A new funding model for open source software • Hacker News Board

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#41

Post by colinmcd » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #39

What would be fantastic is if this service scaled contributions across projects whose code you are actually using in your repos. Minor nitpick: I don't think a badge is really considered virtue signaling because you've already put your wallet where your mouth is.

I like that idea too. Though it definitely may lead to some troubling scenarios where bad actors try to get their modules listed as dependencies of popular projects to piggyback on their downloads. You could alleviate this by not funding dependencies of dependencies but there are some low-level tools (say, CSS autoprefixers) that are rarely used in their "raw form". It's tricky.

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#42

Post by colinmcd » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:31 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #11

I termed this model "microsubscriptions" when I was pursuing it in the context of website funding. There are difficulties. Gaming the system Folks will absolutely distort their software, buy fake github stars, spam out bazillions of typosquatting packages etc. We know this because there is already a weak financial incentive to subvert: supply chain attacks for cryptominers. Direct cash will be a much stronger incenti…

Great stuff here. Do you think these are fundamental dealbreakers? Put another way, could an entity like GitHub build satisfactory solutions to these?

Forcing donors to fund their wallets with ACH transfers seems like an easy way to sidestep a lot of this (except the trustee issues).

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#43

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:31 AM UTC

musingsole wrote: post #33

Everyone thinks they deserve a dollar and can never imagine that the relative value of their code is effectively zero no matter how much it solves a particular problem. >Big projects — operating systems, frameworks, CMSs, or fully self-hostable applications — are in a privileged position to extract more value from their users, especially corporate ones Big projects aren't privileged to extract more value. They're pri…

[deleted]

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#44

Post by colinmcd » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:32 AM UTC

boogies wrote: post #26

> That's because there's currently no way to make a donation to the abstract concept of "open source software" This isn't absolutely true, there are the FSF and the Software Freedom Conservancy, who fund many medium-ish projects, including ones that include some small utilities.

Fair enough.

Though the ability to curate your personal pool is an important piece of the puzzle.

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#45

Post by dnautics » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:33 AM UTC

colinmcd wrote: post #41

dnautics wrote: post #39

What would be fantastic is if this service scaled contributions across projects whose code you are actually using in your repos. Minor nitpick: I don't think a badge is really considered virtue signaling because you've already put your wallet where your mouth is.

I like that idea too. Though it definitely may lead to some troubling scenarios where bad actors try to get their modules listed as dependencies of popular projects to piggyback on their downloads. You could alleviate this by not funding dependencies of dependencies but there are some low-level tools (say, CSS autoprefixers) that are rarely used in their "raw form". It's tricky.

I see this being a major issue in the NPM ecosystem, lol. One thing is you could make transitive dependencies strictly opt-in, or have a decay function.

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#46

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:41 AM UTC

andrekorol wrote: post #28

If you're willing to move away from your proposed GitHub route, you could try implementing it on something like Gitcoin. The "wallet" you mentioned in the article could be a smart-contract that by the end of each month (or any desired period) would automatically make the donations directly to the crypto wallets of the projects that you chose to include in your sponsor pool. That way, you jump over some of the impleme…

[deleted]

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#47

Post by boogies » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

colinmcd wrote: post #44

boogies wrote: post #26

> That's because there's currently no way to make a donation to the abstract concept of "open source software" This isn't absolutely true, there are the FSF and the Software Freedom Conservancy, who fund many medium-ish projects, including ones that include some small utilities.

Fair enough. Though the ability to curate your personal pool is an important piece of the puzzle.

Right, there's not a perfect way to make a donation to open source software, and this proposal seems absolutely worth trying as a way to make it more easy to contribute to more projects that are more valuable to you.

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#48

Post by dblock » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:47 AM UTC

anurag wrote: post #25

It's worth looking at Tidelift ( https://tidelift.com ): they're making the model work with pooled corporate subscriptions that create the right incentives.

That actually seems to be working. I maintain ruby grape, a mid sized project. We get $144/month from Tidelift. As more companies signup for corporate sponsorship the $ amount increases. It’s a pool.

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#49

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

colinmcd wrote: post #37

musingsole wrote: post #33

Everyone thinks they deserve a dollar and can never imagine that the relative value of their code is effectively zero no matter how much it solves a particular problem. >Big projects — operating systems, frameworks, CMSs, or fully self-hostable applications — are in a privileged position to extract more value from their users, especially corporate ones Big projects aren't privileged to extract more value. They're pri…

You seem to be reacting against the term "privileged" in a way I didn't intend. I don't mean to say that they have some unfair advantage. They just have a more foundational role in the tech stack of the products built on top of them, so companies have a bigger incentive to keep the wheels turning.

[deleted]

Re: A new funding model for open source software

#50

Post by jacques_chester » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:53 AM UTC

colinmcd wrote: post #42

jacques_chester wrote: post #11

I termed this model "microsubscriptions" when I was pursuing it in the context of website funding. There are difficulties. Gaming the system Folks will absolutely distort their software, buy fake github stars, spam out bazillions of typosquatting packages etc. We know this because there is already a weak financial incentive to subvert: supply chain attacks for cryptominers. Direct cash will be a much stronger incenti…

Great stuff here. Do you think these are fundamental dealbreakers? Put another way, could an entity like GitHub build satisfactory solutions to these? Forcing donors to fund their wallets with ACH transfers seems like an easy way to sidestep a lot of this (except the trustee issues).

I don't see them as dealbreakers for a sufficiently well-resourced organisation. After all, I wanted to pursue a related model for websites, so I wanted them to be surmountable. But for a startup they would be high barriers, especially since most software folks have never even heard of trusts.

Mind you I had an advantage in that my scheme, payment and usage were tightly linked. I had a protocol that could prove a user had visited a given website, without needing to reveal that user's identity to the website and without the ability for the user to falsify visits. But with opensource software there's currently no good way to verify usage, there's no expensive signal that the code is being consumed. All that's left are cheap signals, easily gamed, like github stars.

At $DAYJOB I've pitched a concept of universal asset accounting which would actually make such a consumption signal possible in theory. For inspiration I was looking to inventory accounting and cost accounting, particularly resource consumption accounting.