At Mercedes-Benz, we want to help drive forward Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) – and we want to invest in the software that we depend on and use on a daily basis. Therefore, we are sponsoring Open Source financially by paying money to projects proposed by our community.

In 2014, the Heartbleed Bug sent shockwaves across the internet and lead to news headlines like: “The Internet Is Being Protected By Two Guys Named Steve”. Although this headline is somewhat humorous, it revealed a crucial vulnerability of FOSS altogether: Oftentimes, important Open Source Software is maintained by a few engaged, but tired and overworked, underpaid individuals. Recent examples include the Log4Shell vulnerability whose consequences still aren’t even fully clear yet.

Okay, but what can we do?

There are a few ways to remedy this situation: By active participation through community engagement, high-quality contributions, becoming a maintainer, or through membership in Open Source foundations. (We are, for example, members of the Eclipse Foundation, Linux Foundation, or the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.) While we work on becoming more and more engaged in all of these activities as a company, another good option is through financial sponsorship – which goes beyond just money, but also gives the software the recognition their creators deserve.

Invest in software we depend on – through sponsorships!

Well… fast forward: We are now already in our third round of sponsorships. In the first round in August 2021, we sponsored 13 projects; and in the second round in March 2022, we sponsored 14 projects. Some receive a lump-sum payment, some get monthly payments for a year, and some of these will be renewed in the next year. And right now, we are in the process of our round three: As before, we have again asked our developer community which projects should receive financial contributions: FOSS projects that they utilize the most. FOSS projects they could not live without if they were to disappear overnight. And in particular, FOSS projects that are useful to many but don’t get enough credit or funding. We are planning to finalize the project selection in September and pay out the monies to the deserving projects or developers. In the meantime, if you’re curious who we sponsor, check out our current sponsorships through GitHub sponsors here.

So, what do you think?

We really believe that sponsoring is a great way to drive FOSS forward altogether. And we think that if more and more companies join in, then many small amounts make big amounts, and more and more of our FOSS heroes out there can concentrate on what they do best: Make great software.

We like to hear what you think! Drop us a note at foss@mercedes-benz.com. And if you have the time, check out my talk about our sponsoring activities at the FOSS Backstage 2022 conference.