[HN Gopher] Why I'm donating $150/month (10% of my income) to th...
___________________________________________________________________
Why I'm donating $150/month (10% of my income) to the musl Libc
project (2019)
Author : Tomte
Score : 379 points
Date : 2021-10-07 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (andrewkelley.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (andrewkelley.me)
| 41209 wrote:
| Any good documentation on the language itself ?
|
| This looks like an easier Rust to me.
| pcwalton wrote:
| I'd say Zig is a more strictly low-level language than Rust,
| with less safety (it's not memory-safe) and a less
| sophisticated type system, but with more emphasis on being low-
| level (malloc is fallible) and with more metaprogramming
| capabilities.
| Zababa wrote:
| It's not an "easier Rust", as you can't really claim to be Rust
| without the borrow checker, and you can't really claim to be
| Zig without the comptime and explicit allocation. They are
| different language, that took different decisions on how to do
| things, for different reasons.
| [deleted]
| lkey wrote:
| https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/
|
| Is a place to get a feel for things. There's also a generated
| doc set that is similar to rust's, but I just recommend looking
| at the source if you are curious about something, it's concise
| and readable. If you have more questions you can pop into irc
| or the discord, they'll have better resources at the ready.
|
| https://github.com/ziglang/zig/wiki/Community
| dralley wrote:
| It's probably closer to "a more modern, better C" than "an
| easier Rust".
|
| The core features of Rust are the borrow checker, traits, and
| algebraic data types, and Zig is missing all of those. On the
| other hand, Zig has a lot of things that C doesn't have, and a
| few that Rust doesn't have as well - and some people gravitate
| towards the C-like simplicity of the language.
| pcein wrote:
| Another good resource: https://zig.news/
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Somehow I loved this article and the response, even though it was
| admittedly a funding stunt. There was something very endearing
| about how straitforward and innocent the stunt was.
|
| Two very deserving projects got funding (musl and Zig). I have
| used musl, mainly through Alpine Linux. I have not used Zig, but
| it seems it is a very interesting answer to the question of what
| does a systems programming language that is not C or C++ look
| like. We have one recent answer in the form of Rust, and Zig is
| another answer with another set of priorities and tradeoffs.
|
| It is a very exciting time in terms of real-world language
| development.
|
| All the best to the open source contributors of all these
| languages and libraries!
| nomdep wrote:
| My ignorance is showing but, why Zig _deserve_ to be funded?
| dralley wrote:
| Even disregarding the language entirely, the toolchain
| innovations that have come out of Zig are pretty exciting and
| worth the price of admission.
|
| I hope Clang and Rustc learn a few tricks from them.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Can you link to an elaboration about this point
| specifically?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Consider reading this thread and its parent article
| discussion -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27873193
| int_19h wrote:
| Because a "better C" is long overdue.
|
| (And no, Rust is not it. It's a great language, but its
| design philosophy is very different.)
|
| Ironically, today, Zig is also one of the best C/C++
| compilers around, chiefly because it "just works", even for
| advanced scenarios such as cross-compilers:
|
| https://andrewkelley.me/post/zig-cc-powerful-drop-in-
| replace...
|
| (Yes, of course, the actual compiler is Clang. But Zig wraps
| it in a way that makes it so much easier to install and use,
| especially on Windows.)
| 0des wrote:
| > Because a "better C" is long overdue.
|
| I owe you 1 beer, this is so true. If I can just get
| something that treats a string politely I'll be over the
| moon. If that's Zig, it has earned my contribution, simple
| as that.
| rStar wrote:
| that's my thought. i get people having pet projects, but i'm
| over the hard sales pitch for why i should care
| coldtea wrote:
| If you're a founder or a developer you're more likely than
| not taking advantage (either your bussiness or the business
| you work for, or you for your personal projects) of tons of
| such "pet projects" from Python and Node, to Postgres and
| Zig.
|
| So, there's that...
| [deleted]
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I think you both are thinking deserved means something
| stronger and more like entitled than it does. In this
| context I just means the OP think the project mentioned
| merit their funding.
| AndyKelley wrote:
| 2021 update:
|
| * The Zig Software Foundation now exists
|
| * My total income including ZSF Salary, GitHub Sponsors, Patreon
| is now about 4000 USD per month. Legally, my ZSF salary is 160K
| per year, but I have been consistently donating it back to the
| org since frankly we just don't have that much revenue at this
| point in time, and I've been prioritizing getting that money to
| other Zig contributors.
