Returning to GitHub to lead Sponsors (Interview)

Today we’re joined by Jessica Lord, talking about the origins of Electron and her boomerang back to GitHub to lead GitHub Sponsors. We cover the early days of Electron before Electron was Electron, how she advocated to turn it into a product and make it a framework, how it’s used today, why she boomeranged back to GitHub to lead Sponsors, what’s next in funding open source creators, and we attempt to answer the question “what happens to open source once it’s funded?”

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Sponsors:

• InfluxData – InfluxDB empowers developers to build IoT, analytics, and monitoring software. It’s purpose-built to handle massive volumes and countless sources of time-stamped data produced by sensors, applications, and infrastructure. Learn about the wide range of use cases of InfluxDB at influxdata.com/changelog
• LaunchDarkly – Fundamentally change how you deliver software. Innovate faster, deploy fearlessly, and make each release a masterpiece.
• Teleport – Securely access any computing resource anywhere. Engineers and security teams can unify access to SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, web applications, and databases across all environments. Try Teleport today in the cloud, self-hosted, or open source at goteleport.com
• Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at developer.squareup.com to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you.

Featuring:

• Jessica Lord – Website, GitHub, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• GitHub Sponsors
• GitHub Sponsors docs
• GitHub Sponsors is now out of beta in 30 countries
• changelog.com/search?q=GitHub+Sponsors
• Sponsor Mat Ryer
• Sponsor curl
• I just hit $100,000/yr on GitHub Sponsors 🎉
• We Just Gave $154,999.89 to Open Source Maintainers
• Datasette Desktop
• The Changelog #216: GitHub’s Electron with Zeke Sikelianos
• The Changelog #241: The Story of Atom with Nathan Sobo
• The Changelog #370: The making of GitHub Sponsors with Devon Zuegel
• The Changelog #381: The dawn of sponsorware with Caleb Porzio

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!