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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

#91

Post by mschuster91 »

artdigital wrote: post #55
mschuster91 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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.

You absolutely can do a Gewerbeanmeldung. The problem is, without a Kapitalgesellschaft ("Mini GmbH" and similar), you're fucked liability-wise. Your entire private assets can be taken if you end up bankrupt.

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

#92

Post by mschuster91 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #56
mschuster91 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> 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?

I've been on the Internet for decades and seen pretty nasty shit. If you want to know what German trolls are capable of, search for "Drachenlord". Additionally, I'm an active antifascist and received my fair share of death threats. So yes I'm biased.

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

#93

Post by 38 »

harlanji wrote: post #81
yoavm wrote: post #30

I'm sorry, but I would never give money to an open-source project through a VC-backed company that takes a 10% commission. I could maybe live with it if it was 0.5%, but heck I'll just find the maintainer and wire them the money somehow. Github Sponsorship takes 0% from private accounts. I could very much be wrong about this, but the whole thing feels like it's coming from the perspective of someone thinking "I've he…

Patreon seems like the next best thing that has peoples' cards and their cut is 10%. Credit card fees alone were universally 2.9% + some cents last I checked. It's interesting that GitHub takes 0%, but that's clearly subsidized by something and I'd like to know what before I sign up to that ("clearly," because of transaction fees they're paying). 10% is a reasonable cut if they can help maintainers get from $0 to $1…

> 10% is a reasonable cut if they can help maintainers get from $0 to $1 and beyond.

how you can say this with a straight face is beyond me.

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

#94

Post by carlosjobim »

j1elo wrote: post #71
carlosjobim wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, if you are getting paid for adding features or fixing stuff on the OSS code, that's time spent on the project. And chances are that if somebody is willing to pay something, many other people will find use for it.

Sounds good in isolation, but as others have mentioned, in some (most?) places, accepting money like that would be considered a professional activity, and you suddenly must worry about a host of other distracting things that take time, effort, and preoccupations: incorporating, tax filings, invoicing. Or you could pay someone to manage it for you, but you're still suddenly involving yourself in stuff that you hadn't…

> In my European country, for example, having a regular source of revenue [1] requires registering with the government as an independent contractor, which costs a bit less than 400€/month.

I apologize, but I actually can't believe that. Maybe you have misinterpreted some regulation or base it on hearsay? If that is truly the case, then your main goal right now should be to escape to a free country as soon as you can.

Either way, some paid OSS work can't count as regular income. But if the place where you live is like what you told, the taxman is probably gonna come and get you, to milk some money no matter if you followed the rules or not.

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

#95

Post by thebooktocome »

reaperman wrote: post #73
charcircuit wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make more money on a platform that has a higher fee if that platform has a better brand, has less friction, has more users, is easier to setup, etc.

Yeah but 10% is still very greedy, assuming they become the dominant platform for this. And if they don't become the big platform for this then they aren't adding the value which justifies 10% anyways.

What comparable creator platform takes less than 10%?

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

#96

Post by carlosjobim »

mschuster91 wrote: post #92
carlosjobim wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> 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? I've been on the Internet for decades and seen pretty nasty shit. If you want to know what German trolls are capable of, search for "Drachenlord". Additionally, I'm an active antifascist and received my fair share of death threats. So yes I'm biased.

I think those are two very different sides of the internet.

There are easy solutions for the problems you listed. The easiest being to not use your real name to accept SEPA payments. You can put anything you want there on the invoice, the banks just care about the account number.

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

#97

Post by birk »

jehna1 wrote: post #86

Polar asks you to grant "act on your behalf" permissions to your Github. As someone who has both professional and open source projects at Github, that's a definite deal breaker

Unfortunately, this is the default by GitHub and their OAuth prompt and nothing we can change. See https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/37117

Most of our API integration is purely about synchronising repositories, issues & PRs (read-only). With the exception of 2 things. 1) Inject the Polar badge. We then edit the issue body to append it at the bottom. 2) You can explicitly post a comment as yourself via Polar when you badge an issue, but this is entirely optional and merely a convenience feature would you want to. Requires manual & clear action.

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

#98

Post by robinhood »

yoavm wrote: post #83
harlanji wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patreon seems like the next best thing that has peoples' cards and their cut is 10%. Credit card fees alone were universally 2.9% + some cents last I checked. It's interesting that GitHub takes 0%, but that's clearly subsidized by something and I'd like to know what before I sign up to that ("clearly," because of transaction fees they're paying). 10% is a reasonable cut if they can help maintainers get from $0 to $1…

So every time I'm sponsoring someone on Github, Microsoft loses some money? That's even better!

I don't get this comment.

I host all my OSS projects on Github so I can have free and unlimited CI. I have access to Github Copilot for free. I use VScode which is arguably a great software all day, every day.

All this because Microsoft has a shit ton of money and they can afford funding the OSS community as a whole.

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