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Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

blog.polar.sh

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Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#51

Post by birk »

tomcam wrote: post #29
birk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that, but happy to clarify anything. You can pledge behind any open source issue that's on GitHub today. Just simply need to replace github.com in the URL with polar.sh or goto polar.new and drop the link. We'll then reach out to the maintainers if they're not on the platform. Will soon ship so that an automatic comment is made (once). We don't want to create spam in the issues.

I really wish that had been, say, within the first 3000 words of the homepage. In fact, I think they would make a perfect lead. I literally had to go to the comments, page here to understand what was going on.

Great feedback, I really appreciate it! Will definitely fix

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#52

Post by password4321 »

birk wrote: post #48
password4321 wrote: post #10

So a VC-funded company expected to produce unicorn returns is going to accomplish this when non-profits haven't? It doesn't seem logical but I hope someone can pull it off! I would like to learn more about the background of the founders - what they've already done in any way related to this. Why does Polar have a chance?

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…

> it's going to be incredibly hard and the odds are stacked against us

Thanks much for taking the time to share; I agree and wish you luck:

Success to you & your company!

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#53

Post by hobofan »

rgbrgb wrote: post #23
password4321 wrote: post #10

So a VC-funded company expected to produce unicorn returns is going to accomplish this when non-profits haven't? It doesn't seem logical but I hope someone can pull it off! I would like to learn more about the background of the founders - what they've already done in any way related to this. Why does Polar have a chance?

Luckily you do not need credentials to solve problems with software. Good luck to the founders, it’s a worthy problem.

> Luckily you do not need credentials to solve problems with software.

No, but you should at least provide a perspective why you will succeed (where many others have tried and failed).

The only thing I see different in their approach is trying to "empower maintainers to become entrepreneurs", in a market in which there is no actual demand (= willingness for companies to pay cash). And they try to do that with a offering that I think maintainers couldn't care less about:

- GH Issues shows all the info you need to get an overview over your backlogs funding = there ain't any amounts of relevance

- maintainers are usually quite aware of all the external dependent issues of the project, and if you really want to get an overview, a tracking issue is easy enough to create

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#54

Post by j1elo »

brigadier132 wrote: post #39
j1elo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the time I might spend working on consulting inquiries is not time spent on the daily job, on the oss project itself (especially if the request is about something not aligned with the roadmap of the project), or on relaxing during free time. As an oss maintainer, the way I see it is that unless the purpose itself behind the oss code is to make money via consulting, offering consulting is usually not in the intere…

There are a million reasons why people write open source software. From what I read, there is a sizable group of creators that make no money from their creations and actually struggle to survive despite having such in-demand skills and I was simply suggesting one way they could get by. > on the oss projeft itself (especially if the request is about something not aligned with the roadmap of the project) I disagree tha…

Well for that subset, I would agree with you. I mean come on, you are making oss stuff that provides some value for some people, and you are struggling to get a decent income from other channels? It would make sense to try and maximize the surface area of all potential income generation activities.

But that's just a small subset of all cases, as you mention.

I've lived the opposite case: consultancy was the idea, but not enough people came in, with not enough frequency.

Talking generally, it feels ironic that if difficult to understand things get polished and ironed out, that source of revenue might and probably will dry out. So an incentive would exist to keep consultancy needs existing. (Edit: I am just digressing on this last thought, not talking about my particular personal experience)

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#55

Post by artdigital »

mschuster91 wrote: post #17
brigadier132 wrote: post #8

I have had situations where i wanted to use an open source tool that was somewhat obscure and i would have paid $300-400 an hour for consulting from the maintainers/creators and could not get in contact with anyone. So if you create open source software i recommend posting a link to a consulting business with some minimum price that you are satisfied with, even if its something like $1k an hour.

