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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

#31

Post by soneca »

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 believe there is a chance of making it happen through donations like Patreon did for creatives. A Patreon for OSS would be a good pivot, don't you think?

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#32

Post by tempay »

watwut wrote: post #25
cavneb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because most projects are not already there. Moving a community from GitHub to GitLab isn't trivial, not to mention all the work required to update material and avoid broken links.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#33

Post by pedro596 »

icebraining wrote: post #28
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.

But why not get Github out of the equation? I know it might seem a lot to ask but there are alternatives, Github has their right to ban you but it don't need to be the end. Or am I missing something?

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#36

Post by manigandham »

soneca wrote: post #31
cavneb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 believe there is a chance of making it happen through donations like Patreon did for creatives. A Patreon for OSS would be a good pivot, don't you think?

Patreon already does OSS if the creator wants to list there, but there's also https://opencollective.com that has gained traction with many top projects for official funding.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#37

Post by nh2 »

cavneb wrote: post #7
jlgaddis wrote: post #5

> ... we have raised over $10,000 towards open source sustainability. In October, they brought in $7,437.20 from sponsors. They paid out $3,413.20 to open source developers. 40% was to be paid out to developers. I realize there are some "administrative costs" and it takes a while to ramp things up but that seemed like way too little being paid out. On the other hand, that's $3,413.20 that otherwise might not have wen…

Hi. This is Eric, the founder of Code Sponsor. I appreciate your concern here. Please understand that for the last four months, I’ve been getting up at 5am and working till 7:30. I then would go to my day job every day and then get back to Code Sponsor in the evenings. I also worked every weekend. It was a huge struggle for me and my family to put in the time. The reason I had a 40% rate was in hopes that I could mak…

Thanks for your effort on it. I had high hopes for Code Sponsor.

It's a shame that Github is forcing Code Sponsor to shut down.

I encourage you to wait until Github's time is over, and then to try again.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#38

Post by TAForObvReasons »

pedro596 wrote: post #33
icebraining wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But why not get Github out of the equation? I know it might seem a lot to ask but there are alternatives, Github has their right to ban you but it don't need to be the end. Or am I missing something?

Author responded in another thread earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15774729

> 60% of all traffic through Code Sponsor came from Github. 15% came from ad blocked traffic (I have no idea the referer). About 15% came from websites and then the remainder came from different repository websites (dockerhub, npm, etc).

From the monetizable repo views, 86% of all views were from Github. Barring a massive cultural shift, Github has to be part of the equation.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#39

Post by jlukic »

Just my two cents here.

When Eric is describing having to wake up at 5 am and work weekends to make Code Sponsor work even with the proceeds of 60% of all OS projects his ad network funded, it should be pretty clear the other 40% divided among many OS coders couldn’t be enough for their project’s development to feel sustainable.

As much as I commend Eric on trying to find a solution to OS maintainability, I think he actually just reinvented something already available to OS developers, a niche tasteful ad network, I.e carbon ads " rel="nofollow">https://carbonads.net> something which many OS projects with a large enough audience already include to support development.

Re: Code Sponsor is shutting down on December 8

#40

Post by TAForObvReasons »

git-pull wrote: post #18
jlgaddis wrote: post #5

> ... we have raised over $10,000 towards open source sustainability. In October, they brought in $7,437.20 from sponsors. They paid out $3,413.20 to open source developers. 40% was to be paid out to developers. I realize there are some "administrative costs" and it takes a while to ramp things up but that seemed like way too little being paid out. On the other hand, that's $3,413.20 that otherwise might not have wen…

This isn't directed at the commenter, but the concept above: Can we all come to an agreement that a person running an endeavor be permitted to feed, cloth, and accomodate themselves reasonably? Specifically, this crab mentality of dashing hopes of someone ending up right side up on a side project or even a nonprofit. Why pick on the little guys who are just trying to get by, especially if they have a noble intention…

> reasonably

If the split happened to be 80%/20% or 90%/10%, then no one would complain even if the author was pocketing $1M/mo. In fact, I and many other people would likely be ecstatic.

However, knowing the actual split, and knowing that the majority of funding didn't actually go to developers, it's a lot more difficult to make the social argument at this time. It necessarily falls back on the practical question of whether it is effective to advertise in the READMEs. Most of the previous sponsors were drawn into the social cause but not necessarily the practical effectiveness of the ads themselves.

Even though it's not a charitable cause, they are trying to make the same appeals. And if a charitable organization was eating away more than 50% of the donations in administrative costs, you would likely be very wary.

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