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GitHub Sponsors

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Re: GitHub Sponsors

#71

Post by diggan »

michaelt wrote: post #60
diggan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The Patreon product is 10% payment processing and 90% the marketing/branding/placement/ease-of-use/trust/normalisation, or whatever it is that makes people open their wallets. If GitHub Sponsors is stronger at whatever-it-is-that-makes-people-donate, that would be their advantage.

That's the scary part!

OpenCollective for example, being developed via their own platform, need to make sure the platform is sustainable, and can't just throw cash wherever they want to gain marketshare.

The result is a sustainable funding platform that will survive for as long as people fund it.

GitHub on the other hand, can develop the wrong features, spend too much, give cash away and a whole bunch of other things, while not actually achieving sustainability in itself in the long-term. Microsoft will cover all of this, until they wont.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#72

Post by mherrmann »

Would be cool if there was an easy way to sponsor all the projects I've starred. Then I could just pay (say) $10 per month to "support open source", without having to worry about any of the details such as picking projects.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#73

Post by grx »

Leace wrote: post #65
diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

> Obviously, I'm a bit biased, as I run a project for creating transparent open source infrastructure. But I do think this is a important issue, and I'm getting more and more scared GitHub is out to make open source development more ivory tower-like. This point is brought many times. Why use GitHub if we can host git repositories anywhere? (A: GitHub providers discovery). Why use GitHub PRs if we have mailing lists?…

> This point is brought many times. Why use GitHub if we can host git repositories anywhere? (A: GitHub providers discovery). Why use GitHub PRs if we have mailing lists? (A: GitHub has better UX).

Using Github as a git repo hoster is okayish in the sense that it does not lock your code in. Using Github as a central management tool is problematic, but still manageable.

But this introduces money into the game, and it's dangerous. Github will be the gatekeeper for money flows. It's the same for Patreon, but Patreon has less incentives to lock the whole Open Source ecosystem into their products (Github: hosting, code, issues, PRs, pages with CNAMEs!, package registry and now financial transactions).

My bet is that due to the current state of the ecosystem, people will jump on it and forget that Microsoft is behind all of this. We need organisations which are forced to be open and collective to handle Open Source, not privately owned corporate.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#74

Post by amirathi »

diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

> they decide to build their own closed-source platform

How does it matter that the donation platform is closed-source? Open market principles still apply. People will (and should) use it as long as it's easy, efficient, cheap to donate to whoever you wish to donate. If the platform misuses their dominance, people will figure out and alternatives will emerge/thrive. Until then, why complicate things? Donation is not like a lock-in into some closed source technology.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#75

Post by grx »

Padrio wrote: post #69
diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

I would really like to say that Microsoft is currently infiltrating the OSS world and pursuing their strategy, which they have successfully implemented dozens of times. Does anyone remember EEE[0]? If this is the case here, it would be the greatest successful coup in the history of the Internet. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_Extend_and_Extinguish

Wrote the same in another comment.. it's kinda brilliant but sad to watch at the same time. Microsoft's Github guys are geniuses if this is a part of a long-running EEE strategy. And people fall for it, because they have no principles and values, on which they decide what's good or damaging for Open Source.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#76

Post by rdl »

This is great; it's basically either 1) an alternative to Patreon for developers (which is something I have always wanted to exist) or 2) an alternative to Patreon for Patreon creators who are the tiniest bit intelligent and able to actually use GitHub (every aspect of Patreon is bad for creators, so this is an upgrade, except in user reach).

The missing element here is a nice end-user focused browsing experience, layered on top. A user-focused portal which lets you subscribe to projects, sponsor them on GitHub, and see updates, with GitHub behind the scenes.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#77

Post by mythz »

diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

An integrated payment solution is going to attract a far greater numbers of sponsors than telling everyone to go to sign up for a subscription on external sites.

Integrated authentication, existing credit cards on file, unified billing, giving more visibility to sponsors, allow projects to effectively monetize high traffic project pages with ad-space for sponsors and potential benefits like priority support is going to have a far larger impact for incentivizing funding and sponsorship than linking to a number of different external sites off to the side.

I'm sure this is a welcome and long awaited feature for many devs who would love more funding around their OSS efforts.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#78

Post by diggan »

amirathi wrote: post #74
diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

> they decide to build their own closed-source platform How does it matter that the donation platform is closed-source? Open market principles still apply. People will (and should) use it as long as it's easy, efficient, cheap to donate to whoever you wish to donate. If the platform misuses their dominance, people will figure out and alternatives will emerge/thrive. Until then, why complicate things? Donation is not…

Again, I'm biased but here comes my biased thoughts anyways:

> How does it matter that the donation platform is closed-source?

Yes, I do think it does matter. Actually, I think that every open source service we open source developers depend on, should be open source and run in the open as much as possible.

It's great if a for-profit company can survive being 100% transparent and with all code open source. So far, that's been very difficult to achieve, especially with the expectations from VC funding and high-growth startups.

So instead, we need a different model for open source infrastructure, where the users are more involved in the funding of the platform. With that, users should feel they know what the money goes to and where it comes from. To solve that, the platform needs transparency.

So yes, I'd argue that a core open source platform for open source developers, indeed needs to be open source and transparent.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#79

Post by diggan »

mythz wrote: post #77
diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

An integrated payment solution is going to attract a far greater numbers of sponsors than telling everyone to go to sign up for a subscription on external sites. Integrated authentication, existing credit cards on file, unified billing, giving more visibility to sponsors, allow projects to effectively monetize high traffic project pages with ad-space for sponsors and potential benefits like priority support is going…

> An integrated payment solution is going to attract a far greater numbers of sponsors than telling everyone to go to sign up for a subscription on external sites.

I agree, and I'm not saying GitHub should have just added a redirect to OpenCollective and called it a day.

But they did have the choice to integrate OpenCollective. Basically, the same UI they have now, they could have built on top of OpenCollective, without any losses of features. But, they would have lost a lot of data and other interesting things that can help GitHub/Microsoft develop other features in other services.

And I'm sure it was a conversation on the product team (or whoever came up with it), but eventually got dropped for for some reason.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#80

Post by zapita »

I’m glad open-source maintainers will get one more way to get paid... But it feels wrong to lock this into a git hosting platform. Maintainer payment is important enough to be a first-class product, open and accessible to all... instead it’s being used as a bargaining chip to keep developers on a hosting platform. The subtext is pretty clear: “if you want to get paid, you better not leave Github!”.

Meanwhile nonprofits and startups focused on solving the problem of open-source sustainability for everyone, not just Github customers, will suffer from this announcement.

I think that’s a shame.

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