I'm kind of split between between crowdfunding for open source development. I don't know JJJ personally, but I do know he is a huge contributor to the community and is the backbone between some of the most popular WordPress projects/plugins there is. I have, however seen other open source projects where, months after receiving crowdfunding, almost no commits/activity was done. I remember reading this post and it resinated with me by DHH (creator of ruby on rails): http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2013/the-perils-of-mixing-open-source-and-money.html