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Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

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Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#21

Post by rtpg »

cavneb wrote: post #11
rtpg wrote: post #9

What was the difference between code sponsor and general "donate" buttons?

Donate buttons don’t work. They are asking for money from other developers. Imagine 100 developers in a room and each one takes out their purse or wallet and hands a dollar to the left. It’s not scalable, and it feels like begging. Code Sponsor took the approach that scalable funding should come through marketing budgets, not charity. Companies pay developers to place a non-obtrusive, relevant and ethical banner on t…

I understand the difficulties of donate buttons, though marketing budgets is a bit of an interesting angle.

Thanks for the explanation

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#23

Post by eropple »

cavneb wrote: post #10
franciscop wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, I see more and more ads on Github. I even get a bunch of SPAM to put ads on my projects since I got a couple of fairly popular projects. Monetization is still a huge problem, just this is not the way to go about it.

What other solutions do we have to provide scalable funding to open source projects? This comment really frustrates me. Do we put more buttons on our repos asking for money from other developers? Do we try to find corporate sponsorship and hope that they don’t try to influence the project? And if we did want to go that route, how do we do it? Why is this not the right way to go about it? The “ads” were relevant, unob…

> If anyone else has a better idea, please share.

Email me. I don't know if I have the bandwidth to do it right now, but I'm confident that I have the answer.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#24

Post by manigandham »

cavneb wrote: post #10
franciscop wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, I see more and more ads on Github. I even get a bunch of SPAM to put ads on my projects since I got a couple of fairly popular projects. Monetization is still a huge problem, just this is not the way to go about it.

What other solutions do we have to provide scalable funding to open source projects? This comment really frustrates me. Do we put more buttons on our repos asking for money from other developers? Do we try to find corporate sponsorship and hope that they don’t try to influence the project? And if we did want to go that route, how do we do it? Why is this not the right way to go about it? The “ads” were relevant, unob…

It is a great way, just hard to pull off on a platform like github combined with the general distrust of adtech that's common with devs/HN crowd.

Ads are still the most scalable, fast, easy and passive way to generate revenue but unfortunately the adtech industry has poisoned the well so people forget all the smaller companies trying to do the right thing. Perhaps opencollective can pickup something like this. Good luck on your next project.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#25

Post by watwut »

cavneb wrote: post #8
phaedryx wrote: post #4

For what it's worth, I skimmed Gitlabs terms ( https://about.gitlab.com/terms/ ) and don't see anything about it. The few Code Sponsor ads I saw on Github were pretty benign, but I can understand why Github wants to keep them off of their platform.

Unfortunately, Github is where open source lives. The success that Code Sponsor saw was due to the minimal steps it took for a developer to start getting paid for open source. Asking developers to move their open source projects to Gitlab would not work.

Why would gitlab not work? Something in their terms and conditions?

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#26

Post by doiwin »

Eric, how is your service tied to GitHub? As far as I understand it, you simply are a matchmaker for developers and advertisers. And you track clicks to the advertisers urls. Where the developers put the links to those urls is not your decision, right?

If so, I don't think GitHub has an angle to attack you.

A developer with a Commission Junction account could very well put CJ links in their README. That would not give GitHub a vector to attack CJ.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#27

Post by isoos »

cavneb wrote: post #10
franciscop wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, I see more and more ads on Github. I even get a bunch of SPAM to put ads on my projects since I got a couple of fairly popular projects. Monetization is still a huge problem, just this is not the way to go about it.

What other solutions do we have to provide scalable funding to open source projects? This comment really frustrates me. Do we put more buttons on our repos asking for money from other developers? Do we try to find corporate sponsorship and hope that they don’t try to influence the project? And if we did want to go that route, how do we do it? Why is this not the right way to go about it? The “ads” were relevant, unob…

I understand your frustration: in an ideal world, we should be able to easily reward people who contribute to the greater good, and open source developers are certainly in that category.

However, this reward may not always be money: community recognition and extended network, better chances of hiring, or attribution from projects that depend on you should also be considered.

Yeah, it is valid to say that funding needs to be improved. But while ads provide a way, it is a stretching to call it the only or the right way. Maybe open source development is just fine with corporate sponsorship + people doing it in their free time. Maybe developers are repelled by ads so much that it actually hinders contributing to interesting projects. Maybe charity and donations work better we just haven't figured it out yet (see Patreon, which had a surprising success, despite the skepticism around microfunding).

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#28

Post by icebraining »

doiwin wrote: post #26

Eric, how is your service tied to GitHub? As far as I understand it, you simply are a matchmaker for developers and advertisers. And you track clicks to the advertisers urls. Where the developers put the links to those urls is not your decision, right? If so, I don't think GitHub has an angle to attack you. A developer with a Commission Junction account could very well put CJ links in their README. That would not giv…

You mean, legal angle? Probably not, but Github can simply ban all links to Code Sponsor.
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