The lightNVR $10K Sustainability Drive

August 27, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Goal: recover $10,000 in self-funded development and operating costs through GitHub Sponsors.

Raised: $100 of $10,000 (1%)

Campaign launched: August 2026

Become a GitHub Sponsor

Free software still has a cost

I'm Matt Davis, the independent developer and maintainer behind lightNVR. Over roughly two years, I have put about $10,000 of my own money into developing and operating the project, in addition to the time spent writing code, testing releases, answering questions, and keeping it maintained.

That money pays for the parts of open-source development that users rarely see: cameras and test hardware, build and release infrastructure, hosting, development tools, and the systems needed to reproduce failures in real deployments.

lightNVR remains free software under the GPL. Anyone can download it, inspect it, modify it, and run it without paying me. I care deeply about keeping it that way. But making software free to use does not make it free to build.

This campaign is an attempt to recover the direct financial investment already made in lightNVR and give the project a more sustainable foundation. The $10,000 target is gross revenue, not take-home income. Because I am self-employed, I expect taxes to reduce that to roughly $6,000.

Who this drive is for

No one owes me money merely for downloading free software. If lightNVR is useful and money is tight, please keep using it.

I am especially asking for support from people and organizations that receive meaningful economic value from the project. If lightNVR has replaced a subscription, reduced your hardware costs, helped you serve customers, or become part of a product, installation, or hosted service, please return a small portion of that value to the work that made it possible.

Sponsorship helps cover:

  • cameras and hardware needed to reproduce real-world problems;
  • build, test, release, and hosting infrastructure;
  • security, compatibility, and routine maintenance work;
  • documentation and community support; and
  • focused development time without putting useful features behind a paywall.

How to help

GitHub Sponsors accepts both one-time and monthly sponsorships. Any amount helps.

  • Individuals: give whatever is comfortable if lightNVR has been useful to you.
  • Installers and integrators: consider a contribution tied to the value of a successful deployment.
  • Businesses and hosted services: sponsor at a level that reflects the recurring commercial value you receive.

Sponsor lightNVR through Matt's GitHub Sponsors profile

Sponsorship is support for the project, not payment for a particular feature, guaranteed response time, roadmap control, or a commercial license. Those services remain available separately through OpenSensor Engineering.

Progress and transparency

The campaign starts with a $100 contribution already received and ends when gross sponsorships received for this drive reach $10,000. This page will be updated as the campaign progresses. GitHub's public goal widget measures recurring monthly sponsorship rather than a cumulative campaign total, so the figure at the top of this page is the authoritative progress number for the drive.

Thank you for using lightNVR, reporting problems, improving the code and documentation, helping other users, and supporting the work financially when you can.