Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GitHub Sponsors

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 516 posts

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#111

Post by EugeneOZ »

diggan wrote: post #47
kristianc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the open alternatives don’t seem to have amounted to anyone making a living from open source. Centralizing it offers a nicer UX - it’s not just about feature parity.

So, for me that indicates that the problem is not that there is any service for making payments, but rather that open source developers who lives on donations, needs to be paid more by more people. It would be cool if GitHub integrated with existing platforms and helped that to happen. Instead, they signal nothing about this problem and shipped yet-another platform. They could have easily have contributed to solving…

Money movements are not just calls to some external API - there's a lot of legal regulations around money movements.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#112

Post by EugeneOZ »

diggan wrote: post #31
mushufasa wrote: post #5

This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Integrating sponsorship subscriptions into the core experience is sure to increase payments, a la twitch subscriptions/payments (which Youtube is just now copying). I imagine this will change the fundamental dynamics around OSS projects, but not sure how, nor whether it is all positive. - If maintainers can see who donated, do they prioritize issues / pull requests?…

> This seems like it's needed and (dareisay) overdue? Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). In fact, it seems less than the existing options. The existing options are open platforms with open source code. What GitHub is introducing, seems to be a loss-leader (they give free cash away) for the sole purpose of getting…

More options is better in this case.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#113

Post by Kalium »

diggan wrote: post #107
Kalium wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). It's got a major company with deep and signficant expertise in security, payments, and accouting. A name that people and companies already trust with a raft of compliance all handled already. It might just be me, but if I were to speculate I would guess that OpenCollective and…

I guess our perspectives are different. You seem to see this from GitHubs point of view, I'm seeing it from the view of open source developers. Both perspectives are equally valuable.

I agree that our perspectives are different.

I see this from the perspective of someone who wants to see developers get paid. Safely and securely, in a way that makes it easy for them to get paid the next time too.

I'm also looking at this from the angle of "What non-nefarious reasons would GitHub have for making these decisions?". One of the first that sprang to mind is credit card security, which touches on quite a few issues at once.

Further, my experience is that most of the time decisions that can be interpreted as being done for nefarious reasons were rarely actually made that way. I am willing to extend the HN-guideline principle of charity to GitHub, especially because I can see clear, real, valid reasons for standing up their own service over a partnership with a third-party service. I understand that some people will find these unconvincing or decide they are just a ploy.

I haven't even touched on AML or KYC issues!

You are definitely right about the importance of infrastructure made entirely of open source software. My perspective is, in essence, that there are other features that matter that may not fully live in code.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#114

Post by nickjj »

It's an interesting idea but I wonder what will make this different than gittip from years ago, or gratipay, or Patreon, or just having a "donate" button in your README file.

I guess I'm just skeptical in that this will change anything for the developers who are trying to make some type of income for their contributions.

On a related note, DHH recorded a very nice keynote at Railsconf 2019 on expectations of payments in open source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBwWbFpkltg

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#115

Post by mncmp »

have_faith wrote: post #106
Padrio wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really like to say that Microsoft is currently infiltrating the OSS world and pursuing their strategy, which they have successfully implemented dozens of times. Does anyone remember EEE[0]? If this is the case here, it would be the greatest successful coup in the history of the Internet. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_Extend_and_Extinguish

Embrace and extend makes sense. But wrt the open source world, how does extinguish fit in?

1) Corrupt OSS developers to produce OSS only for money.

2) Control top performers by pitching GitHub self-promotion experts with an agenda against them.

3) Make top performers leave OSS because the atmosphere has become hostile to meritocracy.

4) Try to take over existing code bases by hiring developers.

5) Make those developers push the above points inside "their" project (the key parts of which have usually been written by others).

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#116

Post by usrusr »

I think it's a very compelling deal: under the patreon model (company takes a cut to fund the funding mechanism), the "platform tax" is a permanent sore that makes donating feel less good than it could. Am I giving to the cause or am I giving to the platform? An independent zero fee platform run entirely on altruism will always be in the edge of failure, with one of the failure modes being transfer to untrustworthy operators.

A commercial zero fee platform run as a loss leader on a perfectly obvious business case just makes sense. It's clear that both ends of the transaction "pay" by adding relevance to the platform, but that's a positive sum game.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#117

Post by sneak »

diggan wrote: post #59

Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great. Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform. I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open…

> First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code.

GitHub's code has always been closed source. It's a service, not software. It's been like that since day one.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#118

Post by pdimitar »

caniszczyk wrote: post #20
Kiro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn't work well for Patreon and others What do you mean? What's wrong with Patreon?

"Take Patreon as an example, a popular funding platform for all sorts of things including open source projects that has been around since 2013 and has paid out $1 billion to creators since then. While that’s an astonishing figure, Patreon isn’t a sustainable business with its current private company model and level of VC funding of $105M: “Under the company’s current business model, 90 percent of funds are paid direc…

> Patreon CEO Jack Conte said in an interview with CNBC, that the platform will soon be facing the challenge of maintaining a profitable model as the company continues its growth.

"growth" -- for a company that is nothing more than an intermediary with a well-established platform. What do they need to grow for? If anything, it's time for some cuts actually.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#119

Post by jraph »

Toine wrote: post #105

From the signup page : > What are your preferred pronouns? (optional) So this is actually happening ?

I am seeing this trend of asking or indicating one's preferred pronoun more and more.

I find asking people how they would like to be referred to as a really positive thing and I fail to see any downside for this trend.

And since this is optional, nobody is forced to answer the question.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#120

Post by thosakwe »

This is a game changer for people like me, who do a lot of open source work, but might not have the pockets to sustainably continue putting in so many hours each week (i.e. students).
Post reply on HN