Eric A. Meyer4d ago
Daniel D. Beck
Serious open source docs work has a cost. I wrote down every way that I know of that gets docs authors and maintainers paid. https://ddbeck.com/where-does-the-money-come-from/ #WriteTheDocs
Open source docs: where does the money come from?

Open source docs don’t come for free. So who’s paying for it?

ddbeck.com
May 27 at 11:23amBuffer
Show threadCris.4d ago

@ddbeck My first thought is that open source projects should budget for docs work from the start. Documentation isn’t extra polish, it’s part of the software.

In practice, it seems rare that open source software budgets for documentation or much else beyond core development, which is why so much of the work ends up volunteer-driven or underfunded.

Show threadAnita Graser 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇬🇪4d ago

@crisverstraeten @ddbeck
very important topic

At @qgis, we currently budget 10% of our funds for documentation work https://qgis.org/community/foundation/annual-budgets/QGISBudget2026.pdf

This funds two writers:
https://blog.qgis.org/2026/02/03/documentation-and-infrastructure-report-2025/

But for many years we relied completely on volunteers as well.

Show threadCris.3d ago

@underdarkGIS @ddbeck @qgis thank you! it's showing that it's possible and that I wasn't pulling something out of thin air 😅

Open source funding has been a bit of a topic lately in the 11ty community, but also for my own work as fresh-and-green maintainer.

Show threadDaniel D. Beck2d ago
@underdarkGIS @crisverstraeten @qgis This is a really cool peek at decisions that are often not visible—thank you for sharing this!
Show threadKevin Grant3d ago
@ddbeck This really applies to everything in a project. Substitute “coding work”, or “testing”, or “marketing”, or “responding to community comments”, or a dozen other things that take serious time. Simply put, all _tasks_ in open-source have costs and most are ignored by regular users and certainly by the companies that benefit from them. Recall xkcd comic 2347, “project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003” is too accurate.
Show threadDaniel D. Beck2d ago
@kmgrant I broadly agree, but as a docs consultant and maintainer, I try my best to stick to the areas of my experience and expertise. Though I do think there are peculiarities to docs. For instance, it's often much easier for the people I work with to 'sell' my work to management/funders if it's presented as if it were development work (e.g., docs tools) than it is to sell writing docs themselves.