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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

#91

Post by catears »

offtop5 wrote: post #45
susam wrote: post #7

I have been running an open source MathJax-based mathematics pastebin[1] since 2012 and I had received 2 donations for it until recently. Then a mathematician tweeted[2] about it convincing others to send some donations. After that kind gesture by him, I received 3 more donations. So pretty sure I can't make a living out of donations. :-) But I still appreciate them because they help in covering a portion of the host…

I'm stupid , but what exactly do mathematicians do ? I'd assume economists are a significant portion of them ???

I can't remember which TV-series I saw it in, some kind of murder or "who dun' it?" show. But I remember that they had a pretty genuine and true role for a mathematician in that episode.

The mathematician was tasked with calculating the areas of manhattan that would be hit during stormy weather and give a rough estimation of the required drainage for the water to seep away.

That's the rough details, can't remember exactly. However, it always struck me as a job where the "mathematician as a job" fit really well.

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#92

Post by kubanczyk »

syshum wrote: post #55
yboris wrote: post #50

I've been trying to encourage more "Charityware" for software [0]. My software is free and open source (MIT license) [1] but I also sell it for $5 and donate $3.50 of every sale to a cost-effective charity. My goal is to increase donations to the charity, and asking people for donations wouldn't be as effective. My software now has generated almost over $9,000 in donations. Personally, every purchase of my software f…

One thing that always hurts OpenSource project is the fact they have not ability for me to "Buy" it, with an actual invoice or receipt that I can give to my accounting people for the sale... It is "donation" of a undetermined amount which is a much harder thing for me to clear the bean counters. So by being able to go to a site, it buy now with a fixed price, and (I presume getting a receipt) you likey having gotten…

Congratulations, you've discovered the Enterprise Edition (or Enterprise Support).

People think it needs a shitload of extra functionality, when in reality it just needs some minimal perks and a tag with a LARGE price written on it.

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#93

Post by ska »

offtop5 wrote: post #45
susam wrote: post #7

I have been running an open source MathJax-based mathematics pastebin[1] since 2012 and I had received 2 donations for it until recently. Then a mathematician tweeted[2] about it convincing others to send some donations. After that kind gesture by him, I received 3 more donations. So pretty sure I can't make a living out of donations. :-) But I still appreciate them because they help in covering a portion of the host…

I'm stupid , but what exactly do mathematicians do ? I'd assume economists are a significant portion of them ???

First, to you comment:

Economists are not generally mathematicians, any more than physicists are. I draw that analogy intentionally because in both cases there are subsets of the areas where the lines get a little bit fuzzy and individuals are doing a bit of both.

Second to your question. The shortest answer is that mathematicians create mathematics.

There are significant distinctions in how they typically think about world (e.g. discrete vs continuous) or what motivates/justifies the work (i.e. pure vs. applied) but underlying it all at the core is the act of creation, and of understanding those creations and how they relate to other things.

Many non-mathematicians use some mathematics routinely as a means to an end, but for mathematicians it is much of the end itself.

A couple of people have commented on the ways in which it is like art, and aesthetics is important. Hardy said "Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." , and I can't think of mathematician who would disagree. Applied mathematicians tend to take motivation from a problem from somewhere else, but also value aesthetics of the solution.

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#95

Post by ece »

$1 from 1000 people is equal to $20 from 50. If the project is widely used, I think the first model makes a lot of sense to encourage giving and to make a sustainable project.

This maybe unrelated, but something people should give some thought to when considering giving to open source projects. I give yearly to the projects I use, and I hope more people support open source this way.

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#96

Post by cdubzzz »

ColinWright wrote: post #85
cdubzzz wrote: post #9

I 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.

In my case I tried out GitHub Sponsors because it seemed pretty frictionless (and was!). If I were more concerned about soliciting donations I’m sure I would look at and probably use other platforms but in my case it’s just a small nicety.

I am however confused about how payouts happen with GH Sponsors — I feel like every time I take a look at the sponsors dashboard it says the payout will be next month. Haven’t received one yet.

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#97

Post by bigiain »

susam wrote: post #7

I have been running an open source MathJax-based mathematics pastebin[1] since 2012 and I had received 2 donations for it until recently. Then a mathematician tweeted[2] about it convincing others to send some donations. After that kind gesture by him, I received 3 more donations. So pretty sure I can't make a living out of donations. :-) But I still appreciate them because they help in covering a portion of the host…

So that's 2 donations in 8 years - or about 0.25 donations per year. And _three_ donations in the last year!

Or 1200% YoY growth!

(VCs please form an orderly queue...)

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#99

Post by bigiain »

ska wrote: post #93
offtop5 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stupid , but what exactly do mathematicians do ? I'd assume economists are a significant portion of them ???

First, to you comment: Economists are not generally mathematicians, any more than physicists are. I draw that analogy intentionally because in both cases there are subsets of the areas where the lines get a little bit fuzzy and individuals are doing a bit of both. Second to your question. The shortest answer is that mathematicians create mathematics. There are significant distinctions in how they typically think abou…

In my head, there's a difference between "arithmetic" and "mathematics".

People (like economists) who add/subtract/multiply/divide _numbers_ are doing arithmetic.

Mathematics is _rarely_ concerned with "numbers" as such - they deal in "truth" and "systems" and "logic" and "patterns".

Re: I received my first donation on my open-source side project

#100

Post by bigiain »

catears wrote: post #91
offtop5 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stupid , but what exactly do mathematicians do ? I'd assume economists are a significant portion of them ???

I can't remember which TV-series I saw it in, some kind of murder or "who dun' it?" show. But I remember that they had a pretty genuine and true role for a mathematician in that episode. The mathematician was tasked with calculating the areas of manhattan that would be hit during stormy weather and give a rough estimation of the required drainage for the water to seep away. That's the rough details, can't remember ex…

Not sure I agree. That task was "quantity surveying, estimating, and arithmetic" not mathematics.

A mathematician would have proved for all cities and terrain topologies there's a critical viscosity of liquid above which it is impossible to effectively drain them, along with an estimate of the lower bound of that viscosity.

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