GoKawiilOpen Source software is not a “hobby” for your spare time. Literally every company you have worked for couldn’t run their business without any OSS. They extract value every hour and then ask maintainers to beg for a Friday afternoon, a donation button or a kind word in an all-hands.
We reject the begging. Maintainers inside companies should and can just take work time for the necessary work on the OSS code those companies already depend on. No paperwork required. No internal programme. No request for a manager’s blessing. Treat it like the infrastructure and technical debt work it already is and just crack on.
This is not a new idea. We’re just saying the quiet part out loud. It’s the way most open source has always been done. Maintainers keep the internet’s lights on without waiting for meetings, sprints or product managers to tell them what to do, when to do it and that it’s OK.