Merit Systems

Merit Systems is building tools to enable a new economy for open source software. We've identified the hardest problems in open source, like contributor engagement, payouts, funding, and monetization, and are working on an end-to-end product suite designed to make life easier for repo owners and contributors. Attracting and engaging contributors is one of the most important tasks of an enduring open source project. By equipping repositories with lightweight financial tooling, we make it easier for repositories to distribute and improve their codebase. We've designed a new interface called the Terminal that enables Github repository owners to easily distribute payments to contributors directly from a repo. Using the Terminal, you can surface impactful PRs made to a repository, enabling you to pay existing key contributors and attract new ones. Instead of needing to manage contributor payments from multiple, disparate channels, we created the Terminal as a way to simplify this process end-to-end. We are also building tooling for lightweight monetization strategies around open source software.