Open-Source Funding: Do We Need a “No Maintenance” Month?

Published on Dec 18, 2025, filed under development. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

Everyone who has created an open-source project knows that funding is a challenge—it’s hard to get any, especially with no name behind the project. Everyone who has maintained a well-adopted open-source project knows that adoption doesn’t mean financial backing, either. Overall, it’s hard to keep a project going if the work isn’t paid, no matter if the project is well-adopted or not.

Many people are aware of this, and some have also proposed solutions.

What I wonder is if we introduced a “no maintenance” month—specifically, December ^*—on any project that isn’t well-funded, and where the definition of “well-funded” is entirely up to the maintainers.

During this month, maintainers

• decide what projects they deem insufficiently funded,
• consider marking these projects, perhaps with a “no maintenance month” button, and
• don’t release any updates during the month.

Nothing here needs to be set in stone: Maintainers would be free to communicate and handle this month as they please (which may allow for exceptions, such as critical security updates).

But having such a month may be useful to help set better expectations that always consuming, never supporting is an unsustainable and perhaps unacceptable way for us to appreciate, honor, and reward all the hard volunteer work that drives innovation and bears load of the entire web platform.

As an open-source maintainer or consumer, what are your thoughts? Could this help, would this distract? I’m usually quiet in online fora, but cherish all constructive thinking that I can catch in social media!

^* The choice is likely to be arbitrary. December seems useful to ease the load on many maintainers during a main holiday season. While there are other options, it doesn’t seem helpful to host a no-maintenance month during FOSS February, Hacktoberfest (October), or Maintainer May.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and perspectives. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)