A startup called Tidelift wants to solve two of the biggest issues in the open source movement, namely, how to compensate developers for their work and how to ensure enterprises that the open source code they are using is secure and up to date. The company has a subscription-based business model that is similar to Netflix. Enterprises pay a regular monthly fee to Tidelift, which then distributes the money to open source developers. The developers must ensure that the code gets maintained regularly.
“We couldn’t understand why something like this didn’t exist, so we created it,” said Tidelift CEO Donald Fischer.
So far, Tidelift has raised $15 million in venture capital. It has earmarked $1 million for developer payments and plans to play developers at least $10,000 every two years.
