Jack Dorsey backs an open-source development collective with $10 million

Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, has backed a new open-source development collective called "and Other Stuff" with a $10 million cash injection through his StartSmall foundation. The collective plans to work on open-source projects, including those that could become consumer social media apps and app-development tools. The group met on Nostr, a social networking protocol that Dorsey has also financially supported, and aims to help Nostr transition from an experimental protocol to a widely adopted, sustainable ecosystem. In addition to Nostr projects, the collaborators plan to experiment with building tools based on ActivityPub and Cashu. Dorsey has long been interested in open-source protocols and has previously criticized Twitter's corporate structure, arguing that it would be better suited as an open protocol. He sees Nostr as a more decentralized and open alternative to platforms like Twitter, and he wants to push his energy in that direction rather than the "more corporate direction" of projects like Bluesky.