We increasingly rely on (and contribute back to!) a lot of open-source software to build Stripe, and we’d like to give back and get more people working on open-source.

Last year, we invited four developers to the Stripe office as part of our first Open-Source Retreat. Our grantees made significant progress on their projects in a relatively short time—from launching a pure-Python TLS 1.2 implementation to releasing a major update to urllib3. Julian Shapiro of Velocity.js wrote about his experience with the program.

Starting January, we’re hosting another Open-Source Retreat at Stripe. Just like last year, we’re looking for existing projects where these grants can make a large difference in spurring the development of a new feature or infrastructure.

We’ll host three to four developers at our office in SF for three months to work full-time on an open-source project. While we’ll ask that they give a couple of internal tech talks over the course of the program, the grant itself is no-strings-attached.

Selection process

We’ll select projects on based on their importance to the broader community, independently of Stripe itself. Applicants from any country are welcome and we’d love to fund people from backgrounds underrepresented in the open-source community. Here are the criteria we’ll use:

• Impact of our grant. Does our grant have the ability to transform this project’s trajectory? Are you an influencer within the project? Will your ability to focus on it full-time move the project forward in some significant way?
• Importance of the project. Is this a project that people already use and has attracted a lot of attention? If this project isn’t itself popular yet, how much potential does it have? Is it a project that, while possibly risky, would be particularly exciting if successful?
• Likelihood of success. Is there a good plan for how these three months will be used? What indicators are there that you’ll be able to pull it off (obvious passion for the project, existing work on the project, previous work on similar projects)?

Logistics

We want to provide everything needed to focus and have a substantial impact on an open-source project:

• The program will run from January 15th until April 15th, 2016 at Stripe HQ in the Mission District of San Francisco.
• We’ll provide $7,500 per month in addition to desk space at our office and meals during the week.

Application

Applications are now closed. Thanks to everyone who applied. We'll be contacting you individually soon!