> our $1.8M pre-seed round to help us pursue our mission of expanding the open source economy
$1.8M VC funding for what?
Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
111–120 of 139 posts
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That sounds like straight paranoia. All businesses are online today on Google Maps etc. Does your local hot dog stand get swatted on a regular basis? I've been on the Internet for decades and seen pretty nasty shit. If you want to know what German trolls are capable of, search for "Drachenlord". Additionally, I'm an active antifascist and received my fair share of death threats. So yes I'm biased.
I think those are two very different sides of the internet. There are easy solutions for the problems you listed. The easiest being to not use your real name to accept SEPA payments. You can put anything you want there on the invoice, the banks just care about the account number.
> The easiest being to not use your real name to accept SEPA payments. You can put anything you want there on the invoice, the banks just care about the account number.
Is it wise though? Absolutely no. All that is is asking for a lot of trouble. Alone because a SEPA identifier is enough to cause people to order an awful lot of bullshit using it and you'll be stuck unwinding fraudulent pizza and dildo deliveries pretty much forever until you change the bank or have them create a new account.
I have a lot of shit to dunk on Bitcoin and others, but the one thing these got right is that no one could simply claim they had an authorization to your funds.
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#113Polar asks you to grant "act on your behalf" permissions to your Github. As someone who has both professional and open source projects at Github, that's a definite deal breaker
I did come here to post the same reaction. I saw the OAuth prompt with "act on your behalf" and intermediately closed the browser tab.
When I want to take a look at something new I do not want ti give it what looks like nearly full access on my account.
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, if you are getting paid for adding features or fixing stuff on the OSS code, that's time spent on the project. And chances are that if somebody is willing to pay something, many other people will find use for it.
Another issue is that software developers are sometimes paid highly and are in top tax bracket. In New Zealand the top marginal tax rate is 39% (although I am guessing most software devs would be on 33% (Over $70,000 and up to $180,000) even at 33% it is not so motivating to be offered $1000 if $330 of that immediately disappears as taxes. Plus the hassle of recording amounts and declaring them - uggggh. In Californi…
> it is not so motivating to be offered $1000 if $330 of that immediately disappears
I get how 1000 is better than 670, but on the flip side, that's 670 extra that you didn't have before, right
If it's about where the line falls, I guess you could only accept a minimum of $1492, so after the 33% cut you get $1000 :)
But yeah, as mentioned in my other sibling comments, I believe that the administrative burden itself might be enough of a barrier for lots of people to prefer skipping the problem altogether.
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#115Now that the company is funded, are you hiring? I'd love to work for a company that has the sole goal of making FOSS sustainable, I even wrote a bit about it here: https://raphael.lullis.net/open-source-funding/
Really liked the blog and this article too https://raphael.lullis.net/can-foss-eat-the-world/
Lot of overlap :-)
Would be great to connect. Just hired for the open role we had, but we’ll grow more. You can reach me at birk[at]polar.sh
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#116We did this in 2010 :). In the years since there has been many similar attempts. This one, however, seems to have all the important things right. Congrats for the funding and good luck!
Thank you! If you are who I think you are we’re already connected, but otherwise I’d love to chat: birk[at]polar.sh
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#117I wish success to initiatives like that. From the article I didn't understand the model. Or how it is diffirent from existing projects like https://bountysource.com/ and others.
Working on docs for the site. Clear we can do a better job explaining this.
Until then, I answered this thread on the topic the other day which hopefully clarifies: https://github.com/polarsource/polar/discussions/391#discuss...
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think those are two very different sides of the internet. There are easy solutions for the problems you listed. The easiest being to not use your real name to accept SEPA payments. You can put anything you want there on the invoice, the banks just care about the account number.
> The easiest being to not use your real name to accept SEPA payments. You can put anything you want there on the invoice, the banks just care about the account number. Is it wise though? Absolutely no. All that is is asking for a lot of trouble. Alone because a SEPA identifier is enough to cause people to order an awful lot of bullshit using it and you'll be stuck unwinding fraudulent pizza and dildo deliveries pret…
What? The only thing people can do if they have your bank account number is send money to that account. There's nothing else they can do.
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be me :-) My name is Birk Jernström (@birk on Twitter). Been coding since I was 10y. Co-founded an e-commerce platform called Tictail back in 2011 which was acquired by Shopify in 2018. Worked there for 3y as Director of Product on the Shop.app team. In hindsight building platforms that empowers creators (one form or another) is what I love to do. As a self-taught developer thanks to open source, I'm incre…
Sounds awesome! Love your idea, but I was wondering as to what would happen if GitHub built this into their platform directly, bypassing Polar. What does Polar have that GitHub doesn't, in case that happens?
Thank you xNeil! Focus & velocity is key. This roadmap is our #1 priority, sole focus and ultimate business. It would be GitHub's #1058 priority – if ever.
I love GitHub. They're the foundational layer of development in the ecosystem. However, an economic platform like Polar's intentions long-term is an entirely separate layer on top imo. Requiring a whole suite of different product offerings and operations tailored to it. Such as taxes, accounting, payments, customer management & communication to supporting platforms beyond GitHub, i.e GitLab, Hugging Face and more. Sure, there is overlap, but mostly the two are separate layers with substantial requirements of their own.
GitHub should focus on their core layer of development. It's massive and ever changing (especially now). Offering users to expand their "hub" through app integrations and partnerships. Combined with leveraging their investment arm & rev share with third parties – as all other platforms – to gain upside in other economic models/layers built on top. I think that's the better and more likely strategy for GitHub to continue on.
Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding
#120Props for trying, the software world needs something like this. However, I don't see how this is not fundamentally just a Github feature. They don't have it now, but if Polar gets any traction, they'll implement it pretty swiftly and probably eat your lunch.
Thanks toyg! Re: GitHub, I answered another comment on this note here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36736826