Episode 282: Devconnect 2025 With Lucas Fada  Hello and welcome to sustain the podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the longhaul. I am Errol Fox and with me today is >> Victory Brown and we are speaking to Lucas who is head of partnerships for Drips Network. Lucas is bringing more than 10 years of experience working in early stage startups. His primary focus at Drips has been on achieving the company's vision of making open-source software projects and maintainers financially sustainable. Oh, a dream. by strategically aligning them with the needs of funders. Lucas is responsible for leading all goto market strategies for drips, interacting with ecosystems, funders, and communities. This results in partnerships with missional aligned ecosystems such as Filecoin, ENS, Scroll, UNICEF, and the EF. Hey, Lucas, can you tell us a little bit more about what doing partnerships for Drips networks entails? Yeah, sure. So, as I was saying before, I'm not usually asked questions. I ask other people questions to bring money into open source. So, yeah, a lot of my work is around talking to different ecosystem, understanding what they want to fund in open source and find ways in which our protocol and products that we build on top of that can service some of those needs. So, what are the most common questions that you're asking funders? Or correct me if I'm not using the right words, but what are the most common questions or topics that you end up having with these funders for supporting open source projects and the ecosystems that you're funding for? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, actually it starts before talking to the funders and understanding if they have done some work or some funding around open source. So whenever we find some of that information, we try to see who's the one talking about it or who's behind those things. So those people tend to be more aligned with funding open source right in that specific ecosystem. So once we talk with these people, we try to understand how funding those open-source repositories or public goods came about, why they do it, how does it align with their strategy and then from there we try to build and talk a little bit about our primitive is our protocol and how we did things with other ecosystems that might inspire them. >> Thank you Luka. Earl in your experience with speaking to open source funders, what are the kind of projects that you've seen most funders being interested in in the open source space? Can you highlight some of them? >> Yeah, for sure. So, typically the projects that are more visible are not like down the tree in their dependency tree. So sometimes very famous libraries like ethosjs or webm for example, open zeppelin are the ones that you hear the most. But that's what we are trying to do at drips. You can fund those but then you're allowing those dependencies to fund their dependencies. So it doesn't necessarily mean that the funer needs to understand or needs to fund all their critical dependencies just the ones they think are the most critical and then they pass the ball to those dependencies who can pass it on through their dependencies. That's how we are building a dependency graph. >> Okay. So do you think this is more from the fun side if it's personal interest or based on what these projects specifically interested in giving back to communities? I think we need to distinguish what people want which is sometimes to give back and what an ecosystem might need right so when I talk to people like behind ecosystems it's people and they are highly aligned with what we do but sometimes the ecosystem or to sell these ideas internally you need to align with different things one of those things might be to attract open source into their ecosystem right and that's very legitimate another one could find your dependencies like that there are no security issues. If one of those dependencies get compromised all the dependency tree will get compromised and another one it might be virtue signaling for them or using as a marketing tool right I'm funding dependencies look we are no contribution will go unrecognized so it all works if they fund open source in my opinion >> I think I realized as you were talking maybe why drips network is called drips because it's like the money dripping down through the dependency chain as well. So, I had like a aha moment about maybe how you're named, but I'm really curious speaking on behalf of maybe some of the listeners of this podcast that are running some of these critical dependencies or some of these projects that are harder to see and that maybe don't get this effect of being supported by what dependencies they are for. As far as strategic things that open source projects can do to highlight themselves for funding, what would you advise a open source project to do strategically in order to be more visible, more fundable, more kind of more there ready to receive what they need? >> Well, I think there are two parts to that answer. In my work with talking and working with maintainers from these projects, I realized that a lot of them are not in for the money and some of them are not even comfortable talking about money. Some others are, but then outside from that they are builders. They don't want to market themselves and they don't feel comfortable marketing themselves. So there are some strategies they can apply to market like having a discord or like some sort of community, adding certain logos into their website or into their repo, giving priority to certain funders. But in my experience, they don't want to do that because this is not why they are in for. That's the problem we are trying to solve. You're drip list. Anyone can fund you. You would also signal what's important to you. What percentage goes to the maintainer? What percentage can go to their dependencies or to other contributors? And then our work is to find funders as well. We've been successful at it. I think we can do a better job and I think there is a long way to