Is there an easy way to have people donate "to" my project where the money goes straight to my chosen charity but I still get some sort of notification / running total of how much has been donated? I think I'd like to know people were donating - I could ask they tell me but I'd never know if they didn't bother emailing or if nobody thought it worth donating - but I don't want any of the (tax) hassle that might come from personally receiving a donation, even if I always remembered to re-donate it on.
I received my first donation on my open-source side project
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Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#82If you can always put a crypto address or whatever on your site that would be helpful. Recently found a guy who wrote a blog post and a GitHub repo that was absolutely dope. Happy to send him like $50 but I couldn't find an ETH address.
Emailed him anyway. We'll see.
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#83Can relate. I only received one donation for my side project[0] but more than money. It gave me some motivation to continue to work on it, thinking that it's so useful for someone out there that he/she actually gave money for that.
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#84I have been lucky enough to have a monthly GitHub sponsor (even two at one point), as well as several one-time donations through Ko-Fi, all for my Gemini browser, Amfora.
It's pretty exciting to actually be paid for open source, and helps motivate me to continue developing it, knowing there are users who genuinely care about it out there. Although to be honest, I've found the compliments I've gotten over it more rewarding and motivating than any donations. If the donations significantly increased somehow than I think that might flip, but either way I'm enjoying working on it.
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#85I also recently received a first $5 donation on an OSS project I created and have been supporting since 2017. It was a really pleasant surprise and motivated me to spend a bit more time on the project to move through some bug fixes and feature enhancements. It’s amazing what a small gesture like that can do.
I'd be interested to know by what means the payment was made. Patreon? Ko-Fi? Paypal? Something else?
I'm interested in knowing what options exist, and the various pros and cons. Friction-free micropayments are still (as far as I know) a problem without a universally accepted solution.
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#86The first donation to my open source project (1) came from someone who went through the trouble of emailing me to ask how they could donate. Since then, I've embraced receiving donations and last year I ended up receiving more than 10.000 euro. (2) I (re)donate everything to charity, for reasons (3), but even then it's a great motivator. If it wasn't for the money I would have burned out long ago. It really means a l…
Nice work! Just out of curiosity: Which of the price tiers (1) is chosen most regularly?
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I misread your original comment. Sure, if the project is successful to the point of receiving significant amounts, having to report it becomes mandatory. Speaking as someone with an open source project that started due a grant and that I'd love to turn into a full time job: If I were receiving so many donations that it would require me to spend time to report to the tax authorities, I'd put it on the list of "…
Obviously it depends which tax system(s) you have to deal with, but in some countries if you are fortunate to already earn over the tax free allowance from your day job, it doesn't matter how big or small the extra (donation) income is from your side-project - it will be mandatory to report it. So you can either comply, which has a cost, or not comply and risk whatever comes from that.
I am talking about the scenario where there would be working on open source is the day job.
Whether the revenue came from big sponsorships, support contracts or donations, it certainly would need an accountant anyway.
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm stupid , but what exactly do mathematicians do ? I'd assume economists are a significant portion of them ???
I've seen questions of this kind a lot on HN, and I think they really deserve a better answer than what I can come with. Here's my best shot at an answer: Mathematics is a bit like art. There is no functional purpose to art, people just do it for the sake of itself, and for the intellectual stimulation. Likewise, mathematics deals with building theory on top of previous theory, with no real purpose other than for the…
I don't think it's accurate to say mathematics is always art. Two theoretical fields in particular: fourier analysis, which came from wanting to solve heat flow equations, and probability, which came from wanting to win at games of chance, come to mind as applied math migrating to theoretical
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#89I got $2 donation from someone who liked my docker php blog post. It felt great!
Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project
#90My first donation still means the most to me: a hamper full of chocolates and a personalised card. That was back in April and I'll treasure it for the rest of my life. The fact that someone's willing to go through those lengths to say thank you is still mindblowing.
Since then, the project that I've been working on opened publicly for donations in November. We're going to hit 1,000 donations today, with ~$13,000 and close to ~$600/m recurring [0].
It's a massive motivator to keep going. The "thank you" messages and financial contributions have turned my time spent contributing to open source into probably my most emotionally fulfilling experience.