In 2022 I left the Go team at Google to carry on in approximately the same role, but as an independent professional maintainer. The idea was not to rely on donations, nor to do support contracts, but to sell retainers to companies interested in funding my work and having access to my expertise.

At the time, it was an experiment, trying to prove a new model by putting my money where my mouth was. Today, I am still a maintainer of the Go cryptography standard library, and I successfully fund the work of myself—as well as that of other people!—through half a dozen contracts.

This talk is an update on last year's announcement, including lessons learned and planned next steps to popularize this model and make it more accessible.