|
| * The $150/month to Rich Felker now comes from ZSF instead of my
| personal account.
|
| * Zig 0.5.0, 0.6.0, 0.7.0, 0.8.0 have all been released. 0.9.0 is
| coming soon.
|
| * I no longer really have an opinion about V; it's been two years
| since I paid any attention to it.
| 13415 wrote:
| I've been following V for a few years now and it's pretty
| awesome. Development is very active.
| turminal wrote:
| ... and developers are very clueless.
|
| And just about nothing works as advertised.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Can you elaborate or provide any references for those
| statements? What in [0] doesn't work as advertised?
|
| Also, something I'ld like to know that would otherwise be
| really dishonest on V devs' part, is their memory
| management innovative? Oortmerssen, creator of Lobster
| language, said that in their Discord they mentioned[1] that
| the memory model was taken from Lobster.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/vlang/v#key-features-of-v
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25514198
| [deleted]
| Shadonototra wrote:
| > * I no longer really have an opinion about V; it's been two
| years since I paid any attention to it.
|
| Good to see that you finally got rid of your jealousy
|
| I will be honest, seeing everyone getting "mad" at V project
| owner was very "dishonest" move, to stay polite and within HN
| 's rules
| bobthebuilders wrote:
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't
| cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer,
| including at the rest of the community.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| Yes it is hard to balance, the V's hate episode on
| Hackernews is the perfect example, a lot was going against
| the rules and yet "allowed", including personal attacks
| towards V's author, because it just is the nature of
| discussions in general, i guess
| inside65 wrote:
| Could you clarify (I'm just confused) how is your income 4K a
| month but you say to make 160K a year from ZSF. Is the
| significant difference all donated back?
| [deleted]
| dgb23 wrote:
| This is inspiring and refreshing.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Sorry, I'm not American so this may be a dumb question, but why
| set your salary to $160k instead of what it actually is? Does
| it have to do with US tax law or non-profit org law?
| johncessna wrote:
| It really depends on how the business entity is set up. The
| line between what your salary is and what the business makes
| blurs. There are tax law implications, but it's less about
| tax avoidance and more about not screwing yourself. Depending
| on the business structure, one reason I know for setting a
| salary is because you're forced to. Certain taxes in the US
| (FICA) are based off of your income. They don't want you to
| set a salary of $1, for example, and then pay yourself via
| dividends to avoid taxes. The IRS states it has to be
| 'reasonable.'
| dilap wrote:
| It's also just good optics. "$160K is a reasonable developer
| salary." Even if in practice it's not how they want to use
| the money right now, it's setting expectations correctly.
| pixelmonkey wrote:
| This is just me taking a guess, but one benefit to him
| setting a real salary and donating the money back is that for
| the purpose of credit checks and consumer loans (e.g. a home
| mortgage for a primary residence), he can qualify for
| appropriate amounts. It also appropriately models what's
| happening: he's paying himself a "market salary" (in quotes
| because his market value is probably much higher than that,
| but I'm speaking relatively to a "stipend salary" here) and
| he is working full-time on the project, but donating back the
| portion he doesn't need to spend on disposable income (due to
| his own personal frugality). Actually quite an admirable way
| to do it -- hopefully he has figured out some way to not
| suffer extra taxes from that setup.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| He is definitely paying extra taxes. Donations don't reduce
| social security and medicare tax liability, and depending
| on the arrangement either he or the foundation is paying
| for the "other half" of the tax
| vorpalhex wrote:
| But he will also qualify for a higher SS payout since his
| income is higher, if my understanding is correct.
| mwint wrote:
| Never really thought about it. I'd love for someone with
| knowledge to weigh in on this: Does it ever make sense to
| pay more SS tax, based on a present-value analysis?
|
| I guess it's really three questions:
|
| 1) For each dollar to SS taxes, do I expect to get more
| than a dollar from SS in the future? 2) Same question as
| 1, but inflation-adjusted future dollars. 3) If the
| expected return is positive, does it beat reasonable
| market returns?
|
| Guessing the answer depends on age, income levels, etc. I
| just don't know how to do the math myself.
| caturopath wrote:
| After the first "bend", the ROI for SS tax is super-duper
| low. If you're working for 35 or more years, this would
| be ~12k/year in 2021 dollars a year. Thus, if your income
| will put you over the poverty line, paying more
| unnecessary SS tax past that won't help very much. (I'd
| put a number on the ROI, but it depends on how old you
| are.)
