Building and maintaining an Open Source Software(OSS), the project is hard. If your project gets popular, it becomes even harder. When I started building Appwrite two years ago, I fell in love with the community, the people, and the OSS way. It only took me a few days to understand there is nothing in life I want to do more. Finally, three months after the project started gaining momentum, I decided to leave my day job and follow my dream, of becoming a full-time OSS maintainer.

Little did I know how hard it would be. For months I worked on improving the project, providing support, creating content, and spreading the word. I always believed Appwrite has huge potential, but at the same breath, I knew it was going to require massive efforts and resources to get the project where it can and needs to be.

After 12 months of working on the project full-time, I started feeling financial pain. I was literally with my back to the wall. Understanding the product is far from complete or in a state where I can monetize it, I started to think about collecting OSS donations, providing premium support, and even as far as canceling my rental as I was starting to feel the pressure of overloading expenses.

In the best timing ever, I got an amazing investment offer from the wonderful individuals at Ibex and Seedcamp that offered to support my vision for Appwrite. Six months later, they were followed by an investment from Bessemer (Auth0, Cloudinary) and Flybridge (Firebase, MongoDB) that led our 8.5m seed round.

Today with over 27 full-time Appwriters and backed by a community of over 150,000 developers, we're stronger than ever, which means it's time to give back and support those who weren't as fortunate as us and remember the origins of our journey. Today is the time to announce the Appwrite OSS Fund.

Why OSS fund?

Open-source is all about collaborating, learning, sharing, and building together with the community. Keeping up this spirit, we at Appwrite thought of giving back to the community with the introduction to “Appwrite OSS Fund”. This is our way of giving back to the community - which forms the core of our company - growing and helping others grow. If reading Eldad's story made you think to yourself, "that sounds just like me," then this is your cue to apply for the OSS Fund, and take your project to the level you dreamt of.

In the journey of turning your dream project into a reality, all that you need to have is the vision to build an awesome open-source project. The idea behind the fund is to support developers like you and the open-source project you are building.

How does the fund work?

The Appwrite OSS Fund is simple:

• You apply for it from here.
• If selected, you get a fund worth $2500.
• We pay you via GitHub sponsors or Open Collective.
• You can nominate yourself or any other maintainers you know.
• There is no bar to the number of nominations you make - with an exception of one project per nominee.
• Once your application is received, a response email will be within 15-30 days.
• To review the applications, we will set up a committee composed of the core Appwrite team and representatives of the Appwrite community to assess all applications. The committee will decide how the funding will be best used by applying projects based on multiple factors, ranging from project popularity, technological impact, innovation, and the current project’s financial capabilities.
• For more information, visit here.

This Is Not Enough

We will always think of new ways to expand our support for the community and ensure this will be core to everything we do at Appwrite, but we also recognize our support alone will not be enough. We call other companies and individuals to join us. Support projects and maintainers in one of many ways possible, and work together to create a sustainable future where open source is not only something we get a lot from but also something we are actively giving back to.

Acknowledgment

We are humbled to have the opportunity and privilege to contribute to the growth of developers. Thank you for all the love and support that you all have showered on Appwrite, it gives us the enthusiasm to become better every day.

Let the spirit of open-source never get dull - share about the Appwrite OSS Fund to the maximum, help us reach the unheard voices.