Episode 270: Ben Nickolls & Andrew Nesbitt on Ecosyste.ms

Guests Ben Nickolls | Andrew Nesbitt Panelist Richard Littauer Show
Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard is joined by guests
Ben Nickolls and Andrew Nesbitt to discuss the ecosyste.ms project.
They explore how ecosyste.ms collects and analyzes metadata from
various open-source projects to create a comprehensive database
that can help improve funding allocation. The discussion covers the
importance of funding the most critical open-source projects, the
existing gaps in funding, and the partnership between ecosyste.ms
and Open Source Collective to create funding algorithms that
support entire ecosystems. They also talk about the challenges of
maintaining data, reaching out to project maintainers, and the
broader implications for the open-source community. Hit the
download button now! [00:01:58] Andrew and Ben explain ecosyste.ms,
what it does, and how it compares to Libraries.io. [00:04:59]
Ecosyste.ms tracks metadata, not the packages themselves, and
enriches data via dependency graphs, committers, issues, SBOMs, and
more. [00:06:54] Andrew talks about finding 1,890 Git hosts and how
many critical projects live outside GitHub. [00:08:37] There’s a
conversation on metadata uses and SBOM parsing. [00:12:49] Richard
inquires about the ecosystem.ms funds on their website which Andrew
explains it’s a collaboration between Open Collective and
ecosyste.ms. that algorithmically distributes funds to the most
used, not most popular packages. [00:15:45] Ben shares how this is
different from previous projects and brings up a past project,
“Back Your Stack” and explains how ecosyste.ms is doing two things
differently. [00:18:59] Ben explains how it supports payouts to
other platforms and encourages maintainers to adopt funding YAML
files for automation. Andrew touches on efficient outreach, payout
management, and API usage (GraphQL). [00:25:36] Ben elaborates on
how companies can fund ecosyste.ms (like Django) instead of
curating their own lists and being inspired by Sentry’s work with
the Open Source Pledge. [00:29:32] Andrew speaks about scaling and
developer engagement and emphasizes their focus is on high-impact
sustainability. [00:32:48] Richard asks, “Why does it matter?” Ben
explains that most current funding goes to popular, not most used
projects and ecosyste.ms aims to fix the gap with data backed
funding, and he suggests use of open standards like 360Giving and
Open Contracting Data. [00:35:46] Andrew shares his thoughts on
funding the right projects by improving 1% of OSS, you uplift the
quality of millions of dependent projects with healthier
infrastructure, faster security updates, and more resilient
software. [00:38:35] Find out where you can follow ecosyste.ms and
the blog on the web. Quotes [00:11:18] “I call them interesting
forks. If a fork is referenced by a package, it’ll get indexed.”
[00:22:07] We’ve built a service that now moves like $25 million a
year between OSS maintainers on OSC.” [00:33:23] “We don’t have
enough information to make collective decisions about which
projects, communities, maintainers, should receive more funding.”
[00:34:23] “The NSF POSE Program has distributed hundreds of
millions of dollars of funding to open source communities alone.”
[00:35:47] “If you have ten, twenty thousand really critical open
source projects, that actually isn’t unachievable to make those
projects sustainable.” Spotlight [00:39:35] Ben’s spotlight is
Jellyfin. [00:40:20] Andrew’s spotlight is zizmor. [00:42:21]
Richard’s spotlight is The LaTeX Project. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org
(mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) richard@sustainoss.org
(mailto:richard@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Discourse
(https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) SustainOSS Bluesky
(https://bsky.app/profile/sustainoss.bsky.social) SustainOSS
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sustainoss/) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Ben Nickolls LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamuk/) Andrew Nesbitt Website
(https://nesbitt.io/) Andrew Nesbitt Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/@andrewnez) Octobox
(https://github.com/octobox) ecosyste.ms (https://ecosyste.ms/)
ecosyste.ms Blog (https://blog.ecosyste.ms/) Open Source Collective
(https://oscollective.org/) Open Source Collective Updates
(https://opencollective.com/opensource/updates) Open Source
Collective Contributions (https://opencollective.com/opensource)
Open Source Collective Contributors
(https://opencollective.com/open-source) Open Collective
(https://opencollective.com/) 24 Pull Requests
(https://24pullrequests.com/) Libraries.io (https://libraries.io/)
The penumbra of open source (EPJ Data Science)
(https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-022-00345-7)
FOSDEM ’25- Open source funding: you’re doing it wrong (Andrew and
Ben)
(https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5576-open-source-funding-you-re-doing-it-wrong/)
Vue.js (https://vuejs.org/) thanks.dev (https://thanks.dev/home)
StackAid (https://www.stackaid.us/) Back Your Stack
(https://backyourstack.com/) NSF POSE
(https://www.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/pathways-enable-open-source-ecosystems)
Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/) GitHub Sponsors
(https://github.com/sponsors) Sustain Podcast-Episode 80: Emma
Irwin and the Foss Fund Program (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/80)
Sustain Podcast- 3 Episodes featuring Chad Whitacre
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/chad-whitacre) Sustain
Podcast- Episode 218: Karthik Ram & James Howison on Research
Software Visibility Infrastructure Priorities
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/218) Sustain Podcast-Episode 247:
Chad Whitacre on the Open Source Pledge
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/247) Invest in Open Infrastructure
(https://investinopen.org/) 360Giving (https://www.360giving.org/)
Open Contracting Data Standard
(https://standard.open-contracting.org/latest/en/) Jellyfin
(https://opencollective.com/jellyfin) zizmor
(https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor) The LaTeX Project
(https://www.latex-project.org/) 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 Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guests: Andrew Nesbitt and Benjamin Nickolls.