increase the talent pool and
presumably be more effective at delivering your end-goal.

~~~
lambda
Sure, it's not going to work for the majority of OSS developers; but nothing
is. It's nice to have different kinds of opportunities available. Some people
can do stuff in their free time; some may be more productive with a dedicated
sprint. Some people may have the opportunity to do it between jobs; some
developers are consultants, and can probably find a way to free their schedule
up for a few months if they can justify it with the extra income.

Different companies contribute in different ways. The company I work for funds
major features that we need, as well as having support contracts with the
primary developers of some of the key software that we use, and we contribute
back patches when we find bugs that need fixing. Google does their Summer of
Code, in which students can work remotely over their summer break, plus does
primary development of a lot of projects like Android and Chrome, and
contributes to others like the Linux kernel. Red Hat and Canonical mostly
develop open source software directly. The Gnome OPW funds internships for
women, over several periods over the course of the year.

So there are lots of opportunities out there, with a lot of different ways to
get funding and support. I don't think that each program needs to be all
things for all people; it's OK to have particular targeted and focused
programs, either on different groups of developers, different projects,
different types of time commitment, and so on.

~~~
tericho
I completely agree with everything you said. I got the impression from the
blog post they are looking for people to solve real world problems, and people
who are good at that are generally employed (comfortably). I hope the program
is successful and they expand it at some point to allow for different types of
arrangements.

------
chandraonline
If there is ever a company to look at to model your developer relations,
Stripe is it. It is really a joy to see the stuff these guys come up with.

------
joshdance
Stripe does a good job about staying top of mind for devs by doing things like
this. When I think of a great company to work for, Stripe and Github are
usually near the top.

And benefiting open source? Double win.

~~~
sanderjd
That's a really good point. I always reference them as a company that seems
great, despite never having used their service or known anybody who has worked
there. They have really great developer PR which, given their market, is also
just really great PR.

------
sirdogealot
Asking people to move to San Francisco for 3 months is just a tad bit
crazy/expensive don't you think?

One might spend ~$5,000/mo for a short 3 month stay in San Francisco.

Why not organize accommodation for them as well? Renting a house for 3 months
over a summer and dividing it by 3-4 grantees would be cheaper for both
parties. And it would help manufacture some incredible collaboration as well
imho.

~~~
shoyer
There are a lot of people who manage to live in the bay area on far less than
$7500/month. For example, it's very affordable to live in Oakland and commute
in on BART.

~~~
sirdogealot
Sure, I could spend my expertise living frugally in one of the world's most
incredible cities... or the company I am helping out could help me better by
providing me with a simple room to live in inside a house near their office
filled with other like minded people.

I am an expert programmer, I don't want to spend my 3 months in San Francisco
in a hostel just to help the greater good and save a few bucks.

------
afarrell
Can we nominate other developers who are working on projects we're not?

------
derekchiang
Wow, this is the exact idea I have been thinking about!

For successful companies like Stripe, the cost of doing this program is
negligible. And yet many open-source projects (OpenSSL comes to mind) can
really take a huge step forward by having several professional developers
working full-time on it for three months. Lots of kudos to Stripe for doing
this, and hope to see more companies follow this example!

~~~
ceejayoz
As a bonus, they're working in the Stripe office. If Stripe thinks they're
awesome, they can extend an offer at the end.

~~~
rch
I'd be more excited by the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with
other talented professionals.

------
thedob
This is really great. Kudos to Stripe. I'm curious about what the ideal
scenario is at the conclusion of the 3 months? Some options are...

\- The project has progressed significantly to the point where the developer
can hope to find continued sponsorship at Stripe or elsewhere.

\- The project has progressed to the point where it no longer needs the tender
loving care of the maintainer full time. Either it got more contributors or
has reached a new level of stability.

\- The developer joins Stripe (or somewhere else) full time and the project is
left better off, but without a full time contributor/maintainer

Any thinking about what the end-game is from the developer's perspective.
Either way, it's an incredible opportunity.

~~~
everettForth
The great thing about this that there are many good possible outcomes, for
Stripe, the developers, and everyone.

------
Bootvis
It's amazing how many cool things they come up with and follow through on.
Respect.