|
| It's not very hard to make a spreadsheet to play with
| numbers if you want. I'm considering retiring soon,
| decades before eligibility, and I've enjoyed playing with
| the numbers, as I have the opportunity to contribute more
| or less in the coming years fairly easily.
| caturopath wrote:
| FWIW, given my history and current payout schedules and
| that I die at 85 (when actuarial tables say I will) and
| counting the employer portion of the SS tax as tax paid
| and assuming I retire very soon, SS tax payed by me has a
| 1.4% real rate of return.
|
| That being said, SS has some benefits that make it more
| attractive than other investments with that return (in
| that it's an inflation-indexed annuity backed by the US
| government), especially when mixed with my other
| investments.
|
| Still not a fantastic deal for me and it will only get
| worse in the likely event I get more SS income over the
| years, but like all welfare programs it isn't meant to
| help someone in my current situation. Part of getting
| into my current situation was benefiting from welfare
| when I was part of a household wasn't in such an amazing
| situation financially.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > Does it ever make sense to pay more SS tax, based on a
| present-value analysis?
|
| Of course it does. Social Security is social, not
| individual. If you're a rich man - and a person who makes
| 160 KUSD / annum probably is - it makes a lot of sense to
| contribute more to social security, whether voluntarily
| or involuntarily.
| caturopath wrote:
| They specified "based on a present-value analysis". They
| were interested in SS as a personal money-returning
| interest for that question.
|
| That doesn't mean they don't think that people should pay
| taxes for welfare programs like social security or for
| other governmental functions, it just wasn't what the
| question was about.
|
| Certainly if you're after the second bend (very realistic
| for a lot of folks) there is minimal return on
| contributing.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| (not a financial professional, not advice)
|
| You need at least 40 "credits" over your working life to
| be eligible for social security benefits. Each calendar
| year you can earn up to 4 "credits", which in 2021
| corresponds to $1470 in earnings that are taxed. So it
| definitely makes sense to earn the credits every year
| e.g. $6000 in 2021. SSDI looks at the last 10 years of
| earnings if you're older than 30, which still
| incentivizes hitting that minimum target.
|
| As for the actual income in retirement, that is a complex
| subject. For example, the optimal money move is to
| continue working to full retirement age, but you may want
| to take the early retirement option (even if the payout
| is smaller) to enjoy the extra healthy years.
| caturopath wrote:
| > the optimal money move is to continue working to full
| retirement age
|
| Only your highest-earning-of-SS-income 35 years matter,
| so it's conceivable (and probably not too rare for many
| HN readers) to have had 35 max-income years before FRA.
| [deleted]
| p_j_w wrote:
| It's semi-complicated and depends on what happens later
| in his career (SS uses the highest income from X number
| of years to determine your payout), but in the general
| case, yes it will increase his SS payout.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It also depends on how much future politicians neuter the
| benefits, via some combination of deflating the currency
| and/or modifying Social Security to be more means tested.
| I would bet dropping birth rates will certainly mean some
| people will be need to take a haircut in the coming
| decades.
| loeg wrote:
| SS contributions cap out at around $143k (indexed with
| inflation). Beyond that, extra income has _no_ impact on
| your eventual SS payout. Even below that threshold,
| returns on Social Security tax associated with higher
| income are pretty small once you meet the 40 credit
| threshold for any benefit[1].
|
| [1]: https://rootofgood.com/early-retirement-social-
| security/
| scarmig wrote:
| ~$400k in lifetime earnings fills out the 90% AIME
| bracket; ~$2M in lifetime earnings fills out the 32%
| bracket. I think that, so long as you're still in that
| 32% bracket, you're more likely than not getting (small)
| positive returns from paying SS taxes.
|
| Though I agree, it'd be silly to continue working or to
| declare higher income purely for that.
| loeg wrote:
| To clarify, my comment was about annual income; not
| lifetime. Income in any given year beyond the annual cap
| does not affect your SS lifetime earnings. (I think you
| probably know that, just adding it for other readers.)
| hawk_ wrote:
| yes that's one of the reasons in some countries if you
| have the ability to set your own salary you aren't
| allowed to take salary and instead must set yourself up
| as a "freelancer".
| infogulch wrote:
| One difference: you have control over when you give yourself
| a pay raise instead of having to go through the org
| chart/board. May not be the most efficient strategy with
| taxes though.
