CommunityBridge is a platform created by the Linux Foundation to empower developers — and the individuals and organizations who support them — to advance open source sustainability, security, and diversity CommunityBridge brings together project maintainers, contributors, and users to fund open source projects, improve code security, boost the size and diversity of open source communities, and much more.
With the public release, we also wanted to update everyone on the open source plans for the software itself. We are currently cleaning up the code, enhancing documentation and getting ready to open source the codebase so that it will be easier for developers to learn the code and contribute. We are a nonprofit and don't have an army of developers so it will take a bit more time. We're also working on soliciting feedback from developers about our plans for the license, code upstreaming model, and code of conduct. In particular we are seeking to align the licensing structure with free software principles. We will open source the codebase with the next release targeted for early Q3.
Open source powers more than 80% of the technology we all use every day, yet many of the world’s most critical developers and open source projects face barriers to growing and sustaining their communities, ranging from challenges with generating funding to improving security to advancing developers’ ability to further excel and contribute.
Ensuring open source communities have the resources needed to secure and maintain their code, grow their communities, and advance these technologies is critical. CommunityBridge will help address these issues by:
- Improving the sustainability of open source by putting more money into the hands of developers;
- Nurturing new contributors and increasing diversity in open source communities by creating on-ramps for open source talent; and
- Improving security best practices in open source development and providing visibility into specific dependencies and vulnerabilities that projects rely upon.
Throughout 2019 and 2020, the Linux Foundation will unveil a full suite of CommunityBridge services and tools designed to support maintainers, contributors, aspiring developers, and organizations that create and depend on open source software.
The initial services available at launch include:
CommunityBridge Funding: A crowdfunding service to raise money via donations from individuals and corporations so projects can pay maintainers and developers directly for their development efforts or project expenses. Features include fund matching, best practice badges, and diversity and civility promotions.
CommunityBridge Security: A project scanning service to provide maintainers with relevant information about upstream dependencies, security vulnerabilities, usage reports, and licensing details. Includes a bug bounty service to provide replicable defects as well as a backlog of actionable data that maintainers can easily use to improve the security and robustness of their projects.
CommunityBridge Mentorship: A mentorship matchmaking service that helps grow interested individuals into participating contributors in open source communities. It connects mentorship candidates with projects; mentees with mentors; projects with donors to provide mentorship stipends; and mentorship graduates with potential job opportunities.
CommunityBridge is open to the public. Anyone can view the public dashboards for open source projects on CommunityBridge, apply to participate as a mentor or mentee, or donate funds to a project. Maintainers of open source projects that have made an impact on the world can apply to run crowdfunding campaigns or mentorship programs through CommunityBridge.
CommunityBridge is free for open source projects. No fees of any kind are assessed to open source projects on the platform.
No fees of any kind will be charged for the first $10M USD raised through CommunityBridge; the Linux Foundation will underwrite the platform fees and payment processor fees for these donations. Every dollar of the first $10M raised will be available to the projects hosted on CommunityBridge for their use. Once the $10M milestone has been reached, contributions from individual and corporate donors will be subject to a 5% platform fee plus a payment processor fee.
Simply log in with your Google, GitHub, or Linux Foundation ID and follow the step-by-step guide. The application process takes just a few minutes, but please note that only project maintainers and/or collaborators with administrative control can submit a project to CommunityBridge to be reviewed for inclusion.
At this time, CommunityBridge supports one maintainer per project who serves as the admin of that project within the platform.
Inclusion of an open source project on CommunityBridge will be subject to the review and approval of the Linux Foundation. Among others, relevant considerations may include confirmation that the project is entirely an open source project; that it has sufficient indicia of broad community usage; and that it is aligned to the Linux Foundation’s purposes for the support of open source projects.
Click Support in the top menu or go to https://support.communitybridge.org/ to contact CommunityBridge support.