ESLint, the linting tool for JavaScript development, has created their Open Collective page for fundraising. They are asking for funds and donations in order to support the developers of the project and to reward contributors. More than that, they are going to try and use funds to improve the documentation of ESLint and to develop a product roadmap. The ESLint team’s goal is to raise $20,000 per month. Yes, you read that right, $20,000 per month. The open source ecosystem is getting bigger and more well-funded!
ESLint is a linting tool for JavaScript. When you run on JavaScript source code files, it will point out any stylistic errors and issue warnings about them. A consistent coding style, enforced by ESLint, can improve the collaboration of a team and reduce technical debt. This can reduce the overall cost of development as developers find it easier to implement new features and fix bugs.
It is very important in the JavaScript ecosystem as it is one of the cornerstone tools used for development. It offers support for JavaScript-based languages such as Flow and TypeScript too. With the popularity of React Native increasing, we will see ESLint used as part of mobile app development projects as well.
OpenCollective is a relatively new fundraising platform for free/open source projects (they even have GitHub bot to help with fundraising). What’s unique about it is that the funding and spending of donations are transparent. This means that if a company donates $100,000 to a project, it appears on that project’s Open Collective page. When the project spends that money, it appears as well. Free/open source projects that use Open Collective are “opening the books” and making sure project funds are appropriately spent on maintenance and improvement of the project. The funds can be used to hire more developers or to pay contributors to the project (as ESLint is going to be doing).
