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GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

blog.greg.technology

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Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#261

Post by ianso »

I think there could be a GH feature request that could do something like this in my opinion (opt-in though, not opt-out).

In my personal GH account there is a "sponsor" button that shows me what dependencies I have that I could sponsor. Unfortunately the list is empty.

My _organisations_ have hundreds of repo's, but there's no "sponsor" option at the org level in GH that says what dependencies the orgs use and then set up batch transactions at that level.

The dependency data already exists in dependabot for a lot of stuff, so it wouldn't be starting from scratch.

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#262

Post by AngryData »

joe_mamba wrote: post #179
tehjoker wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK music culture of the 1960s was in large part due to the "dole" or cash payments to poor people.

I don't think that's the only reason since the dole exists today too and there's not as much good music coming out. Jazz and other music genres in the US came without government welfare, they came from struggle and oppression. Motivated artists will still work part time to fund their dream, they don't necessarily wait for welfare to start making art. IF you were to give a lot of people free money today, will you get…

What do you mean there isn't much good music coming out? Maybe the genres people are creating more of don't match your personal preference, or you aren't looking for it and are just relying on major media companies to show it to you, but ive never had more high quality music of more variety than ever before.

Much of it is farther in the electronica genres that many people somehow still ignore the existence of but I haven't had to listen to the same song twice unless I wanted to in a number of years. Just on my youtube discovery feed right now I got multiple 1+ hour synthwave mixes, EBM/EDM, industrial bass, multiple forms of metal, filk, jungle and DnB, punk rock, old and new jazz styles, and more, 95% of which was made in the last 2 years.

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#263

Post by aitchnyu »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #155

Been living off grants and donations for a few years now. My 2c is you probably don't need to invent a new platform to fund open source development. There are tons of platforms and systems in place already. That's not's what's missing. You need to get open source developers that want to get paid for their work to spell that fact out to their users and supporters. Yes this is uncomfortable, but the simple fact is that…

Krita put a fee on Steam and Windows store, their team doubled from 2 to 4.

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d2ic2e/krita_is_now_...

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#266

Post by pythonaut_16 »

securesaml wrote: post #47
strongpigeon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s OK to say “No” or “Pay me and I’ll do it right now” to companies doing this.

Correct, maintainers can say that and get shamed. And it leads to unmaintained libraries, since companies don't want to pay. At some point, is open sourcing your work a liability?

Are there honestly examples of maintainers being shamed for that?

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#267

Post by nanapipirara »

john-h-k wrote: post #203
pixelready wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the piece so many that are stuck in the hustle culture mindset miss, and why they are so quick to dismiss anything like UBI or a strong social safety net that might “reduce people’s motivation”. There are many many creative, caring people that are motivated to create things or care for each other for the sake of it, not for some financial reward. Imagine the incredible programs, websites, games, craft…

> There are many many creative, caring people that are motivated to create things or care for each other for the sake of it Very true. In a UBU world I have no doubt we’d have many exciting libraries, lots of pottery, and many books. But I’ve never met anyone passionate about collecting bins, development of accounting tooling, or pricing of phone insurance. You need rewards to allocate people effectively, because “pa…

I actually volunteer to take care of parts of the trash in our neighborhood. Like with a proper garbage truck. And the amount of volunteers so big that I only have to do it a few times a year. All the money they make with recycling goes to the local school. It is fun to do, even in cold rain. The garbage truck driver gets paid, but I am sure in an IBU world even drivers would chip in if they could afford it. People want to contribute and feel useful.

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#268

Post by mastermage »

nickff wrote: post #163
anonymous908213 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting GGGP: >There are many many creative, caring people that are motivated to create things or care for each other for the sake of it, not for some financial reward. Imagine the incredible programs, websites, games, crafts, artworks, animations, performances, literature, journalism, hobby clubs, support groups, community organizations that would spring into existence if we all just had more bandwidth for them whil…

I have no problem with people doing whatever they want, but if nobody else values it, there’s no ‘contribution’ to society, art, or anything else.

Counterexample:Ignaz Semmelweis, who discovered in the 1840s that hand-washing dramatically reduced deaths in childbirth. The medical establishment rejected his findings, and he was institutionalized and died tragically, vindicated only after his death.

Surely this was a contribution even if not valued at the point of making it.

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#269

Post by saghm »

carlosjobim wrote: post #215
pixelready wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the piece so many that are stuck in the hustle culture mindset miss, and why they are so quick to dismiss anything like UBI or a strong social safety net that might “reduce people’s motivation”. There are many many creative, caring people that are motivated to create things or care for each other for the sake of it, not for some financial reward. Imagine the incredible programs, websites, games, craft…

1. Work for free making open source code and giving it away for free. 2. Giant corporations take all my code without giving me anything. 3. Now I'm really angry! I should have gotten some money from them! 4. The government must force my neighbours to pay a salary to me! 5. Continue to work for free making open source code for giant corporations, so they can profit. How about instead?: 1. Don't work for free or give a…

> The government doesn't need to oppress innocent people to pay your salary

Pretty much everything a government can do is going to qualify as "oppression" if you use the term so broadly that's it includes levying taxes, so that's pretty much a meaningless characterization.

Let's put it in more concrete terms: if the US government passes a law to raise taxes to fund UBI, that probably wouldn't even make the last of the top 100 most oppressive things it's done to innocent people in the past year. If the strongest objection to this policy would be "I don't want to pay taxes to fund things for other people", it's in pretty good company.

Re: GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source

#270

Post by YetAnotherNick »

People in tech thinks that micropayments work. Even if you leave out the drop off in entering card details, it just doesn't work, as if get some payment you are much more liable by law. e.g. Whatsapp is the closes example, which had cost of revenue of $52M for revenue of $10M[1] in the last filing.

[1]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...

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