Introducing Open Circle
A few months ago, we moved the Valibot and Formisch repositories from Fabian's personal GitHub account into the Open Circle organization. This post explains what Open Circle is, why we made this change, and what this means for you and the projects going forward.
TL;DR
- Valibot and Formisch now live under the Open Circle GitHub organization
- Nothing changes except the GitHub repository URL
- Sponsorships are now handled transparently through Open Collective
What is Open Circle?
Open Circle is a GitHub organization that serves as the shared home for Valibot, Formisch, and future projects that share our philosophy around modularity, type safety, and developer experience. Think of the organization as a container for related projects. It is not a tool or library you install.
Why Open Circle?
Access control
As Valibot and Formisch grew, more people wanted to help maintain them, but personal GitHub accounts only allowed full access or bottlenecks through a single maintainer. With Open Circle, we can grant different levels of control to team members without giving any single person full control.
Sponsorships
Before, sponsorships went directly to a personal account. Now they flow through Open Collective, which provides complete transparency. Every donation and expense is visible to everyone. This builds trust with sponsors because they can see exactly where their money goes. It also makes it possible to fairly compensate contributors for their work. Open source maintainers deserve to be paid for the value they create, and a transparent financial structure makes that possible and sustainable long term.
Fabian Hiller forwards 100% of his GitHub sponsorings to Open Collective, and going forward this money will mainly be used to fund contributors.
Fiscal host
Open Source Collective is now our fiscal host. This means that all sponsorings go into a non-profit organization, providing legal and financial infrastructure that helps us operate transparently and sustainably.
Unified ecosystem
We moved projects like Valibot and Formisch under Open Circle so related projects can be maintained together. Related tools, documentation, and resources are now easier to find for anyone building or maintaining systems with the same design principles.
What's Changed?
The main change is the repository URL and the new financial structure.
What This Means for the Future
- Clearer contribution guidelines for new maintainers
- An expanded core team with formalized roles and shared decision-making
- Better compensation and recognition for contributor work
- A proper home for future projects aligned with our philosophy
The Reality of Open Source Funding
The recent Tailwind situation—revenue down 80%, 75% of engineering laid off despite record usage—is a tough reminder: AI tools reduce doc traffic and paid conversions, making it harder than ever to sustain pure open source projects.
We know this firsthand. Valibot currently brings in around $400 per month, with over 50% from a single backer. To fully fund engineering, content, and community work, we estimate needing around $10,000 USD per month.
If Valibot, Standard Schema, or Formisch power your business, please consider sponsoring our work. Even small amounts help.
Thank you
This move would not be possible without the community around Valibot and Formisch. Contributors, users, and companies running these projects in production have all shaped how these projects have evolved and what they require now structurally.
Thanks as well to everyone who has sponsored the work. Your support makes it possible to invest in maintenance decisions that prioritize long term stability over convenience decisions that benefit these projects.