Backstage at All Things Open 2024, hosts Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Max Howell, creator of Homebrew and founder of the Tea Protocol, about making open source sustainable. Max shares his journey from building Homebrew as a passion project to launching Tea Protocol, which uses token-based economics to support maintainers without compromising open source values. They explore challenges like corporate involvement, project monetization, and building resilient open source communities.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
02:20 - Max’s Open Source Journey
09:09 - The Problem with Open Source Sustainability
13:54 - Why Traditional Funding Models Fail
16:08 - Tea Protocol’s Economic Model
18:34 - What Happens Without Open Source?
20:59 - Sacrifices Open Source Maintainers Make
23:09 - Capturing Value in Open Source
25:10 - Advice for Aspiring Open Source Developers
27:36 - Where to Learn More
Follow Max Howell on Social Media
Twitter: https://x.com/mxcl
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mxcl/
Check out Tea Protocol: https://tea.xyz/
Sponsored by This Dot: thisdot.co
