171–180 of 516 posts
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…
> Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). It's got a major company with deep and signficant expertise in security, payments, and accouting. A name that people and companies already trust with a raft of compliance all handled already. It might just be me, but if I were to speculate I would guess that OpenCollective and…
I agree with diggan’s point too, but the reality is this is likely to get more people paying more open source maintainers. I just wish it could be on an open platform.
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…
Assuming this succeeds, it will be a function of the network effect. Github has a large enough base of users to sustain this kind of project.
Does this service work also per project or per user only?
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?…
I'd also be concerned about features being implemented because there's money behind it, forgoing more important technical reasons.
Of course there are many projects that already implement this 'quid pro quo' development strategy, and open source projects with big corporate backers. How do these projects currently handle monetary influence in their decision making?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From GH’s perspective, why would they create a dependency on an open service (that could disappear at any moment) when they could roll their own? Especially with all the trust issues that come around payments. Are there any guarantees that Liberapay could even handle an integration at GH scale without it falling over? They opened 900 accounts last month. GitHub’s promise is something akin to ‘it just works’ - which m…
> why would they create a dependency on an open service (that could disappear at any moment) when they could roll their own? Because by creating the dependency on an open service and collaborating with them, they help them survive long term and to not disappear at any moment. Yes, it's nice that "it just works" but sometimes the easiest way of doing something doesn't mean it's the right way. Especially when it comes…
Working with folks outside of your employ (even if you pay them good money to do the work) will fail you far more often than working with one or more of your own employees.
I can't blame GitHub for doing this completely in-house.
What's to stop me^Wsomeone else and their friend from sponsoring each other for $5K to collect the $5K in matching funds?
> To supercharge community funding, GitHub created the GitHub Sponsors Matching Fund, which matches up to $5000 per sponsored developer in their first year of sponsorship. In the first year, GitHub will not charge any fees, so 100% of sponsorships will go to the sponsored developer. In the future, we may charge a nominal processing fee. What's to stop me^Wsomeone else and their friend from sponsoring each other for $…
I expect them to at least verify that you're doing some useful work on GitHub. If you are, I don't even particularly mind you exploiting this, even if it's perhaps not ideal.
A one time contribution would be great - since I personally cannot afford sponsoring monthly.