Episode 73: Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran on using Bounties for Open Source Software

Apr 2, 2021

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Guest

Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran

Panelists

Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On today’s episode, we have two guests joining us, Tyler Maran and Anna Pojawis, the founders of Rysolv, a crowdfunding platform for open source development. They tell us all about Rysolv and what their motivation was behind starting this company. Find out what types of people respond to bug bounties and what sort of incentives are given to the developers to stick around. We find out if Tyler and Ana are working with companies to help with their program to get more money to build better bounties. Also, find out where to find projects that they are funding, where to find these bounties, and where they want this to go in the future. Download this episode to find out much more!

[00:01:08] Tyler and Anna tell us all about Rysolv, how it works, and how they came up with the idea.

[00:03:36] Eric wonders what their motivation was behind this company. Tyler shares with us when they began, to where there are now, and the challenges that they face, how they are generating more users, and how they’re advertising and marketing their product.

[00:06:40] Tyler talks about what he’s learned around the types of people that respond to bug bounties.

[00:08:18] Anna and Tyler explain what they do to incentivize the developers to stick around.

[00:10:52] Richard wonders if they are doing anything interesting to look at how to onboard users collectively involving bounties in ways that make sure they stick around, and Justin wonders what their expectations are for the first year.

[00:13:27] We learn what qualifies Tyler and Anna and motivates them to be able to run this type of business, and how they are going to solve the financial problems. Tyler makes a reference to a xkcd comic.

[00:17:28] Alyssa wonders what an open source community looks like for these projects that are working with bounties and if the people will ever be not paid contributors to the work. Also, she wonders how money is playing within the sustainability of these open source communities.

[00:21:08] Richard wonders if Tyler and Anna are working with companies to figure out how to get money shuffled into their program to build better bounties, and how they’re pitching this to people who may have the wallet steep enough to sustain long-term contributions or sustain people to have repeat issues.

[00:23:48] In talking about a great moment of getting money into the hands of a developer, Anna tells us about one of the issues that recently got resolved and how they felt after. Tyler and Anna tell us what they each do at Rysolv and Anna tells us what her stack of choice is.

[00:26:17] Tyler tells us where you could find projects that he’s funding and where to find these bounties.

[00:28:03] Richard asks Tyler to share his hopes and dreams, where he wants this to go in the next six months, and if he wants a unicorn floating in a pool outside of his house.☺ Also, find out where you can get involved and where to follow Tyler, Anna, and Rysolv.

Quotes

[00:20:13] “We want to build upon the platform so that it can be more like long-term, more sustaining, and have some community building aspect about it.”

[00:20:28] “As far as adding financial incentives, we think that open source work should not have to be volunteer work. People should get financial contributions for the amount of work that they put in to sustaining the modern internet.”

[00:22:40] “So we’ve got what’s best for the company giving the money, and then you’ve got what’s best for the maintainer.”

Spotlight

[00:32:52] Justin’s spotlight is Git History Extension for VS Code.
[00:33:15] Eric’s spotlight is daily dev, a Daily Chrome Extension.
[00:33:57] Alyssa’s spotlight is virtual FOSDEM 2021.
[00:34:55] Richard’s spotlight is a tool on npm called License.
[00:35:36] Tyler’s spotlight is The Awesome Foundation.
[00:36:47] Anna’s spotlight is Discourse.

Credits

Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound

Special Guests: Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran.

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