Introducing Clojurists Together

Keeping Clojure open source sustainable

The Clojure ecosystem is built on open source. From the Clojure and ClojureScript projects, to the build tools, web frameworks, and the hundreds of innovative and useful libraries that we all depend on every day. The pervasive use of open source has enabled a flourishing Clojure ecosystem, but it also has some hidden downsides. The vast majority of Clojure projects are maintained by a small handful of people, often only one person. If they are not sponsored by their day job to work on the open source projects, then the time maintaining the project, responding to issues and pull requests, and support requests falls to nights and weekends, taking time away from friends and family.

Across the entire open source ecosystem, there is a growing recognition that the current model of open source is not sustainable. More and more, maintainers are suffering from burnout, or quitting the project entirely. Important projects can languish because the original maintainers no longer have time to work on them, or no longer use them themselves, or for any of many possible work or non-work related reasons..

Introducing…

Today, we are announcing Clojurists Together, an organisation designed to fund and support critical open source Clojure projects. Clojurists Together goal is to ensure that open source projects that are important to the Clojure community continue to be maintained and improved. We will do that by funding project maintainers to work on these projects. Clojurists Together follows the model of Ruby Together, where companies and individuals collectively sponsor a central organisation (Clojurists Together), which then distributes the money to open source Clojure projects.

How it works

Every quarter Clojurists Together collects feedback from members about which projects and areas are important to them, and they would like to see supported. At the same time, Open source project maintainers can apply for funding for the next quarter. The Clojurists Together committee then looks at the feedback from members, the applications from projects, and picks the projects that they think can have the biggest impact on the Clojure community. Every month, Clojurists Together reports on the progress the projects are making and where your money has gone.

Next steps

• If you are an open source project maintainer, apply for the next funding round. We haven’t got the exact dates for the start of the next funding round picked, but it will probably be in the next month or so. We’ll send a reminder in the usual channels before applications close.
• If you are a developer at a company that uses Clojure, please talk to your manager/decision maker about signing up for a company membership. You can also sign up for a developer membership.
• If you are a decision maker at a company that uses Clojure, please consider signing up for a company membership to Clojurists Together, to ensure that the foundation your business is built on stays solid. For the next month, any company that signs up will be recognised as a founding member on the members page.
• If you are an individual Clojure developer, you can sign up for a developer membership.
• If you have more questions, read the FAQ and the other pages on the site, otherwise please contact us.
• Give us feedback on what you think could be changed, improved, removed, e.t.c. Clojurists Together exists to serve the Clojure community, but for us to do that well we need to hear from you.