go into offering different solutions for funders in order to fund their dependencies or the open-source developers projects in their ecosystems. This is why we are building what we call the super app for funding open-source builders. So that targets to a lot of the different initiatives that an ecosystem might want to run like retroactive funding, direct grants, recurring bounties, dependency funding, right? So those experiences try to tailor to different ecosystems depending on what they want to do, what they want to achieve. Is there anything that you think that package registries could do differently specifically for highlighting what the needs might be for specific open source packages? Is there anything that you would really love for a package registry like npm or ruby gems or Pippi to like do in order to make this more visible? >> Yeah, there are certain things that they can do. So something that we launched for example is a fund me button on their GitHub repository but there is buy me a coffee and other things they can do right GitHub sponsors the cool thing about that is that we don't take any cuts and it's crypto so all the money goes to them so that's one of the things they can do and these people go to a lot of conferences they are part of communities so just highlighting that there is a way for them to get funding and that that funding will go to them because with drips you're funding the repository itself. You don't need to know who's behind the repo. So you can fund that thing that you use and then they can signal where is the money going and that the money is going somewhere because it's all on chain. So that's my suggestion. But to me it's always about like for them to keep building and us making it easier for them to showcase without the feeling that they are marketers. power. >> I remember speaking to Sona Bonewald at the le at one point and marketing was something that we used to talk about a lot about how a lot of open source projects are not like allergic to marketing but it feels like anti-open source in a way because it feels proprietary commercial but that really marketing is about communication. It's about how you get out there, how you tell people about what you're doing and why it's important. The thought that if you build something and people will just find out is kind of not always right. Right. You need to tell people and get out there and do stuff. >> Just brainstorming. There are many things they could be doing. And maybe something we need to do as a community is to have some sort of like marketing department where we go around different projects part of the community and help them market in different ways. This way they don't feel they are just selling their soul to corporations. But yeah, that's just one idea. There are probably thousands of others. So similarly to the question that I asked about what package registries could do or other people can do. I'm thinking about what funders could proactively do. So I know from my experience the funders that I'm involved with kind of really struggle to understand why a dependency is really important. Maybe it's again about that communication effort about understanding why a dependency is critical. But what kind of proactive things have funders done or that you talk about with funders in order to better understand the ecosystem? Is there places where you advise, okay, this is where you need to go to better understand what's happening here? Is there anything that the Thunders can be doing proactively to better understand how they can support open source and critical digital infrastructure? Right. >> That's a really good point. Like what can they be doing? What can funders be doing in order to understand the value of open source? I think the most important thing for a funer to do is to talk to the developers within those companies projects because the developers are the ones who are the closest to the code. And if you ask pretty much any developer and you give them 10 to 15 minutes, they will come up with their top five to 10 critical dependencies. and why they are important. You just ask them if you took one of these outs, one of these dependencies out. What would happen if we forked this and we needed to maintain this? How many people would need to work on something like this? And I think that will bring realization into the funders on why essentially it's important to fund their dependencies. Aside from what we discussed before, security issues, attracting developers and many other things that are out there, but I think the best way to convince someone is from within and not from outside. >> So on this note, I think you wrote something in our prep document which is about how funding open source needs to move out of the realm of philanthropy and crisis management. This makes me think a lot about when the pandemic started and all of a sudden a lot of revenue that some foundations had through events was suddenly not there anymore and a lot of the foundations were trying to find ways to fund what they do when it was originally through ticketed events or other things that were in person and co made us all go online rightly so to avoid infection. I'm really curious to hear more about your thoughts around how funding open source can move out of that philanthropy crisis management process and what maybe the web 3 blockchain crypto space cuz we're here at Devcon with the Ethereum Foundation. What that space offers for that challenge? >> Well, I can start with the last part. Why web 3? It's one of the most open-source ecosystems out there, right? It's modular. It's part of the ethos. Even though there are many projects that are not open source, I think we start from there. And then the second part about web 3 is that most of it are ecosystems and ecosystems are open for builders to come in and write open source code in the languages that these ecosystems want using the libraries these ecosystems want them to use. So yeah, I think web 3 is a very opensourced driven ecosystem because