Amazon to fund software developers in new GitHub program

Amazon.com Inc., American Express Co., Daimler AG and Stripe Inc. are among those joining a new GitHub program that will let companies directly fund open-source projects and software developers that are key to their businesses.

It’s an expansion of GitHub’s Sponsors program, which previously let individuals support software projects and the millions of developers who use the digital platform to collaborate on, share and store code. GitHub, whose parent company Microsoft Corp. will also participate in the new service announced Tuesday, expects the change to dramatically increase the number of contributions. The year-old sponsors service has already generated enough money for some developers to rely on it as full-time work, said Devon Zuegel, GitHub’s director of product for the communities department.

Letting companies pay to maintain essential software projects and add new features will eliminate some of the fragility of the open-source ecosystem, in which large companies use community-developed code but can’t be certain that critical programs won’t lapse.