Hi! Chances are that you may recognize me as the author and lead maintainer of Jackson JSON library.
I have authored and maintain many other popular Java Open Source libraries, including:

• Woodstox XML parser (Stax, SAX, W3C Schema, RelaxNG)
• Aalto Ultra-fast XML parser (Stax, SAX)
• Java ClassMate Introspection library for generic type resolution
• Java UUID Generator (aka JUG) -- full UUID generation, including time-based variant

I am originally from Finland (hei kaikki! Torilla tavataan!) but nowadays live in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. I am a software engineer, having worked in the industry since early 1990s. I mostly developed in Java, having fallen in love with it right around time of Java 1.0.2, in late 1990s.

My Open Source activities have always been separate from work that provides my income: I sometimes call it a hobby, although the better might be "labor of love". While this has worked adequately, doing Open Source on the side means that amount of time, effort, is limited.

Possibility of meaningful sponsorship could, however, allow me to consider arrangements where I might not have to work full time for non-OSS things and would have more time to spend on OSS development, maintenance and advocacy.

Initially I would use funds for expenses related to development: things like Github paid account, paid versions of development tools, work station replacement. But with continuing support I would also try to increase actual time available for the Open Source development, up to and including only working on OSS.