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GitHub Sponsors

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31–40 of 516 posts

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#31

Post by diggan »

mushufasa wrote: post #5

This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Integrating sponsorship subscriptions into the core experience is sure to increase payments, a la twitch subscriptions/payments (which Youtube is just now copying). I imagine this will change the fundamental dynamics around OSS projects, but not sure how, nor whether it is all positive. - If maintainers can see who donated, do they prioritize issues / pull requests?…

> This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue?

Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay).

In fact, it seems less than the existing options. The existing options are open platforms with open source code. What GitHub is introducing, seems to be a loss-leader (they give free cash away) for the sole purpose of getting attention. It's obvious the feature they are now introducing is not for making the ecosystem better, but to lock the ecosystem harder to GitHub.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#33

Post by OrangeManBad »

gigatexal wrote: post #9

Leave it to Microsoft to finally figure out a way to get people and more importantly businesses to fund OSS work.

* Getting linux on desktop. Check * Getting OSS contributors paid. Check

Unlike Google, it seems Microsoft (Satya) isn't just doing OSS for PR but he probably sincerely believes in it.

Thanks also to Hanselman who seemingly has been a major pro-OSS voice.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#34

Post by rymate1234 »

romanovcode wrote: post #22
yreg wrote: post #6

For now, it seems that the Microsoft acquisition has gone well, right?

Yes, free private repos alone was amazing and now this? With 2x matching (up to 5k) from MS themselves - this is amazing. If only they would release something similar to GitLab Runner a.k.a. GitHub Runner it would be golden!

Don't they already have this with Azure Pipelines?

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#35

Post by Heliosmaster »

romanovcode wrote: post #22
yreg wrote: post #6

For now, it seems that the Microsoft acquisition has gone well, right?

Yes, free private repos alone was amazing and now this? With 2x matching (up to 5k) from MS themselves - this is amazing. If only they would release something similar to GitLab Runner a.k.a. GitHub Runner it would be golden!

Totally agree. Running your own gitlab runner is the feature of GitLab I would want the most on GitHub

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#36

Post by buro9 »

I run community sites for which I am paid donations to cover running costs including writing code, bug fixes, servers, etc.

Today I take donations via PayPal, but the catch with this is that it's hard to provide visibility to donors of how healthy this is (WRT to costs), and whilst I considered Patreon that seemed to be very focused on creative deliverables to donors of a non-code/service nature.

I am trying Browser Attention Tokens, but these feel to be detached from the delivery of code, and still don't provide enough visibility to the donors of the overall health of the projects.

This though... this could be good. If Github sponsorship were attached to projects and people donated to a given org or repo, and then that were visible "this repo receives $500 per month" it would encourage code contribution whilst providing visibility over the health of a project.

I know my donors would appreciate the visibility (as would I, I manually create periodic reports on income and costs - at least this solves the income side).

The only question I have is how easy it would be for those who don't use Github to subscribe to a recurring donation?

Edit: Signed up for the waitlist, received a link to https://help.github.com/en/articles/about-github-sponsors which appears to clarify that you'd be sponsoring a developer not a repo/org... which means popularity/celebrity is everything. Oh well.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#37

Post by plAH2 »

diggan wrote: post #31
mushufasa wrote: post #5

This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Integrating sponsorship subscriptions into the core experience is sure to increase payments, a la twitch subscriptions/payments (which Youtube is just now copying). I imagine this will change the fundamental dynamics around OSS projects, but not sure how, nor whether it is all positive. - If maintainers can see who donated, do they prioritize issues / pull requests?…

> This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). In fact, it seems less than the existing options. The existing options are open platforms with open source code. What GitHub is introducing, seems to be a loss-leader (they give free cash away) for the sole purpose of getting…

Sad that the truth is always downvoted. HN has a lot of Microsoft shills.

People will wake up when Nadella has moved all jobs to India.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#38

Post by diggan »

yreg wrote: post #6

For now, it seems that the Microsoft acquisition has gone well, right?

I disagree. Before the acquisition, the work on GitHub was to make GitHub sustainable in it's own right.

Now, with Microsoft owning it, they have given up on that idea since Microsoft mainly get their profits elsewhere.

Instead, GitHub have now become a loss-leader for Microsoft, where every feature is meant to either lock in open developers in a closed source platform, or attract more open source developers to use their platform.

I did like the way of old GitHub more, even though they were slower at releasing stuff.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#39

Post by _v7gu »

nstart wrote: post #15

I love this. I do wonder though if anyone can educate me on the choice to do a monthly sponsorship? I think that's awesome but at the same time, there are a lot of developers I want to send 10 dollar tips to for that library that they made. Just wondering if there's a reason to not have both. My guess is that foregoing one time transactions in favour of ensuring that people gravitate towards making a more sustainable…

Instead of enabling one-time donations, I see some value in sponsorships with a predetermined EOL: Instead of donating $10 one-time, get a 10-month sponsorship for $1 each and at the end of those 10 months, decide whether you want to continue supporting the developer. Github could charge you the $10 (or the interest-adjusted equivalent) up-front to decrease the transaction costs too.

This decreases the variation in the developer's income and lets them plan for the future accordingly, which is always a good thing.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#40

Post by kristianc »

diggan wrote: post #31
mushufasa wrote: post #5

This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Integrating sponsorship subscriptions into the core experience is sure to increase payments, a la twitch subscriptions/payments (which Youtube is just now copying). I imagine this will change the fundamental dynamics around OSS projects, but not sure how, nor whether it is all positive. - If maintainers can see who donated, do they prioritize issues / pull requests?…

> This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). In fact, it seems less than the existing options. The existing options are open platforms with open source code. What GitHub is introducing, seems to be a loss-leader (they give free cash away) for the sole purpose of getting…

And yet the open alternatives don’t seem to have amounted to anyone making a living from open source. Centralizing it offers a nicer UX - it’s not just about feature parity.
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