Hey folks!

I’m writing this because funding for the Lemmy project has dropped to critical levels, which could seriously impact its future development.

Thanks to the generous support of our lemm.ee community, our server infrastructure costs are covered, and we even have a few months of runway. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed - lemm.ee wouldn’t exist without your help.

However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. Our servers run Lemmy software, and without ongoing development, the platform cannot grow or even be maintained.

Lemmy is an open-source project with many contributors, but the vast majority of development work has been carried out by a small group of core maintainers. A few maintainers work full-time on the project, relying solely on donations and occasional grants to support themselves.

I’ve seen Lemmy development up close, and the maintainers have consistently gone above and beyond what I consider the standard for small open-source teams - they are constantly writing code, mentoring contributors, and keeping everything running. Their work is essential, and without continued support, it cannot be sustained.

If you value Lemmy, please consider supporting its maintainers directly. Every bit helps.

Please check out this post for more details about how to support the maintainers: https://lemm.ee/post/63034576

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great weekend!

  • Abnorc@lemm.ee
    1·
    12 days ago

    I don’t think they deserve it. It wouldn’t be undeserved for them to get help, but I don’t see why people would voluntarily contribute money to the devs for something like this.

    And meanwhile every day you forgo your moral codes to buy all kinds of shit. Otherwise you’d be living in the middle of a remote island.

    This is a different story, for exactly the reason that you pointed out. You can hardly even buy food, clothing, and shelter without inadvertently supporting an unethical business, but you still have to buy them. Supporting the development of a product that you could quite easily live without is truly a free choice by comparison.

    Am I better than anyone else for not supporting the development? Absolutely not. You could probably argue that lemmy existing as software is a net positive for society, so those who choose to support development for the right reasons are making the right choice too. The world is full of half truths and nonsense, so anyone who is putting in an effort to help and avoid hurting anyone is decent in my book.