| hijodelsol wrote:
| I don't know if this applies to the States but at least in
| some European countries if you ever move to another country
| you are taxed for what you would have been expected to pay in
| taxes based on the profit the company made in the last years.
|
| Paying yourself a high salary (as long as it's reasonable, so
| as not to arouse suspicion of hidden profit distributions)
| allows the business entity to not make any profit on paper
| and therefore allows you to move to another country without
| having to pay this "exit tax".
|
| Disclaimer: This is my understanding of the situation, I'm
| neither a lawyer nor a tax professional and this is not
| financial advice.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| There are two benefits to showing a higher income on paper:
|
| 1) Some situations like mortgage applications and child
| adoption will require some sort of income verification. It's
| a lot harder when you aren't showing as much top-line income.
|
| 2) If the project goes south and the author has to find
| another job, showing a "market rate" salary is better than
| the true rate (sadly many people and companies still talk in
| terms of percentage increases)
| short12 wrote:
| How would a future employer know what his salary was?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| He could show them W2's from the current employer.
| johncessna wrote:
| I think the poster was probably asking why anyone would
| tell a future employer this information.
|
| Employers should pay what they value the position at, not
| what someone else was paying for it.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Would you refuse an employer that wanted a past W2 as a
| non-negotiable?
| loeg wrote:
| Yes.
| short12 wrote:
| But why would he? It's none of their business
| OJFord wrote:
| I know nothing about it in the US, but in the UK it
| _would_ be their business once he started and they set
| him up on payroll. You could still argue none of their
| business, 'can only harm you' in negotiating salary of
| course - and in a large enough org the same people would
| never know, but otherwise could be a short-lived
| deception and maybe you'd feel weird about that once
| colleagues.
| short12 wrote:
| It is never an employers business to know previous
| salaries. It's wildly I appropriate they would have
| stones to actually inquire
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Has anyone (OK, any SW dev in the US) ever done this?
| I've been in the industry for almost 30 years and no
| prospective employer has _ever_ asked me what my salary
| was.
| wincy wrote:
| I've had a few recruiters ask me. I don't tell them
| anymore.
| loeg wrote:
| They've always _asked_ me. But they 've never asked for a
| W-2 to prove it.
| zenithd wrote:
| Yes, I've done this once. I was moving from the SW
| industry to another industry that doesn't pay nearly as
| well. I was asking for less than 1/5th of my salary, and
| they thought the number was too high. I offered my
| current salary to prove "we're both experiencing quite a
| bit of pain here..."
| rStar wrote:
| as a gnu libc person, i wholeheartedly hope for your failure
| jbschirtzs wrote:
| Basically, this is just re-discovering the tithe--although libc
| is probably not a religion.
| yboris wrote:
| Consider joining _Giving What We Can_ - an international
| community of people who have pledged to give at least 10% of
| their income to causes that they think are most _effective_ at
| eliminating what they think are the world 's biggest problems.
| (I'm a proud member for 10 years).
|
| https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/
| einpoklum wrote:
| Does it count if you work part-time for pay, and write FOSS the
| rest of your time? I mean, you're contributing over 10% of your
| potential-employment time instead of over 10% of the higher
| salary of a full-timer.
| handoflixue wrote:
| Per https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/:
|
| "Our pledges are in no way legally binding. They are
| commitments made voluntarily and enforced solely by your own
| conscience."
|
| "Our pledges do not restrict you to give to registered
| charities, specific organisations, or organisations working
| in a particular cause area. The only requirement is that you
| give to the organisations which you sincerely believe to be
| among the most effective at improving the lives of others."
|
| ---
|
| So, if you think you genuinely believe working in FOSS
| results in a better world than pulling in a paycheck and
| donating to charity, I'd say: yes, absolutely?
|
| It's certainly not the default expectation, mind you. I think
| you'd probably get less out of the community since they focus
| in a different direction. But if you still see value in being
| part of the pledge, I'd definitely encourage you to take the
| leap and count that FOSS work :)
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I like the first half of the idea (donating 10% of one's
| income) but I feel strongly against their definition of
| "effective" and "biggest problems". This typically happens when
| someone multiplies a tiny probability by an infinite value like
| "time till the heath death of the universe".
|
| In particular, their top four recommended charities are managed
| by "Effective altruism funds", with the 3rd best-ranked charity
| spending money to prevent "potential risks from advanced
| artificial intelligence" which I strongly consider a waste of
| money.
|
| Of course, everyone's values are different. I'd just encourage
| people to take 5 minutes and choose their own charities instead
| of blindly choosing their suggestions.
