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GitHub Sponsors

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Re: GitHub Sponsors

#411

Post by james-skemp »

libria wrote: post #368
naniwaduni wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect it to get worse. People pay for features over maintenance even more strongly than they allocate prestige.

Nah, there's a bug out there right now blocking my work I'd throw money at if I could. I can't be the only one who feels like this.

Rich, the creator of the Phaser framework, does something like this (I haven't dug into it much): https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/issues/3390

It appears they leverage Bountysource (not familiar with it).

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#412

Post by dredmorbius »

rswail wrote: post #317
koolba wrote: post #178

> 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 $…

If Github aren't doing KYC and AML, then their payment processor better have. Otherwise this is the swiftest way I've seen to make $5K.

KYC: know your customer.

AML: anti money-laundering.

Basics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#413

Post by dredmorbius »

Joey Hess raises questions: "What I would ask my lawyers about the new Github TOS'

If I were looking over the TOS with my lawyers, I'd ask these questions...

4 License Grant to Us

This seems to be saying that I'm granting an additional license to my software to Github. Is that right or does "license grant" have some other legal meaning?

If the Free Software license I've already licensed my software under allows for everything in this "License Grant to Us", would that be sufficient, or would my software still be licenced under two different licences?

There are violations of the GPL that can revoke someone's access to software under that license. Suppose that Github took such an action with my software, and their GPL license was revoked. Would they still have a license to my software under this "License Grant to Us" or not?....

http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/what_I_would_ask_my_lawyers_abo...

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#414

Post by asdkhadsj »

asymptotically2 wrote: post #182
asdkhadsj wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>If Github can start automatically recognizing dependencies I think that they already do this for JavaScript, Ruby, and Python dependencies[0]. However I don't think doing it automatically is the way to go, one dependency may be "worth" way more than another, and some dependencies may go undetected (e.g. if I conditionally sneak -lfoo into my LDLIBS somewhere) [0]: https://github.blog/2017-11-16-introducing-security-…

Yea, definitely agree about automatically. For me the biggest problem with automatic is, exactly as you said, the worth of varying projects.

I think automatic inclusion would also run the risk of OSS becoming less integrated. Ie, if I include another dependency I risk losing money, incentivizing me to reinvent wheels so long as I have the ability.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#415

Post by ShamelessC »

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…

Seems like it would give people the wrong idea.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#416

Post by beager »

dual_basis wrote: post #240
beager wrote: post #167

I’m excited about this but fearful that it will create unfair (I.e. monetary) incentive structures for FOSS maintenance.

Monetary == unfair? Why?

Imagine you’re a solo maintainer of an NPM package, and you know that one of the FAANG companies uses your package. Normally, you respond to issues on weekends and cut new builds when reasonable bugs are reported.

Then, the FAANGco starts sponsoring you, a pittance for them but a solid amount for you. They put in issues and submit PRs that are intended for their own use case, or even worse, that constrain the utility of the package to that company’s use case.

Other people put in issues, but let’s be real, they’re not sponsoring you.

A maintainer can reject an issue or PR from a sponsor to keep the package pure and generalized, but would risk getting that sponsorship revoked. And if you don’t think coercion would be involved in that, think again.

It is FOSS so someone could fork it. But then, you’ve got a situation where potentially tens of thousands of projects and consumers would have to switch over.

All straw men for sure, but I am thinking that the ecosystem of FOSS might be shook by this, from both the maintainer and consumer side.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#417

Post by wincent »

Is there any way I could add a button to my projects that would route "sponsorship" to a charity? Because I have a full time job, I do open source for fun, and I want to keep it that way — taking sponsorship would make that harder. But it would feel great to know that anything people wanted to put in the tip jar went straight to a non-profit.

Edit: answering my own question, their help page — https://help.github.com/en/articles/displaying-a-sponsor-but... — says "We don’t support the use of funding links for other purposes, such as for advertising, or supporting political, community, or charity groups."

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#418

Post by Kye »

derefr wrote: post #219
benatkin wrote: post #209

Not so fast. People have said this about gittip (now Gratipay), Patreon, Twitch, and now YouTube and Facebook. All of these have been mixed blessings. Here's an article about how Patreon doesn't work out even when everything goes smoothly: https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one-makes-a-living-on-pa... "After launching my Patreon, I struggled for months to find work. Patreon filled my downtime, and became a full time…

Who’s making a living on Patreon? The same people who make a living on Kickstarter, or via “gift” transfers through PayPal (before that was clamped down upon): people who can pull in whale patrons/backers. Certain verticals have more whale patrons than others. The common story is that if you’re an artist and you want to go where the whale patrons are, that’s—for some reason—art targeting the furry subculture. That’s…

>> "that’s—for some reason—art targeting the furry subculture."

Furry has a lot of people in well-compensated jobs who don't go for the trappings usually associated with having lots of money. So they spend thousands on commissions and conventions instead of gadgets.

I think that's the case with most of my own patrons. They'd rather spend $1/3/5 on some unusual music or reading new pulpy adventures instead of blowing it on something disposable.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#419

Post by Kye »

caser wrote: post #383
derefr wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who’s making a living on Patreon? The same people who make a living on Kickstarter, or via “gift” transfers through PayPal (before that was clamped down upon): people who can pull in whale patrons/backers. Certain verticals have more whale patrons than others. The common story is that if you’re an artist and you want to go where the whale patrons are, that’s—for some reason—art targeting the furry subculture. That’s…

Super curious to learn more about the lucrative furry art niche and how you came across it. Surprised no one else has mentioned this part of the comment.

Probably a furry or substantially furry-adjacent. We are legion.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#420

Post by dang »

benatkin wrote: post #209

Not so fast. People have said this about gittip (now Gratipay), Patreon, Twitch, and now YouTube and Facebook. All of these have been mixed blessings. Here's an article about how Patreon doesn't work out even when everything goes smoothly: https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one-makes-a-living-on-pa... "After launching my Patreon, I struggled for months to find work. Patreon filled my downtime, and became a full time…

This was a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19991469 but we detached it because it's a large subthread that's nearly all about Patreon.
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