An Investigation of the Viability of Crowdfunded Open Source Software : The Case of Open Source NPM Packages Funded Through GitHub Sponsors

Sammanfattning: Open Source software plays an essential part in modern software development. Ifn ot used directly by a project, it may very well be used second or even third hand through its dependencies. Any disruption in the delivery, quality or reliability of a vital dependency may send large shock waves throughout a project. This poses the question of how much trust we can put into these open source dependencies and their overall viability. In this study we investigate the effects funding through GitHub Sponsors has on NPM packages and how it affects their viability. By analyzing data queried from GitHub, NPM and NPMS we analyze how different factors affects the viability of NPM packages, with the overall aim of determining the impact funding has on a projects viability.