The concern I have is that these vital non-profits (one might say critical infrastructure, depending on the org) have to go hat in hand to the community each and every year for their operating funds, whereas if they had an endowment or some other investment account backing them, they'd be able to survive in perpetuity.
At a 4% withdrawal rate, Let's Encrypt would need $100 million invested to not need to ask for funds in the future (assuming they don't drastically increase their operating expenses).
Governance and oversight is mandatory though; Wikipedia has net assets almost near $113 million [1] and requires less than 600 servers to operate (plus colo costs, connectivity, technical staff, etc). On the other end of the spectrum, OpenStreetMap costs $118k a year to operate [2].
At a 4% withdrawal rate, Let's Encrypt would need $100 million invested to not need to ask for funds in the future (assuming they don't drastically increase their operating expenses).
Governance and oversight is mandatory though; Wikipedia has net assets almost near $113 million [1] and requires less than 600 servers to operate (plus colo costs, connectivity, technical staff, etc). On the other end of the spectrum, OpenStreetMap costs $118k a year to operate [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation
[2] https://twitter.com/floledermann/status/1057254329290235907