Max Howell, the creator of Homebrew and co-founder of Tea Protocol, sat down with the All Things Open team and shared his latest project aimed at solving a significant challenge for open source developers: Enabling them to work full-time on open source projects. Max explained that Tea Protocol was created to address the lack of financial sustainability for open source maintainers. By integrating cryptocurrency and leveraging on-chain data, Tea Protocol rewards developers based on the impact of their open source contributions.
Max also discussed his experience with Homebrew, explaining that while the project quickly became successful, he would have built it differently today, particularly by using newer technologies like Rust. He stressed the importance of creating a strong community around open source projects, which was a key factor in Homebrew’s success.
Regarding the issue of paying open source maintainers, Max expressed frustration with current models, such as donations or commercial open source, which often come with conflicting business agendas. Tea Protocol aims to offer a more reliable, transparent way for developers to earn income from their open source work by providing cryptocurrency rewards based on project impact, tracked through a system called CHAI.