This is actually not a bad idea for funding open source software. It used to be that you’d have an author who coded a project and then could fix the occasional bug or two quickly.

Now, we have larger projects where it is rare for one people to have a complete understanding, and the main value is a person to reviewing patches and bugs to make sure the changes align with the larger goals/path for the project. There is little incentive for a maintainer to do this, aside from wanting to limit forks.

Paying for that review might be the way to keep this whole model sustainable.