FAQs

• Who are we?

  We are Zerodha, a financial technology company and India's largest stock broker. We are built heavily on a FOSS stack and have been contributing code and money back to FOSS projects on and off over the last several years. In 2024, we decided to structure and institutionalise our ad hoc efforts into a fund.

• Who can apply?

  Individuals, projects, groups, communities, or organisations can apply. The application can be for a specific project or an entity representing many projects or FOSS efforts. The applicant or the legal entity must have a bank account and the necessary tax documents (which vary between jurisdictions) to receive funds.

  Currently, our focus is on supporting existing, widely used, and impactful projects to specifically contribute to their sustainability. Very new projects or projects with minimal usage are not considered for the time being.

• How to apply?

  Write a funding.json manifest file and publish it on your website or project's repository. Submit the URL to the directory. Why a JSON file and not a web form? Learn more about funding.json.

• What happens after an application?

  Your application will be publicly visible on the public portal. Our internal investment committee evaluates applications at the end of every quarter and communicates the decision via email. If your application is accepted, our team will reach out to you for the necessary paperwork (such as tax residency documents required by Indian laws) before processing the funds. This generally involves back-and-forth communication over email and can take up to 4 weeks.

• How much can a project apply for?

  A project can apply for funding of up to $100,000 in one year. To keep the logistics and operational overhead of the fund reasonable, we accept requests in denominations of a minimum of $10,000 and multiples of $25,000 thereafter.

• How are projects evaluated?

  It is difficult to define and quantify parameters such as value and impact across projects. For instance, Python, cURL, Krita, and Log4J are all highly valuable and impactful projects in their respective areas, with varying degrees of technical sophistication, effort, and value in their respective areas.

  Currently, our focus is on supporting existing, widely used, and impactful projects to specifically contribute to their sustainability. Very new projects or projects with minimal usage are not considered for the time being.

  Our internal investment committee evaluates projects based on broad criteria such as value, impact, criticality, and innovation. Once we have a reasonable grasp of the process end-to-end, from evaluation to disbursement of funds, we plan to set up a community voting system and an external investment committee from the FOSS world to help us evaluate and select recipients.

• Why $1 million?

  FLOSS/fund is an experiment to financially support projects and inspire others to do the same. We are starting out with $1 million, and if the program works as well as we hope it will, we plan to increase the size of the fund.

• What is expected from a project that receives funding?

  Only a public acknowledgement with a link to this website for others to discover the fund.

If you have any queries, you can write to us at [email protected]