Sponsoring dependencies: The next step in open source sustainability | June 14, 2022 | Human Who Codes

"When the JavaScript Standard Style (StandardJS) project1 decided to show ads during installation, the backlash was swift and harsh. The project is an opinionated JavaScript style guide, formatter, and linter all in one, and it was also the first npm project to try and raise money by inserting an ad in the command line.2 The “experiment” was terminated soon after it was started.3 But to me, this opened up a big question: given that StandardJS is simply a wrapper around ESLint that disables customization, what responsibility does StandardJS have to ESLint? Open source maintainers should be able to accept sponsorships for their work, but does that funded project have a responsibility to the project on which it was built to pass some portion of the funds along? After all, if the majority of the benefit of your project is based on the work of someone else’s project, is it really fair for you to profit? Isn’t there some level of responsibility when a project receives funding to help all of the projects on which it is built?..."