| pkd wrote:
| It's not always that random (not saying it couldn't be).
| GiveWell, the best known research outfit, publishes their
| process: https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/process
|
| Peter Singer (who also runs The Life You Can Save), has lots
| of thoughts about why one should go with "effective" altruism
| instead of always donating to your local charity, and I would
| say they are worth listening to.
| nearbuy wrote:
| > This typically happens when someone multiplies a tiny
| probability by an infinite value like "time till the heath
| death of the universe".
|
| This is absolutely _not_ what they are doing. Most of their
| charities are working on immediate problems and are evaluated
| on their short term impact. The obvious exceptions are the
| Long-Term Future category and the Climate Change category,
| which are looking at around 50-100 years from now. They are
| not multiplying some tiny utilitarian value by an extreme
| number of years.
|
| Their top 4 charities by total donation amount are Against
| Malaria Foundation, GiveWell, Global Health and Development
| Fund, and GiveDirectly. All are fighting immediate problems.
|
| There are different categories of charities because people
| will never agree on which categories are most important. Does
| animal suffering matter? Is preventing a life of extreme
| poverty better or worse than preventing an early death?
| Everyone has different answers to these questions, so the
| site gives donors a variety of suggestions. They suggest
| charities that are well evaluated for their category. E.g.
| Climate change charities are evaluated on their climate
| impact per dollar donated, and human health charities are
| evaluated by lives saved and disease prevented.
| handoflixue wrote:
| I'd strongly recommend looking at GiveWell specifically: They
| avoid the weird "AI risk" stuff and mostly focus on Malaria
| prevention and other very well studied, high-value third
| world interventions.
|
| In particular, they also list where your money is going, so
| you can just pick and choose which of their causes you want
| to support (although I personally donate directly to them so
| they can decide which charity they think currently maximizes
| impact-per-dollar): https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-
| charities
|
| > I'd just encourage people to take 5 minutes and choose
| their own charities instead of blindly choosing their
| suggestions.
|
| The problem here is that some organizations have a very well
| proven track record of solving real problems; some
| organizations instead focus on very nebulous "social
| messaging and awareness"; and some organizations exist
| primarily to pay their executives well.
|
| A quick 5 minute search won't really yield a lot of
| information on effectiveness, but an organization like
| GiveWell can afford to hire actual researchers to answer
| these questions.
|
| (I'm sure there's other decent sources to help evaluate that
| question, of course. GiveWell is just the one I'm most
| familiar/fond of)
| sneak wrote:
| Note also that if you spend all of your funds allocated to
| Lord Bezos at smile.amazon.com instead of the base 2LD, you
| can specify GiveWell as the beneficiary and they get a
| small cut of each purchase.
|
| It's per purchase though so you have to update your
| bookmarks to point to smile.amazon.com. Uninstall the app
| to help you remember.
| epanchin wrote:
| This is old - you can now set the app to use smile. And
| when you share product links it will use the smile link.
| sneak wrote:
| The setting in the app expires after a period of time,
| and requires that you remember to set it again, just like
| Twitter's algorithmic timeline opt-out.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > which I strongly consider a waste of money
|
| Do you consider all research on AI ethics and bias to be a
| waste of money? The EA folks are doing some of the best work
| in that field, and have been focusing on it for quite a
| while. People used to consider biosecurity and pandemic
| preparedness a waste of money too, but hopefully we know
| better.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| No, I do think research on AI ethics is important and
| necessary. But I also think there's a time and a place, and
| "third most pressing issue for humanity" is not it.
|
| Biased AI algorithms are a problem for the 10% of countries
| where AI is part of their daily decision process. For the
| other 90%, "I don't have enough nutrients for my brain to
| develop" and "I'm severely disabled due to a preventable
| but unprofitable illness" are much more pressing issues.
|
| I support basic research, even in areas whose economic
| benefit may not be clear. But if someone asks "how can I
| help humanity the most?", I consider "AI research" to be a
| really bad answer, to the point of being almost a lie.
| nearbuy wrote:
| Their concern isn't biased AI algorithms. Their concern
| (well, one of their main concerns) is that a super-
| intelligent AI could wipe out humanity sometime in the
| next 100 years. They have arguments that this could
| happen even if the AI wasn't malicious.
