Episode 58: Joel Wasserman on Flossbank and Sustainably Giving Back to Dependencies

Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer Guest Joel
Wasserman Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Our special
guest today is Joel Wasserman, an Engineer at Google and Founder of
Flossbank. If you’ve never heard of Flossbank, this is the episode
you want to listen to. We learn all about what it is, how the
method works, what makes it different from other donation models
out there, and how signing up and donating works. We also find out
if Joel has advertisers lined up and what the current state of
Flossbank is since they are still working on the system. Download
this episode now to find out more! [00:00:52] We start off by
learning what Flossbank is, what sets it apart, and how the method
works. [00:04:03] Joel tells us how he got involved in Flossbank,
how it started, and the process of how Flossbank works with signing
up and donating. [00:08:00] Eric wonders how the money gets
distributed all the way down to every package and is it through
open collective or does he have to reach out to everyone. Joel lets
us know they are in the process of building their maintainer portal
and he explains. [00:10:36] Joel tells us how the funds get
distributed. Justin wonders if this is a twenty percent time
project and how Google and Amazon feel about this project that has
to deal with money and his time. Eric also wonders what Joel’s
long-term goal is and does he see this as his primary business
eventually. [00:13:11] Eric talks about creating a business and the
kickbacks and negative feelings. He asks Joel to talk about what
percentage he’s planning on taking and how he plans on using that
money as it comes in. [00:16:25] Richard wonders how Joel justifies
Flossbank versus everything else and what’s his vision for making
it stand out. [00:18:29] Digging into the advertising side of
things now, Joel shares how he’s finding advertisers and if he has
any lined up. [00:21:00] Richard wants to know what Joel is doing
to support people who are not maintainers but who are major
contributors to packages. We also find out the current state of
Flossbank, even though they haven’t built the entire system yet.
[00:24:53] Joel mentioned earlier there is an enterprise version of
Flossbank Enterprise and he explains what that is, how it works,
and what the goal is. Joel shares a great story about a discussion
he had with a company. [00:27:58] Find out where you can get
involved with Flossbank or reach out to Joel. Spotlight [00:30:09]
Eric’s spotlight is iPad game called EVE Echoes. [00:31:11]
Justin’s spotlight is Handshake. [00:31:26] Richard’s spotlights
are Ethical Ads and The Long Trail. [00:31:58] Joel’s spotlight is
Coil. Quotes [00:06:10] “We found in the developer community that
nobody likes anything pushed on them, and just in general, we think
things should of course be opt in.” [00:06:24] “We also build this
on the belief that there are enough people in the ecosystem that
actually want to give back. There’s just maybe not very easy ways
to do it.” [00:08:50] “We have realized that we are really solving
the how to bring more money into the system part of the equation.”
[00:13:48] “André Staltz, who you recently had on the podcast, he
stated in one of his blog posts, I don’t remember how long ago,
talking about how open source is broken or something, said that if
GitHub gave back even a fraction of what they were bought by
Microsoft for then that would be 10X or a 100X fold what the open
source ecosystem actually received in donations that year.”
[00:27:05] “Some of these people don’t see the return on investment
on donating when their whole company is the return on investment.
Your whole company is actually only possible because of open
source. The fact that you have these employees is your return on
investment, that is what open source produces.” Links Flossbank
(https://flossbank.com/) Flossbank-GitHub
(https://github.com/flossbank) Joel Wasserman Twitter
(https://twitter.com/joel_wasserman_?lang=en) EVE Echoes
(https://www.eveechoes.com/) Handshake (https://handshake.org/)
Ethical Ads-GitHub
(https://github.com/readthedocs/ethical-ad-server) The Long Trail
(https://www.greenmountainclub.org/the-long-trail/) Coil
(https://coil.com/) 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/) Ad Sales by Eric
Berry Special Guest: Joel Wasserman.