As I shared with you on Twitter (1), I think the definitions of the terms might have been misleading. For instance, although the charts use the word "salary", in my blog post I defined what those terms meant:
> ...how much yearly revenue for a project goes to each “full-time equivalent” contributor. This is essentially their salary. Or, said better, this is how much their salary via donations would be if they were working exclusively on the open source project, without any complementary income. It is likely that a sizable amount of creators and maintainers work only part-time on their projects. Those that work full-time sometimes complement their income with savings or by living in a country with lower costs of living...
Later, when I specifically mention Electron, I say:
> This doesn’t mean the people working on those projects are poor, because in several cases the maintainers have jobs at companies that allow open source contributions. What it does mean, however, is that unless companies take an active role in supporting open source with significant funding, what’s left is a situation where most open source maintainers are severely underfunded.
In summary, this means that projects categorized in red or orange can be one of these cases:
- Maintainer is an employee earning fair salary, and nearly nothing (<10%) from donations: Electron et al
- Maintainer is independent, earns significantly (>50%) from donations: Sindre Sorhus (AVA), myself (Manyverse and Cycle.js), Paul Frazee (Beaker Browser) and others
- Maintainer is independent, earns entirely from donations: Titus (Unified) and others
The core message of the blog post still stands true, unless companies take a central role in sustaining open source (which is your case!), what's left is a situation of unfair compensation to open source maintainers.
> ...how much yearly revenue for a project goes to each “full-time equivalent” contributor. This is essentially their salary. Or, said better, this is how much their salary via donations would be if they were working exclusively on the open source project, without any complementary income. It is likely that a sizable amount of creators and maintainers work only part-time on their projects. Those that work full-time sometimes complement their income with savings or by living in a country with lower costs of living...
Later, when I specifically mention Electron, I say:
> This doesn’t mean the people working on those projects are poor, because in several cases the maintainers have jobs at companies that allow open source contributions. What it does mean, however, is that unless companies take an active role in supporting open source with significant funding, what’s left is a situation where most open source maintainers are severely underfunded.
In summary, this means that projects categorized in red or orange can be one of these cases:
- Maintainer is an employee earning fair salary, and nearly nothing (<10%) from donations: Electron et al
- Maintainer is independent, earns significantly (>50%) from donations: Sindre Sorhus (AVA), myself (Manyverse and Cycle.js), Paul Frazee (Beaker Browser) and others
- Maintainer is independent, earns entirely from donations: Titus (Unified) and others
The core message of the blog post still stands true, unless companies take a central role in sustaining open source (which is your case!), what's left is a situation of unfair compensation to open source maintainers.
[1]: https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1139533257077338112