The creator of Homebrew’s plan to get open source contributors paid – using blockchain

The creator of the Linux/macOS package manager Homebrew has a new package manager called Tea. But according to Stack Overflow’s podcast, the software also aims to solve the problem of providing funding to popular open source projects.

Although he is not a crypto bull, Max was inspired by an open source solution to the funding dilemma from his efforts to buy and sell an NFT. A contract written in code and shared publicly enforced a rule that sent a portion of his earnings to the original creator of digital objects. What if the same funding mechanism could be applied to open source projects? In March 2022, Max and his co-founder launched Tea, a kind of spiritual successor to Homebrew. It has many new features Max wanted in a package manager, plus a blockchain-based approach to ensure that creators, maintainers and contributors of open source software can all get paid for their efforts.

You can read Max’s launch post on Tea here and yes, of course it’s a white paper.

The paper describes the proposed solution as “a decentralized system for the fair remuneration of open source developers based on their contribution to the entire ecosystem and enacted through the tea incentive algorithm applied across all entries in the tea registry.” And the launch note calls it “our revolution against a failing system,” arguing “We’re taking our knowledge of how to make development more efficient and throwing out innovations that no one has ever considered before.

“Package custodians haven’t been sexy. Until now. Most importantly, we’re moving the package registry on-chain (relax, we’re using a low-energy proof-of-stake chain). This has many benefits due to the inherent benefits of blockchain technology.” First, decentralized storage will make packages always available and immutable, signed by maintainers themselves. But there is more:
web3 has enabled new ways to distribute value, and with our system, people who care about the health of the open source ecosystem buy a token and stake it. Periodically, we reward this effort because it secures our token network. We give part of these rewards to the player and part to packs of their choice along with all the dependencies of these packages.

Note that no part is used us. We are not like the other app stores….

tea is home to a DAO that will ensure that open source maintainers who keep the Internet going are rewarded as they deserve.
An introduction to the white paper adds that in the spirit of the open source movement, “we invite developers, speculators and enthusiasts to contribute to our white paper and help brew the future of the internet. This is our revolutionary commitment to create fair open source for web3, and we want you to help lay the foundations.”

Thanks to guest reader for submitting the story.