The Open-Source Retreat that is being sponsored by stripe looks quite intriguing. Stripe relies on a lot of open source software, and they’ve announced a program to give a grant to a small number of developers to come to San Francisco to work full-time on an open-source project for a period of 3 months. The awardees will have space in Stripe’s SF office, and will be asked to give a couple of internal tech talks over the course of the program, but otherwise it’ll be no-strings-attached.
This is a clever model for supporting open source development, and I hope this idea catches on with other companies that benefit from open source. I can think of a number of academic developers who would love the idea of a sabbatical to work on an open source code project, to meet new people who might use their code, and to get a fresh perspective in new surroundings – an open source sabbatical. This could be a great way for companies that benefit from open source scientific software to help encourage and influence the development of the tools they use.
The deadline for applying to the Stripe program is May 31st, and the program will run from September 1st through December 1st.
