GitHub announced that over $100 million has now been paid through Sponsors to people maintaining open source, since the program started in 2019. The number isn't just big - it's accelerating: the first $10 million took nearly two years, the last $10 million took five months. The software almost everything stands on is finally getting a bill that someone pays.
- GitHub announced on 20 July 2026: over $100 million paid through Sponsors since 2019.
- Per GitHub's data - reaching 70,000+ maintainers, from 280,000+ sponsors, in 103 regions.
- The pace is accelerating: the first $10 million took ~2 years, the last $10 million took 5 months.
One hundred million dollars. That's what GitHub has paid to people who keep open source running - the labor that half the internet stands on. Until now that labor mostly went unpaid. Slowly that's changing.
What's underneath? A dependency few people think about. I've run events where everything depended on two techs backstage that nobody in the room noticed - and the bill, if something broke, landed right on them. Open source works the same way. A huge share of the planet's software stands on free parts maintained by a handful of people in their spare time. Break one of those parts, or have the author walk away, and everything on top wobbles. Sponsors is an attempt to turn that labor from a hobby into something people get paid for.
The interesting part is who's paying now. Early on the money came from individual developers. Now more and more comes from companies - and the average corporate sponsor gives many times more. Business is starting to admit that the free foundation under its product has a cost. This isn't charity. It's upkeep for the floor you're standing on.