OSS Sustainability
Open Source Sustainability has become a big topic in the .NET community. With several Open Source projects having issues with long term sustainability, the ReactiveUI team has been identifying ways to address the long term sustainability of our open-source software. Our main goal is to make sure that as .NET grows and evolves that Reactive Programming and ReactiveUI evolve and grow with it. We have started to talk about strategies to ensure that ReactiveUI has maintenance and growth for the future.
ReactiveUI Association, Inc.
Introducing. ReactiveUI Association Inc. A non for profit organization geared towards several goals
- Open Source Sustainability for ReactiveUI
- Educational Resources for building applications using ReactiveUI
Reactive Programming Open Source Sustainability in the .NET ecosystem
The maintainers of ReactiveUI are also consumers of the framework. We strive to make sure that as .NET continues to grow, that ReactiveUI will be a safe long-term choice for building .NET native applications. We want to be sure that we continue to grow and mentor the community so that more members get involved. We already have a very healthy user community. Developers who take time to log issues, provide reproductions, and pull request fixes. This is a good sign that this project is capable of long term health.
Providing Educational Resources on building .NET applications using Reactive Programming
We have been making a conscious effort to make the framework more approachable. We have started recording videos and bolstering documentation in the hopes it makes it easier to consume ReactiveUI. We recently had our first ever RxUI Conf, which was spurred on to help with this very endeavor. Educating people on how to consume Rx in the .NET space is the only way to grow the Rx community in the .NET space. So we are committing time and resources towards making these learnings available.
Securing sponsorships
The reality is things code money. So we are trying to find ways to engage with more consumers as a way to cover the costs of the goals of the ReactiveUI Association. Now that we have our legal entity, the appeal of Open Collective is dwindling. With new services like GitHub Sponsorships, we will move towards a platform that allows consumers, sponsors, and friends to contribute monetarily to the ReactiveUI Association and its mission. The original purpose of the Open Collective was to allocate money towards a resource to maintain the library. We no longer feel that is the immediate goal, so we plan on closing the open collective. This will allow the governance of the fund to exist within the ReactiveUI Associate towards its mission and goals. If you are currently sponsoring the Open Collective, we ask that you consider changing to become a GitHub Sponsor until we can sort out the current Open Collective.
Whats next
Setting up ReactiveUI Association GitHub Sponsorship
In the coming months, we will be moving over to the GitHub Sponsorship platform. This will allow a consistent mechanism for any Open Source project you want to sponsor via GitHub. This will be a change for anyone currently using the Open Collective. We are working to set up a self-sufficient association that can manage the funds without the need for Open Collective. Now that we are our Non-Profit organization, we can manage the funds directly. This will allow us to put more of the funds we have to use towards the betterment of the ReactiveUI project.
Focus on learnings
We realize that the barrier to entry to Rx is high. The ReactiveUI Association's primary focus is fostering learning. The core team have been putting together a series of videos on various aspects of ReactiveUI. We are posting periodic videos to the ReactiveUI YouTube channel. We hosted our first ever RxUI Conf that is available on our YouTube Channel. We plan on doing more things focused on helping people experience and enjoy the power of Reactive Programming.
Reactive Marbles is the incubator for future ReactiveUI work
The ReactiveUI Association has a new GitHub organization, Reactive Marbles this will be the incubator for new things coming to the ReactiveUI platform. Currently, we have new WhenAnyValue methods, code analyzers and fixers, and more coming soon! Same guys, different name, same mission!