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GitHub Sponsors

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Re: GitHub Sponsors

#151

Post by insomniacity »

buro9 wrote: post #149
pdimitar wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> visible "this repo receives $500 per month" it would encourage code contribution whilst providing visibility over the health of a project. I fear this might snowball. Many people don't donate if they see a project with very small donations. It goes like this: "well, my contribution would not make any difference anyway"... The reverse is also true: "this guy is OBVIOUSLY doing something right if he gets $500 a month…

Well what I'd like to do is establish a stack of budgets against a project, e.g. Kickstarter Goals. $500 p/m = all hosting and domain costs paid for $750 p/m = we'll use some paid service that makes the service better in some way $1k p/m = we'll reward contributors $250 p/m distributed across those who contributed to PRs but exact distribution determined by repo admins And then to have a budget associated to the lowe…

I like your tiers idea - optionally you could even make that happen by tying it to the Marketplace. IOW - "Help pay for our subscription!"

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#152

Post by hp »

sktrdie wrote: post #109

Sorry to bring my ethical and philosophical view on the subject but I don't agree with forcing a capitalist system to something that is essentially volunteer work. Open source has worked fine being just volunteer for the past several decades. In fact I'd argue it's one of the only ecosystem that keeps on being awesome. I don't think adding money to the equation will change any of this. In fact it might risk making it…

I'd argue that money's been in OSS since its inception.

To try to put a number on it, here's a random study that 50% of oss is people at their paid job: https://dirkriehle.com/2013/08/22/paid-vs-volunteer-work-in-...

But anecdotally that number is consistent with my experience.

When we created the GNOME Foundation in 2000, it was in part to manage the commercial vendors and money involved (Compaq, Eazel, Helix Code, IBM, Sun Microsystems and VA Linux Systems, see the press release https://www.gnome.org/press/2000/08/red-hat-joins-industry-v...).

This was not at all unique to GNOME, same kinda stuff around all the major projects at that time.

One thing I think is new and constructive is more ways to pay maintainers without asking them to join a giant company.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#153

Post by wooger »

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…

Yeah, but they are Github, so they will clearly win out over those companies I’ve never heard of.

Everyone with a big report for your OSS project is already on your Github page. Its perfect.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#154

Post by Kye »

the_duke wrote: post #70
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 agree. All the recent additions to Github are superficially very nice and convenient features (Actions, package registry, Sponsors, Dependabot). But they represent a very significant change in mindset. Github is turning from a neutral code hosting platform with a myriad of equally empowered third party integrations into the direction of a "all in one" dev tool and platform. I understand the internal pressures to do…

I wrote something about the pattern of centralization/decentralization in the context of Patreon: https://kyefox.com/patreons-future-venture-capital-is-bad-an...

GitHub is somewhere between 2 and 3 right now.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#155

Post by return1 »

They should also launch one-off contributions for people who want particular features . Still a great move , and loooong overdue, i hope it succeeds massively.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#156

Post by return1 »

zapita wrote: post #80

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 nonprofi…

On the other hand it provides a way to measure the performance of the people being sponsored. it's a good fit.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#157

Post by asdkhadsj »

Well damn, this is sneaky and I love it. I say sneaky, because I was in a situation where I mentally debated Github vs Gitlab. This tips it a bit towards Githubs favor. Not that I'm even planning on being sponsored or w/e, but simply that I already view GH as a social network for a thing I love (code), but now it seems even more.. socially.. if that makes sense.

Purely my perception of course.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#158

Post by devonzuegel »

Hi, I’m Devon the product manager behind GitHub Sponsors. We’re excited to launch the beta program today and learn how we can best serve the community.

It’s great to already see the conversation on this thread! We’re eager to hear all of your feedback, and feel free to email me at devonzuegel@github.com as well.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#159

Post by return1 »

seren wrote: post #14

A logical next step would be to add bounty on specific bugs or features requests. If a company is relying on open source, and has no capability to fix a critical bug (which is a bad strategy but it certainly happens), it would probably be ready to pay a hefty sum so that the maintainer, or anyone involved in the project, will have at least a look at it. Today, unless you can contact directly the maintainer and hope h…

i think worklist.net has created a bidding platform that works that way. it's not popular, but something like that on github be pretty popular imho.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#160

Post by asdkhadsj »

pdimitar wrote: post #108
buro9 wrote: post #36

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…

> visible "this repo receives $500 per month" it would encourage code contribution whilst providing visibility over the health of a project. I fear this might snowball. Many people don't donate if they see a project with very small donations. It goes like this: "well, my contribution would not make any difference anyway"... The reverse is also true: "this guy is OBVIOUSLY doing something right if he gets $500 a month…

It would be really neat if the eventually introduce some type of dependency sharing.

Ie, huge project X built on top of Y and Z show that 30% of donations go to Y and Z.

If Github can start automatically recognizing dependencies it could also incentivize people to "properly" (whatever that means) share donations.

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