|
| I'm a bit skeptical too (and I haven't looked into that
| much), but it's not obviously stupid. They'd point out
| that even if there's just a 1% chance of humans being
| wiped out in the not-so-distant future, that's a big deal
| (and a large expected value for number of deaths) and we
| should work on reducing those odds.
|
| A lot of this rests on the assumption that super-
| intelligence is really powerful. Like, take-over-the-
| world type of powerful.
| funOtter wrote:
| I'm interested: why join this when you can simply donate 10% to
| charities without joining this?
| Kranar wrote:
| Sense of community. I used to have the belief that being an
| anonymous donor, giving money to charities quietly, was the
| right and noble thing to do. Then there was the Ice Bucket
| Challenge and I realized that an individual donation is
| nothing compared to the multiplying effect that comes from
| having others within your community and network join in, and
| that requires finding creative ways of signaling your
| donations to others. Some find it distasteful to signal this,
| but the problem is that the end result of signaling donations
| is so much more effective that it's worth it.
|
| Joining a community of people who also pledge to participate
| in charity and promote charities to one another could be a
| way to eliminate the distasteful part of signaling to others
| that you donate to charities. It can also work as a way to
| integrate charities and donations as a routine part of your
| expenses and budgeting.
| 0des wrote:
| giving as a group activity feels weird as if without an
| audience these folks might just not be interested.
| nearbuy wrote:
| If true, then that's exactly what makes it good. We can
| save lives for the small cost of giving donors some
| recognition and a sense of community.
|
| Edit: To add the above, the median annual donation amount
| for someone earning $60k-$80k in 2010 was $107. Roughly
| 0.15% of their income. It feels weird to criticize people
| donating 10% for having not-pure-enough motives while
| letting the majority who donate almost nothing escape
| criticism.
| 0des wrote:
| Performative altruism, so hot right now. I used to have
| this old book by this guy Matthew something or other that
| talked about good deeds being done for the purposes of
| being seen. Might have to revisit that one again,
| personally.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| This seems like a really funny name for the org. Some people
| can give a whole lot more than 10%. Others cannot give nearly
| that much. Seems... contrary to the idea of "what you can"
| zamadatix wrote:
| Note the 10% was a minimum not a prescription. As for the
| "cannot give nearly that much" they don't believe everyone
| should pledge to give money. The FAQ is actually very
| cautious about who should do it
| https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/about-us/frequently-asked-
| qu...
| kristoff_it wrote:
| I guess no better post than this to remind everyone that the Zig
| Software Foundation is half-way through the current donation
| goal, which would allow us to hire two more full-time developers.
|
| https://github.com/sponsors/ziglang
|
| On a separate note, I'm learning a lot about how different
| software foundations operate and I'm very surprised to see that
| very few prioritize the goal of paying their core developers. I
| encourage everyone to check out the mission of the Zig Software
| Foundation and to compare it with how we're spending the money
| we're getting. Everything is available here:
|
| https://ziglang.org/zsf/
| tekknolagi wrote:
| How do you find your full-time developers and assign them
| projects?
| [deleted]
| kristoff_it wrote:
| Contributors that can bill hours to the foundation are people
| that have been involved for a while and who have a history of
| quality contributions. The foundation doesn't assign
| projects, people tend to have an affinity for a specific
| topic usually, but they are free to use their billable time
| to contribute to any part of the codebase.
| barbegal wrote:
| I've had a look and it's hard to see how the foundation's money
| is being spent. The accounts suggest most of the income is from
| donations from Andrew Kelley and most of the outgoings is
| Andrew's salary.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| this person makes $1500 a month?
| minitech wrote:
| The literal first sentence of the article will explain this one
| for you!
| Kranar wrote:
| The literal first sentence is as follows:
|
| >One year ago, I quit my day job to work on Zig full time.
|
| So is it the case he only makes $1500 a month? I mean it's
| none of my business what he makes but he did bring it up and
| I am curious to know how much a prominent individual like him
| earns for working on his own open source passion project. I
| find it commendable that someone would work on their own
| project for such a low salary owing to a belief and desire to
| get their product out there.
|
| That said if he makes $15000 a month that's cool too and
| great for him, but it's not clear to me what the truth here
| is.
| robrenaud wrote:
| Above he wrote that he is now up to $4k/month.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hutrdvnj wrote:
| He lives from donations to Zig, so that he can work full time
| in it.
| [deleted]
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| The Zig foundation is super transparent about where their money
| goes, modulo a few months of delay. Technically he's drawing a
| salary of something like 12k/month but he donates most of it
| back to the foundation (initially 100% of it was being donated
| back, but he's scaled back gradually so it's more like 80% last
| I checked). I don't know if he has any other income but it
| seems like Zig is really a labor of love.