the different blockchains are typically open source and they try to attract builders and give them grants if they build in the open. So how can we move out of the philanthropy kind of discourse for funding open source? It's hard work because it's around aligning with what they want to do and offering a solution for that in a way that doesn't extract money that goes to the open source builders because there are solutions to fund open source but I think they're very extractive. So I think that's the hard work and sometimes is being a bit more pragmatic around what we build for funders to fund instead of to um how can I put this? Yeah. purist around open source, right? We need to find a middle point where the funer is interested and the open source builder gets benefited and can be rewarded for their work. I think that's what we've been doing at Drips really well is finding that middle ground. >> Yeah. Just to build on what you just said about OSS maintenance and all, how can we make being an OSS maintainer or builder like a viable career in this ecosystem and the way things are right now >> to make open source maintenance a viable career. >> Yeah, >> that's our core. How can we do that? So we are building solutions for different stages of their maintenance or building path. So we started with dependency funding and dependency funding typically funds critical dependencies and those that are like widely used like ethersjs right but then we launch direct grants or we are launching direct grants. So that's the traditional grant process. Retroactive grants which is projects in an ecosystem that may have built something and then badge holders or a jury decides what the impact is and they reward them for that. And lastly, we just launched Drip's wave, which is bounties for open source builders. And those are typically just starting out and maybe they don't consider themselves even open source builders, but they start seeing the value contributing in the open and getting rewarded for that. >> Yeah. So, what I'm hearing is there's some form of hierarchy on how you're helping builders build. So even at the lowest level it's like even as a contributor you're being recognized and your contribution and that contribution needs some form of recognition which makes you want to do more build more and then you keep growing on that. Yeah, that's really wonderful. >> Exactly. And a lot of these things are very interesting for funders. >> Yeah, >> retroactive funding. Look at optimism. Look at filecoin direct grants. Who doesn't do a direct grant? And bounties. A lot of ecosystems have bounty programs. What we're doing now is running them recurringly every month in a way that opensource builders can continue sharpening their skills with real life repositories and then if code gets merged they can also get funding for that. Oh, that's really beautiful because I think one of the speakers mentioned something around how in the web 3 space they fund excitement and that makes people want to do more in the open source space they fund people who already have this ability. So I think that's kind of like the differences that I'm noticing here which is really awesome. >> And I see something that gets me excited is we are also working with UNICEF on essentially giving a funding mechanism for their DPGs digital public goods. >> Yeah, >> we're launching our first trip place with five of their most um used repositories. So anyone can fund them. But something that is exciting for me personally is that they work with lots of governments that are trying that their youth get into tech governments in the global south. The first one that comes to mind is Sierra Leon. And we haven't done anything yet with those governments and UNICEF, but it's an idea for them to start coming into these open source bounties, learn skills, apply them in real life, get some funding, build their portfolio, and then potentially build a career that is very good for them. >> I love this. And we haven't got much time left to delve more into this, but maybe another time we can have a longer conversation. I know some people that are skeptical about bounties. They're like, "Oh, it doesn't encourage long-term whatever contribution, but I see the benefits of bounties mean that you don't get locked into like grant deliverables and reporting." And not everyone wants to do that, right? Like not everyone wants to receive a grant and have to be sign a very scary contract to participate in open source and be compensated. And bounties I see as like a way of really encouraging a soft landing into open-source and also recognizing the value of all kinds of contributions, not just huge big grantf funed feature developments or whatever or security builds and things like that. And it does also mean that you can distribute across more people in the ecosystem. So it's really exciting to hear about. Lucas, where can people find you on the internet to hear more about what you have to say on these topics? >> So, I guess X Twitter is the number one. My handle is L U K F A Luke FA and that's probably the best way you can DM me. Then we can continue our conversation on Signal, Telegram, or even our Discord, Brits Discord, which is open for everyone. >> Awesome. And do you have a project that you'd like to spotlight for us? A project that's been meaningful for you or something else? >> I personally really like EthosJS and the maintainer behind Rigmu. I'm a big fan of Rigmu. He also created Firefly, a wallet that I think costs $1. He's been giving them away, a hard wallet. So, everyone uses Ether's JS, but I really appreciate Rick's way of doing things and that he managed to become a full-time open-source maintainer, builder, and that's probably the one I want to highlight. >> Amazing. And with that, I'll say thank you very much, Lucas, for speaking to us. And, uh, thank you listeners for listening. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you., Episode 282: Devconnect 2025 With Lucas Fada, YouTube, 01khcbnn1geh90td45bvrx931p.