Hello friends,

I left my job back in March 2018 to pursue working in open source, with the intention of being entirely funded by the community!

And thanks to many of you, this is real now! Getting the opportunity to live and think about open source (without needing to do other kinds of freelance/contract work) is truly a dream come true.

I've been working on Babel since 2015 (I'm not the creator, I joined long after it was renamed from 6to5 and already popular). I've moved from hopeful onlooker to stumbling into becoming a (still hopeful) maintainer. Yet I care deeply about open source as a whole; not just asking the hard questions but living them out.

So if you would like to support my future work in open source as well as initiatives like Hope in Source and Maintainers Anonymous, consider joining me as a sponsor! (and I'd love to hear why you chose to sponsor) 🤗

(I've had a Patreon for over a year now but will be moving over to GitHub slowly).

A note about sponsorship: I wouldn't think of it as a transaction at all; I want to think of it like a relationship. I don't want anyone to feel guilty for not supporting me. Similarly, I hope to continue work in open source because I want to, not because I have to. So in this vein, I made my tiers the things I like (they aren't providing services and I don't really consider them to be monetary value, meaning it's not that anyone is obligated to do anything)! So please reach out if you want to chat or meetup!

I love what Nadia says about this:

Like any other relationship, if someone loves and cares about your work, you don’t need to bribe them to stick around. Mentors and advisors (good ones, anyway) don’t invest in people because they want to get paid. Friends (good ones, anyway) don’t hang out with you because they need something in return. They’re there because they weirdly fell in love with what you’re doing, and they want to see you succeed.

-Henry