Been on both sides of that end, the problem is that especially outside of the US offering paid services comes with some serious challenges on its own: - registering a business entity costs money and (especially in dysfunctional bureaucratic hellholes) time - you can be held completely liable for whatever you offer if you don't take excruciating care with the legalese fineprint - it's a complete nightmare on tax filin…

You don’t need to register a business for a bit of side money. Even in Germany, you don’t need to register as “eingetragener Kaufmann” unless it’s, you know, actually a proper side business and ticks some criteria.

Going down that road, there’s heaps of people doing consulting as sole proprietor (or e.K. In Germany) without getting sued or stuck in tax hell

I think you’re looking at things a bit too pessimistic here

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#56

Post by carlosjobim »

mschuster91 wrote: post #17
brigadier132 wrote: post #8

I have had situations where i wanted to use an open source tool that was somewhat obscure and i would have paid $300-400 an hour for consulting from the maintainers/creators and could not get in contact with anyone. So if you create open source software i recommend posting a link to a consulting business with some minimum price that you are satisfied with, even if its something like $1k an hour.

Been on both sides of that end, the problem is that especially outside of the US offering paid services comes with some serious challenges on its own: - registering a business entity costs money and (especially in dysfunctional bureaucratic hellholes) time - you can be held completely liable for whatever you offer if you don't take excruciating care with the legalese fineprint - it's a complete nightmare on tax filin…

I don't really get the sentiment on tax fillings. Experts in most other fields manage to do the odd job here and there for a few hundreds, why shouldn't programmers be able to? Either on the books or off the books.

> people can and will fuck with you just because they can or because they hate you for whatever reason. Anything from mass reporting you to Paypal over death threats to outright SWATting you.

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?

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#57

Post by hobofan »

birk wrote: post #48
password4321 wrote: post #10

So a VC-funded company expected to produce unicorn returns is going to accomplish this when non-profits haven't? It doesn't seem logical but I hope someone can pull it off! I would like to learn more about the background of the founders - what they've already done in any way related to this. Why does Polar have a chance?

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…

> See mkdocs-material as a prime example

Then I hope you provide a better system for dealing with (or allowing the maintainers to deal with) taxes. Unless the maintainer of mkdocs-material somehow funnels the earnings through a US company, I'm almost certain that it's impossible to offer what they offer while being based in Germany without violation tax rules (as what they are offering is clearly a sale and not a donation, and Github doesn't issue any sales tax).

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#58

Post by bogwog »

This is interesting and I genuinely hope you succeed because OSS funding is important.

I have some questions:

1. Can anybody place a bounty on any issue? That seems like it could take control away from the maintainer. Is there a way for a maintainer to reject an issue bounty, so they can keep control over the direction/architectural decisions of the project?

2. Could someone pledge money towards a milestone (e.g. the next major version) rather than specific issues?

3. Are you offering any kind of business support to maintainers, such as reaching out to business users on their behalf to negotiate a sponsorship/support contract/bounty/etc? The sales part of all of this seems like it's the biggest challenge for OSS projects where it's just a few engineers who don't have the time or skill to do sales.

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#59

Post by jonas-w »

avodonosov wrote: post #38

I 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.

It sounds like bountysource, but bountysource seems to have stopped paying bounties. Found these two links on the Wikipedia Article for Bountysource:

[CRITICAL] Bountysource Escrow, Complain @ dfpi.ca.gov, 18.05.2023 - https://github.com/bountysource/core/issues/1539

What is wrong with your support and cash out process?, 20.06.2021 - https://github.com/bountysource/core/issues/1586

Re: Polar v1.0: Let’s Fix Open Source Funding

#60

Post by mertbio »

hobofan wrote: post #57
birk wrote: post #48

Earlier 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…

> See mkdocs-material as a prime example Then I hope you provide a better system for dealing with (or allowing the maintainers to deal with) taxes. Unless the maintainer of mkdocs-material somehow funnels the earnings through a US company, I'm almost certain that it's impossible to offer what they offer while being based in Germany without violation tax rules (as what they are offering is clearly a sale and not a don…

Polar can cover the sales tax like Lemonsqueezy by being a merchant of record.
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