The problem

Open source powers the modern internet. Critical infrastructure (the libraries, frameworks, and tools that companies build on) is maintained by volunteers working in their spare time. When an important issue sits unfixed for months, the whole ecosystem suffers. The companies and developers whose businesses depend on this work rarely contribute back financially.

How OtterSource works

Anyone (a company, a developer, or just a user who cares) can post a time-limited bounty on a public GitHub issue. Developers see these bounties alongside the issue and are incentivised to solve them. When the issue is closed and the solution is merged, the bounty is paid to the contributor. No middleman friction, no complicated governance.

Why time-limited?

Open bounty systems often stall: money sits unclaimed, priorities shift, and the original poster loses interest. Time-limited rewards create urgency and clear signals about what matters right now. If a bounty expires unclaimed, the poster can renew it, increase it, or let it go. Either way, the signal is honest.

Current status

The business model is being rethought. Building out the payment architecture revealed that running a compliant two-sided marketplace is a different category of problem than a typical SaaS product: payment institution licensing, EU DAC7 income reporting, and fee economics that don't work at small bounty sizes. The mission hasn't changed. The path to it has.

If you care about open source funding and want to follow where this goes, visit ottersource.com and sign up for updates.