Support Foundation
SUPPORT
Provelopment Foundation is an open-source project, and it continues because people choose to keep it going. Support is voluntary in every one of its forms: using the software well is already support, and nothing on this page is expected of you.
Most support is not money
The most valuable support a project can receive is use. A project improves when people run it on real work and say what they find: when a fault is described precisely enough to reproduce, when a confusing paragraph of documentation is rewritten, when somebody answers a question in public that they once asked themselves. A project that is widely used and paid for by nobody has been used exactly as it was intended to be used.
Financial support is a genuine option too, and that is all it is — an option. A voluntary monthly contribution, or a one-off payment, lets somebody spend time on the project instead of on something else. No amount is expected, no tier exists, and nothing in the software, the documentation or the running demonstrations depends on whether anyone gives anything at all.
The ways people support the project
All of these are voluntary, and none is ranked above the others.
- Using Foundation
Deploy it, build a real site on it, and tell others what worked. Adoption is the outcome the project exists for.
- Reporting bugs
What you expected, what happened, and how to reproduce it — including the release you are running and the exact wording of any message.
- Suggesting improvements
Describe the problem rather than only the solution, so the people who maintain that area can solve it in the way that fits the project.
- Providing constructive feedback
What was confusing, what assumed knowledge you did not have, and what you expected the documentation to say.
- Helping others
Answering somebody else's question in public helps everyone who arrives with the same question later.
- Contributing code or documentation
Fixes, tests, examples, clearer wording or a translation. The Contribute page describes what tends to be most useful.
- Voluntary monthly sponsorship
A recurring contribution that lets somebody spend regular time on the project rather than fitting it around other work.
- Voluntary one-off financial support
A single contribution, when that suits you better than a recurring one.
Sponsorship is not a purchase of services
Supporting this project and engaging Provelopment commercially are different things, and it matters that they stay separate. Sponsorship supports the open-source work in general: it buys no implementation, no maintenance, no hosting and no support, and it creates no service relationship, no priority over anyone else and no obligation on either side. Nothing in Foundation is withheld behind a sponsorship tier, and Foundation remains free and open source whether or not anybody sponsors it.
Buying professional help is a separate arrangement with its own agreed terms. Ownership and portability describes how assistance can work and what a handover involves; Help describes what is available if you want it. Neither is a condition of using the software, and neither has anything to do with whether you support the project.
The project's sponsor page is maintained on GitHub Sponsors, where the options currently available are listed — a recurring monthly contribution or a one-off payment. This page deliberately does not restate the amounts or tiers: they belong to that page, and they can change there. What the sponsorship supports is stated there too, and it is unglamorous: release testing, documentation and examples, the demonstration sites, accessibility and localisation work, and keeping the project reliable as the technology underneath it moves.
What this page will not do
It will not tell you that the project needs your money, because that is a claim the project cannot substantiate. It will not publish donation totals, sponsor counts or a donor wall on the site: none of those would stay accurate, and the project's own claim discipline applies to its fundraising exactly as it applies to everything else. What sponsorship supports, and the options currently available, are stated on the project's sponsor page, which is the single place those details are maintained.
Acknowledging supporters
Sponsorship is voluntary, and so is being named for it. The sponsor page offers sponsors the option of being acknowledged, and recognition is never a condition of giving: an anonymous contribution supports the project exactly as much as a named one.
This page is where any acknowledgement will appear — a supporters section rather than a separate page, so that the statement and the names live in one place. This page does not currently publish a list of supporters. If public acknowledgement is introduced, it will be optional and based on each supporter's consent. Sponsorship does not transfer ownership of Foundation or provide control over project decisions.
Recognition is not endorsement. A name or logo appearing here would mean that the person or organisation supports the project, and nothing more: not that Provelopment recommends them, and not any involvement in what Foundation does next. Sponsorship buys no control over the project, no priority for issues and no preferential treatment, and the sponsor page states the same limits in its own words.
Sponsor the project
The options currently available, and what the sponsorship supports, are listed on GitHub Sponsors.