Comment by lacker
1 year ago
Even an index fund has some human-curated criteria for what to include, though, right? The S&P 500 isn't open to just anyone. So it seems totally legitimate to have it be not completely algorithmic.
If there were an "Open 500" that was trying to be like the open equivalent to the S&P 500, I would happily donate to it. Right now I do GitHub sponsors but it feels kind of random.
You just don't want to include projects like React or TypeScript that are operated by a for-profit company - they don't need our donations. You want it to be, this money is actually going to an organization that will invest it in software quality.
Totally agree! Actually I had outlined similar ideas and even an example (Pydantic) in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42353209
In a nutshell:
- Algorithmic does not always mean automatic. An algorithm can have a human-in-the-loop element, as S&P500 or NASDAQ Composite have.
- Future versions of the index will account for known funding of OSS owners and maybe even exclude well-funded companies.