| niij wrote:
| If you're in charge why would you pay yourself a salary only
| to donate some portion of it back?
| pmdulaney wrote:
| The Computer Science god does not actually require this kind of
| works righteousness for salvation.
| wyldfire wrote:
| From [1]:
|
| > However, Zig Software Foundation will never have big tech
| companies on the board of directors. We are grateful to Pex, for
| example, for donating $5,000/month, even though they have no
| board seats. Our goal is to maintain independence by keeping the
| mix of donations balanced among many parties.
|
| Seems relevant given the recent hub-bub over Rust
| leadership/governance.
|
| Another interesting model is LF and Linus Torvalds. (NS)BDFL who
| has the best interest of the project in mind, but doesn't seem
| improperly influenced by LF supporter companies.
|
| [1] https://ziglang.org/news/jakub-konka-hired-full-time/
| loeg wrote:
| Yeah, it's a choice. The Linux Foundation and Rust Foundation
| are 501(c)(6)s (i.e., business association) non-profit; the
| FreeBSD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) (charitable) non-profit.
| Sounds like ZSF is also a 501(c)(3). There are pros and cons to
| both approaches. I think a large enough ecosystem (e.g., Linux)
| might benefit from having both types of non-profit organization
| around.
| sass12388 wrote:
| well then
| [deleted]
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| Yes, which is great! He's drawn attention to an important
| project and given it funding.
|
| > Now if I'm being honest about my motivations for this blog
| post, it's that I want to prove that open source funding is not
| a zero-sum game.
| benatkin wrote:
| Deno currently requires glibc. Anyone have insight into it? Would
| getting musl more funding help make it so it can run on stock
| alpine?
| int_19h wrote:
| Deno is built on V8, and V8 requires glibc. So it's down to
| Google supporting musl, and I don't think it's a money issue.
| hayd wrote:
| > V8 requires glibc
|
| I don't _think_ this is true.
|
| https://github.com/denoland/deno/issues/3711#issuecomment-62.
| ..
| int_19h wrote:
| People have been building V8 on musl for a while now, but
| it's not supported by upstream. Last time I've looked into
| it a couple years ago, such builds were also not
| particularly stable.
| benatkin wrote:
| The aunt of your comment applies here. If _anyone_ has
| gotten Deno to work without glibc, it means V8 can be made
| to work without glibc. That doesn 't mean it's properly
| supported.
| benatkin wrote:
| I see. I love Deno and using a Debian or Ubuntu image is a
| small compromise.
| hayd wrote:
| A year and half ago kesor was able to get deno to build without
| glibc (so it would work on stock alpine). It seems to be gn
| args/configs that need fiddling.
|
| Unfortunately this work has never been brought into main (a
| couple of attempts have been made subsequently).
|
| https://github.com/denoland/deno/issues/3711#issuecomment-62...
| wyldfire wrote:
| I'll donate $1000 worth of cryptocoin today (Monero, Nano,
| Bitcoin etc) if Zig Foundation (or Andy directly) publishes an
| address.
| exochrono wrote:
| Shameless self plug - if Zig or Andy doesn't comment here, you
| can still donate crypto to Zig via their profile on every.org -
| https://www.every.org/zig-software-foundation-inc
|
| edit: we charge no fees since our ops are supported by our
| donors - the only fee that gets taken out is that charged by
| our brokerage for selling the crypto
| wyldfire wrote:
| This looks great but did ZSF opt-in or are you including them
| here in the hopes they'd take donations from you?
|
| Likely the latter?
|
| > https://support.every.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360059840294-Why...
|
| Also, skimming the terms:
|
| > If circumstances make Giver to that particular Nonprofit
| impossible or inappropriate (such as if the selected
| Nonprofit ceases operations or loses its tax-exempt status),
| we will attempt to contact you first for additional
| preferences on where you would like your Donation to go. If
| we do not receive your preferences before we must disburse
| the funds, then we may in our sole discretion select an
| alternate Nonprofit to receive the Donation. We will do our
| best to direct your Donation to a Nonprofit in a similar
| space and/or with similar goals. Except in cases of fraud, we
| do not issue refunds.
|
| If I can get Andy or ZSF representative to say they'll claim
| it from every.org I'd consider that. I can't find any obvious
| disclosure about margin/overhead from Every.org but I might
| still consider it despite that.
