2020-09-22

This week, Benjie was profiled by the GitHub ReadME project, a new endeavour to collect stories from open source maintainers and amplify their voices to the wider developer community.

Click through to the ReadME Project to read Benjie's history of software development, starting as a teenager at the turn of the millennium with his own Linux mail server in his bedroom. As he entered the world of employment, he realized he much preferred the freedom of running his own business gave him, and eventually incorporated Graphile with his wife Jem in 2019. Together, they work on Graphile's open source projects and are seeking funding through GitHub Sponsors and Patreon.

In this article, Benjie discusses the ins-and-outs of running an open source company with his wife, while building a supportive community, and sheds light on how other maintainers may start to take their passion project full time.

Benjie and Jem enjoy working together in open source, and this wouldn't be possible without the sponsorship from the community. By significantly reducing the amount of work needed to achieve business goals, using the Graphile tools results in huge savings for users. If your organization contributes some of these savings back then everyone can benefit from more frequent releases with better performance, better compatibility, better documentation, easier customization, and more features — leading to even greater savings or profits for your organization. Find out how to sponsor Benjie and the Graphile suite here.