------
dochtman
So, hopefully some OpenSSL developers will apply?

~~~
zanny
Hopefully not. The heartbleed debacle is going to see that project showered
with money and corporate aid. We need to see projects that have absolutely no
support but are critical (a lot of the GNU utils are good examples). nginx
could probably use some of this goodwill, as can core language compilers, and
frameworks like Qt. Albeit Qt is probably a bad example, because you have to
sign copyright over to Digia. KDE5 is supposed to be very library portable, it
seems like a good place to put Qt extensions businesses are uncomfortable
turning over to Digia.

~~~
opendais
I think Nginx is good with [http://nginx.com/](http://nginx.com/) and their
Nginx Plus + Support Contracts model.

I'd like to see OpenSSH on this list simply because it is probably as widely
used as OpenSSL and I don't think it has better funding...I could be wrong
tho.

~~~
scolson
OpenSSH originates from the OpenBSD developers. While the OpenBSD foundation
could always use more money, they are no where near as bad off as the OpenSSL
team was/is.

~~~
CHY872
Really? I seem to remember them nearly having to shut down their servers a few
months back?

~~~
elbear
I don't have a link to give you, but recently they have received good funding.

------
jw2013
Even it is not explicitly mentioned, I wonder if Stripe will let 'whether the
applying project can be used somewhere inside Stripe' be one deciding factor,
or the project can be totally irrelavant to what Stripe is doing.

It is great seeing YC companies giving back to the community, first teespring
and now stripe. I can see it is the future that it is startups pushing forward
the technologies and communities, much more than big corps.

------
justincormack
I wonder if US immigration would count this as "work" for people without
ability to work in US?

~~~
patio11
Not an immigration lawyer but I unfortunately have to care about this stuff
w/r/t a non-US nation and have previously had to care about it w/r/t the US on
behalf of third parties: even "You talk at our office and we pay you a modest
honorarium" requires a B-1 (short-term travel for business purposes to e.g.
negotiate a contract) as opposed to e.g. a visa waiver. It is vanishingly
unlikely that the duration and scope of this project, which looks an _awful_
lot like "We wish to purchase your professional services for 3 months", would
be sustained under the B-1 visa.

Speak to a lawyer prior to relying on the above, etc.

------
s9ix
This is super cool. Love seeing all the new incentives for open source and
nonprofit startups.

------
jhenkens
Is there a reason this article is future dated by 5 days?

"Greg Brockman, April 29, 2014"

~~~
gdb
Good catch. Mostly I'm just bad at reading calendars :).

~~~
jhenkens
I like to think that your brain was just prioritizing more important concepts
:)

Sounds like an awesome idea - I look forward to seeing which projects get
selected.

------
nutanc
Why don't you give the grant to the current maintainer of the open source
project. I think that can have more impact on the open source project

------
niix
This is really awesome. Super inspiring and wish more companies would do this.

------
pyb
Sounds like you wouldn't be willing to give a grant to a pair?

~~~
gdb
You're welcome to apply together. We're looking to maximize impact, and e.g.
bringing together a pair who normally work together remotely could be a good
fit.

~~~
pyb
Sounds good! (I was asking in general not for myself)

------
hurtubia
This is a pretty inspiring initiative. Thank you for doing this!

------
rjf1990
This is awesome, can't wait to see what comes out of it.

------
tbrock
I'm going to submit an app for the NeoVim guy.

------
maccard
Are you guys accepting recent graduates for this?

------
cdevroe
This is great. Well done Stripe.

------
francesca
You guys are SO awesome!

------
boulderdash
smart hiring strategy!

~~~
Theodores
I think so too. It also works both ways. For those lucky enough to work on a
mutually agreed Open Source 'pet project' they will have a good idea as to
whether they really like the atmosphere and if the challenges available at
Stripe are going to suit them.

------
razfar
anyone know what software Stripe is using for their blog?

~~~
pc
We're using site/blog.rb, pretty much the last thing I wrote that's still in
production at Stripe...

------
knodi
Wow, this is amazing.

------
sinzone
outstanding hiring strategy.

~~~
cbab
Yes indeed. Encouraging open source contribution, validating that he/she can
get stuff done and evaluate culture fit. Win-win-win.

