Live data from Hacker News

Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

thanks.dev

181–190 of 205 posts

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#181
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could break out the transactions explicitly. That would help reduce the feeling that they're taking more than their share, if they're not doing that.

They could also sing a song, do a little dance and tweet a word of praise for your generosity. At some point the dance isn't worth the peanut.

Well, if they're there to secure a good chunk of peanuts for themselves, for being the intermediator, many would find this shady and wont want to deal with them.

Sorry, someone donating $10,000 to their favorite FOSS doesn't want an intermediator to take in $500 just for making the transaction.

Even more so when the actual transaction infrastructure is not going to be their's anyway, but some banks or Stripe or whatever.

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#183
post #23

The UI imposes a 5% minimum (and 15% default) value for "Tip thanks.dev" under "How much would you like to donate each month?" on https://thanks.dev/settings This implementation is clearly for-profit. I want to directly tip open source projects using a system that doesn't involve other third parties taking a significant cut.

Donations are not a perfect mechanism, there's significant friction.

tea.xyz will not have fees once it goes live with its funding protocol for open-source software.

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#184

In case you hadn't seen this yet, GitHub offers this service: https://github.com/sponsors/explore (need to be logged in) I have no insight but I could imagine that GitHub are going to offer something similar based on that data at some point in the future. For us the "top" developers on that page are people with 150+ repos that we depend on that I have never head of before. It turns out that they are all tiny JavaScri…

Letting Microsoft GitHub try to monopolize laterally in the developer space by doing funding is going to lead to further lock-in for folks down the line. I’d be wary of supporting them with a chunk of your donation.

[deleted]

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#185
post #23

The UI imposes a 5% minimum (and 15% default) value for "Tip thanks.dev" under "How much would you like to donate each month?" on https://thanks.dev/settings This implementation is clearly for-profit. I want to directly tip open source projects using a system that doesn't involve other third parties taking a significant cut.

There is some overhead in collecting money. When you use a charge card a small percentage goes to the credit card and processing companies.

There are some gas stations in Massachusetts that have a slightly lower cash price because they don’t have to pay that fees and pass along the savings. Most businesses nowadays just fold that fee into the price.

If they are upfront about how much I’m ok with it. Otherwise you can send a check, but no one is using that option.

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#186
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the idea of having a simple payments system for open source devs to use to get paid for their "free" software should be "free". Let the merit of the software dictate. That's the whole point of open source. To build things freely and openly to make the best possible software that we (humans) can make. We should also expect the same in the tools we rely on to do that work. It's not a hard ask. It's a philosophy of…

> To build things freely and openly to make the best possible software that we (humans) can make. This only works in a system where humans do not need money to live. This is not our system. In a capitalist system, for better or for worse, if you don't own a means of production you must work to get money because you need money to live. We should recognize the value of work, and if it is useful, pay for it. It is only…

It works exceedingly well in our current system.

The problem comes from people believing they should be paid for willingly giving away the fruits of their labor.

I only use FLOSS and don’t feel I’m missing out at all.

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#187
post #23

The UI imposes a 5% minimum (and 15% default) value for "Tip thanks.dev" under "How much would you like to donate each month?" on https://thanks.dev/settings This implementation is clearly for-profit. I want to directly tip open source projects using a system that doesn't involve other third parties taking a significant cut.

Came across this platform before that takes no commission and depend solely on donation.

https://en.liberapay.com/

The platform itself is also a project on the platform, where the donation happens

https://en.liberapay.com/Liberapay

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#188
post #170

"Donation" is a somewhat tainted word, because it often has certain legal issues attached. Most maintainers aren't non-profits, so they don't take donations, they get income (and it'll get taxed). At the same time, "donating" something without it actually being a donation is complicated for businesses (e.g. github not invoicing me for sponsorships gets my tax consultants to make sad faces). I understand the idea, but…

I personally like to see companies sponsoring maintainers. We’re working to clarify that with the community is the terms have different value propositions & financial implications.

"Sponsoring" is fine, but for business processes you need a paper trail where something gets invoiced somewhere. It doesn't matter for tiny amounts, but your accountant will want something to hand to the IRS if there's ever an audit.

From what I understand, you're not 1:1 giving the money to some maintainer that's chosen but you'll distribute it according to code usage etc, so you won't be a payment provider, but it counts as revenue for you and you give the money to maintainers, right? Are you invoicing or do you go the github route?

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#189
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also sing a song, do a little dance and tweet a word of praise for your generosity. At some point the dance isn't worth the peanut.

Well, if they're there to secure a good chunk of peanuts for themselves, for being the intermediator, many would find this shady and wont want to deal with them. Sorry, someone donating $10,000 to their favorite FOSS doesn't want an intermediator to take in $500 just for making the transaction. Even more so when the actual transaction infrastructure is not going to be their's anyway, but some banks or Stripe or whate…

> Sorry, someone donating $10,000 to their favorite FOSS doesn't want an intermediator to take in $500 just for making the transaction.

This phrasing is just inappropriate, and the situation you cite is an extreme.

> many would find this shady and wont want to deal with them

What's the point of armchair prognostication? We'll find out, and their pricing isn't fixed in stone?

Re: Sponsor the open source projects you depend on

#190
I receive a very small amount of donations on this platform for my work. I have some projects out there that are used as a dependency by a few million people. Fwiw in just over six months I've received around $20 and haven't cached it out yet. I get email notices about a few cents here and there but haven't bothered to take the time to setup Stripe in order to withdraw.
Post reply on HN