Hello friends,

I left my job back in March 2018 to pursue working in open source, with the intention of being entirely funded by the community!

And thanks to many of you, this is real now! Getting the opportunity to live and think about open source (without needing to do other kinds of freelance/contract work) is truly a dream come true.

I've been working on Babel since 2015 (I'm not the creator, I joined long after it was renamed from 6to5 and already popular). I've moved from hopeful onlooker to stumbling into becoming a (still hopeful) maintainer. Yet I care deeply about open source as a whole; not just asking the hard questions but living them out.

So if you would like to support my future work in open source as well as initiatives like Hope in Source or future writings, consider joining me as a sponsor! (I'd love to hear why you chose to sponsor) 🤗

another update: stepped away from my previous open source work but been experimenting with other ways of being creative: box/visual programming idea, making an app for friends/serendipity, receipt printer experiments, and more..

A note about sponsorship: I don't want anyone to feel guilty for not supporting me. Similarly, I hope to continue work in open source because I want to, not because I have to. So in this vein, I made my "tiers" just about the things I like: more to give you a fun theme to donate about. They aren't providing a service and I don't consider them to be in the category of monetary value! So I can hopefully freely give and the same for anyone else. But please reach out if you want to chat or meetup (even if you don't decide to sponsor)!

I love this perspective on it:

Like any other relationship, if someone loves and cares about your work, you don’t need to bribe them to stick around. Mentors and advisors (good ones, anyway) don’t invest in people because they want to get paid. Friends (good ones, anyway) don’t hang out with you because they need something in return. They’re there because they weirdly fell in love with what you’re doing, and they want to see you succeed. - Nadia

-Henry