Episode 73: Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran on using Bounties for Open Source Software

Guest Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran Panelists Eric Berry | Justin
Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and
welcome to Sustain! On today’s episode, we have two guests joining
us, Tyler Maran and Anna Pojawis, the founders of Rysolv, a
crowdfunding platform for open source development. They tell us all
about Rysolv and what their motivation was behind starting this
company. Find out what types of people respond to bug bounties and
what sort of incentives are given to the developers to stick
around. We find out if Tyler and Ana are working with companies to
help with their program to get more money to build better bounties.
Also, find out where to find projects that they are funding, where
to find these bounties, and where they want this to go in the
future. Download this episode to find out much more! [00:01:08]
Tyler and Anna tell us all about Rysolv, how it works, and how they
came up with the idea. [00:03:36] Eric wonders what their
motivation was behind this company. Tyler shares with us when they
began, to where there are now, and the challenges that they face,
how they are generating more users, and how they’re advertising and
marketing their product. [00:06:40] Tyler talks about what he’s
learned around the types of people that respond to bug bounties.
[00:08:18] Anna and Tyler explain what they do to incentivize the
developers to stick around. [00:10:52] Richard wonders if they are
doing anything interesting to look at how to onboard users
collectively involving bounties in ways that make sure they stick
around, and Justin wonders what their expectations are for the
first year. [00:13:27] We learn what qualifies Tyler and Anna and
motivates them to be able to run this type of business, and how
they are going to solve the financial problems. Tyler makes a
reference to a xkcd comic. [00:17:28] Alyssa wonders what an open
source community looks like for these projects that are working
with bounties and if the people will ever be not paid contributors
to the work. Also, she wonders how money is playing within the
sustainability of these open source communities. [00:21:08] Richard
wonders if Tyler and Anna are working with companies to figure out
how to get money shuffled into their program to build better
bounties, and how they’re pitching this to people who may have the
wallet steep enough to sustain long-term contributions or sustain
people to have repeat issues. [00:23:48] In talking about a great
moment of getting money into the hands of a developer, Anna tells
us about one of the issues that recently got resolved and how they
felt after. Tyler and Anna tell us what they each do at Rysolv and
Anna tells us what her stack of choice is. [00:26:17] Tyler tells
us where you could find projects that he’s funding and where to
find these bounties. [00:28:03] Richard asks Tyler to share his
hopes and dreams, where he wants this to go in the next six months,
and if he wants a unicorn floating in a pool outside of his house.
Also, find out where you can get involved and where to follow
Tyler, Anna, and Rysolv. Quotes [00:20:13] “We want to build upon
the platform so that it can be more like long-term, more
sustaining, and have some community building aspect about it.”
[00:20:28] “As far as adding financial incentives, we think that
open source work should not have to be volunteer work. People
should get financial contributions for the amount of work that they
put in to sustaining the modern internet.” [00:22:40] “So we’ve got
what’s best for the company giving the money, and then you’ve got
what’s best for the maintainer.” Spotlight [00:32:52] Justin’s
spotlight is Git History Extension for VS Code. [00:33:15] Eric’s
spotlight is daily dev, a Daily Chrome Extension. [00:33:57]
Alyssa’s spotlight is virtual FOSDEM 2021. [00:34:55] Richard’s
spotlight is a tool on npm called License. [00:35:36] Tyler’s
spotlight is The Awesome Foundation. [00:36:47] Anna’s spotlight is
Discourse. Links Tyler Maran Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-maran) Tyler Maran Website
(https://www.tylermaran.com/) Anna Pojawis Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-pojawis/) Rysolv
(https://rysolv.com/) Rysolv Twitter (https://twitter.com/rysolv)
Rysolv-GitHub (https://github.com/rysolv/rysolv) xkcd-A Webcomic of
Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language (https://xkcd.com/2347/) Intex
Mystic Unicorn Inflatable Spray Pool-Amazon
(https://www.amazon.com/Intex-Mystic-Unicorn-Inflatable-Spray/dp/B07367RBR9)
Git History
(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=donjayamanne.githistory)
daily.dev (https://daily.dev/) FOSDEM 2021
(https://fosdem.org/2021/) License-npm
(https://www.npmjs.com/package/license) The Awesome Foundation
(https://www.awesomefoundation.org/en) Discourse-GitHub
(https://github.com/discourse/discourse) Credits Produced by
Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr
at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guests: Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran.