I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors • Hacker News Board

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#131

Post by gutnor » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #111

Google should hire people like this. Wouldn't it be awesome if developer talent was judged on the impact of one's open source projects / contributions versus leetcode competency? Yeah, I know - it'll never happen.

Ignoring the fact that the majority of the source code is not open sourced and that "impact" biggest variable is going to be chance.

Impact of one open source project measure slightly more than developer talent. It is a combination of a lot of skills, development skill just one among other like marketing, business sense, ability to make video, ... Extreme example would be Zuckerberg: is he the best developer in the world and wouldn't you waste a bit his potential if you hired him as a PHP dev?

And in any case, impact is always going to be a star system. You are going to have a tiny percentage of developers (like a few thousands in the world) that have impact and all the other that have 0. You are back to square one at trying to find a way to differentiate between a loser that can code and another loser that cannot.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#132

Post by Ndymium » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here.

We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities.

So this means that if you see a donation/sponsorship button on a software project where the money goes to a Finnish person, it is illegal (unless they have obtained a permit, which is highly unlikely). If you see a patreon/sponsorship with rewards, it's a grey area. The only clearly legal way is by selling actual things, and of course then you quickly need to set up a business.

I host a free project myself and I've had to set up a business (sole proprietorship) and sell things in order to get money for server costs. Even though people have been interested in donating, I can't do that legally.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#133

Post by zenhack » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #57

negrit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the author is American So he'll always have to pay US taxes even if he moves out of the US.(I'm aware about tax treaties but in most cases they still have to pay the difference)

Is GitHub sponsors considered as Salary though? Might have some tax breaks if that is not the case.

It may depend on what country you're in, but in the US if you're just some rando, "donations" are still taxable income. The form GitHub sends you for filling purposes is the same one used for contractors.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#134

Post by Nightshaxx » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

Grimm1 wrote: post #47

Veelox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would estimate Sr. or better is possible for someone who is able to independently run a OSS project. Going off https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... that comes out to ~$350k/yr going up one more level gets you ~$500k/yr I will let you decide if 3.5x - 5x is "not even close".

Unless you're doing interesting things at google for that 300-500k, 100k to work on OSS problems seems immeasurably better to me especially because they don't have to live in the bay area. 100k in pretty much anywhere but the east or west coast may as well be 300k.

That's exactly what the commenter's point was.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#135

Post by dfee » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #116

jfengel wrote: post #4

Props. Well done. The thing that struck me most was the podcast appearance. I was distantly affiliated with the music industry at one point and I saw over and over the value of being in the right place at the right time. Great bands languish because they just weren't seen. I don't mean to diminish the work, either the technological or the effort of finding sponsors. I just want to caution about extrapolating success…

Yeah; I have been trying to find ways to support my open source work and educational work over the past year, and I finally struck YouTube algorithm gold with a couple videos last month... but trying to replicate that success is hard. Sometimes I can spend days or more polishing a blog post or video and making it really good—and it falls flat. Other times I'll write up a post in an hour or so and it front pages on HN…

So just checked out one of your videos, and you seem to have a good process.

I recently bought a mic and a nice webcam (March) to do recordings and live streams, but got hung up on recording processing, etc.

Don’t know if it makes sense for you to do a meta video on that, or just share your thoughts on the OBS software and post processing, or if that’d be something worth reaching out to you on.

Like you, I’m very engaged in OSS, so I’m happy you’re seeing success!

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#136

Post by petercooper » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #97

shafyy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be kidding. $100k a year is more than enough to not think about money (for one person) in all European cities, including London. Except if you suck at personal finance and spend all your money for unnecessary things.

If you have more than a single child of school age, £90k in London is not that much. Two kids at a private school in Northern England will run you £30k, I imagine in London it will be a tad more.

Sure, you wouldn't send them to private school on that income. But it's far from a necessity; <10% of kids are privately educated.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#137

Post by hanniabu » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #101

bluedino wrote: post #27

Comparing $90k as a W2 employee doesn't really compare to making $112k as a LLC or contractor. Taxes, health insurance, retirement... On the other hand, his amounts are going up, so I'm interested to see how high they will go, and what it will consistently level out at.

If you set the entity up correctly and work with a decent accountant, your $112k turns into more like $40k taxable, and if you are married, that $40k drops to $20k @ 10% + $20k @ 12% or ~ $4500 in taxes.

What in the world....mind sharing tips or any links where I can learn more about this?

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#138

Post by aj7 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #101

bluedino wrote: post #27

Comparing $90k as a W2 employee doesn't really compare to making $112k as a LLC or contractor. Taxes, health insurance, retirement... On the other hand, his amounts are going up, so I'm interested to see how high they will go, and what it will consistently level out at.

If you set the entity up correctly and work with a decent accountant, your $112k turns into more like $40k taxable, and if you are married, that $40k drops to $20k @ 10% + $20k @ 12% or ~ $4500 in taxes.

Aha. And now you understand why we don’t have universal healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, and so much cash in the hands of the wealthy that interest rates are near zero.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#139

Post by hanniabu » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

NickBusey wrote: post #85

I hit $500/yr on Patreon this week for my open source work! :) Nice work, I should think about having paid only videos as well, I believe I can do that pretty easily on Patreon. Good tips in here.

Anybody have opinions/reasoning on Patreon vs Github Sponsors when it comes to open source work?

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#140

Post by zucker42 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

Ndymium wrote: post #132

Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…

What is the ostensible purpose behind that law? Seems like something you could get changed (with considerable effort) considering there appear to be no strong interests who benefit from it.