Zerodha has joined Nasdaq’s Open Source Pledge, a group of companies with a shared commitment to paying the maintainers of open-source software. Nasdaq welcomed the company along with others by putting up their names on the billboard.
Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath shared a video taken by Chad Whitacre, Head of Open Source, Sentry and wrote with a smiley emoji, “It feels nice to see Zerodha being recognized for our contributions to open source.”
Founded in 2010, Zerodha is one of India’s largest and most popular stock brokerage firms, known for pioneering discount broking in the country. It offers a comprehensive platform for retail investors and traders to participate in various segments of the financial markets.
Other companies that have joined the movement include Posit, SANITY, Convex, SPEAKERSY, Platformatic, Tideways, Pydantic, SaaS Pegasus, void(0), AG Grid, and GitBook.
With the addition of Zerodha and other members, Opensourcepledge.com now has a total of 35 members. Nasdaq reveals that members have paid open-source maintainers $2,650,212 (approximately ₹22 crore) over the past year.
The Open Source Pledge initiative promotes a new standard: for every full-time developer on staff, companies should contribute at least $2,000 annually to open-source maintainers of their choice.
The goal is to fix a long-standing imbalance — that while open-source software powers much of modern infrastructure, its maintainers are often unpaid and overworked, leading to burnout and major security issues like the XZ backdoor and Log4Shell vulnerability.
Unlike other support models, this pledge emphasizes direct, no-strings-attached payments, not just hiring or donating infrastructure. The pledge excludes payments to projects controlled by the company or those serving only its ecosystem.
With tech giants increasingly dependent on community-driven code, this pledge aims to build a healthier, fairer, and more secure digital future.