| exochrono wrote:
| Great question - we have more info on how we disburse at
| https://www.every.org/disbursements - but in short, ZSF
| hasn't claimed their profile and connected a bank account,
| so we'd disburse via our partner NFG. We treat crypto
| donations like those made via bank account, meaning we
| cover the 2.25% fee that NFG charges, so (100% of your
| crypto donation - broker fee (<=1%)) goes to ZSF.
| 0des wrote:
| Hey just a heads up, you said 1 hour ago "you can donate
| via their profile here" and then 30 mins ago Andy
| comments and says he's making an account as we speak..
|
| Did you just solicit donations without them even being
| signed up? If so, that feels weird, and I'd appreciate at
| least (as I cant speak for others) if you didn't do that
| without some heavy disclaimer text making clear that
| they've shown no interest yet. I love the concept of what
| your service does, but you can get users in other more
| honest ways than this.
| AndyKelley wrote:
| How it works according to their website is that they will
| mail a check to the registered address of the charity.
| That's actually an amazing service - even charities which
| are not aware of Every.org still benefit from its
| existence.
|
| I'm honestly really impressed.
| 0des wrote:
| I can appreciate that you derive value from this,
| however, envision it from Joe Casual walking by, it has
| in my case discouraged me from using their service
| because to me this feels dishonest in a lie-of-omission
| way. I'm not calling them dishonest, I'm not saying
| anybody lied, I'm saying the marketing and recruitment
| strategy should encourage people to use it, not use gray
| patterns like the ones random voip text people do about
| "claiming your funds" and such. It's just relating my
| personal experience and perception of it for the purposes
| of helping them make a better product, that's all.
|
| I have a text message from just today after lunch with a
| link to click to claim my funds. No name, no context,
| just a random text that I can only imagine isn't in fact
| free money waiting for me.
| exochrono wrote:
| Thanks for this feedback, and I definitely think we could
| do a better job of making it clear which orgs we have a
| direct relationship with vs not.
|
| That being said, Network for Good, our partner for
| disbursing to nonprofits whom haven't connected directly
| with us, also handles disbursements for a lot of Facebook
| Giving and other large donation platforms, so I don't
| think the checks coming from there are necessarily
| unexpected by many nonprofits - see their support article
| on this at https://networkforgood.zendesk.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/1150073...
| wyldfire wrote:
| Their terms are pretty clear that it's how they work. I
| don't know that it's dishonest but it is slightly tricky
| IMO. It seemed like it was the case when I clicked on it
| and it would be nicer if it were obvious before donating.
|
| But bottom line they'd have gotten the money delivered to
| ZSF anyways.
| 0des wrote:
| True, in this case it goes to a worthy cause and it seems
| as if Andy is thrilled by the ability to get a check
| mailed, so obviously there's utility, there's no
| disputing that... It's just you don't need gray patterns
| to attract people to things that are awesome.
| AndyKelley wrote:
| Every.org looks awesome to me; I am signing up as we speak.
| Thanks for indirectly helping me discover it and thanks in
| advance for the donation.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| > _Also, skimming the terms:_
|
| This not a surprising term. By accepting donations to be
| passed on to someone else, they become trustees, which
| comes with hefty legal constraints. By having terms saying
| "we will try our best, but if we fail, we will try to
| honour your intentions", they can avoid winding up with
| little piles of money that can't be repurposed and simply
| ... exist.
| wyldfire wrote:
| No, I don't think it's surprising and I'm glad it's
| there. But it's the reason that I was nervous about
| donating absent an affirmative response that ZSF would
| claim the money. It's nice they'd try to apply it to
| similar projects but I'd prefer it go to Zig or nothing
| (or I can donate to another project of my choice).
| exochrono wrote:
| Just to note - unless we can't reach you, we usually end
| up just crediting the donor's account with a balance that
| they can use to support any of the other nonprofits on
| the platform, so usually you do get to donate to another
| project of your choice :)
| AndyKelley wrote:
| Wow, thank you for sharing this. I was not aware of Every.org
| until today. I checked out the platform just now and am
| delighted. I love that it is a 501(c)(3) and that it is
| crystal clear with the promise to remain that way. We
| desperately needed something like this.
|
| I also love that you will mail checks to organizations even
| if they do not sign up for electronic disbursement. However I
| will sign up ZSF now of course :)
| exochrono wrote:
| Thank you for such a kind comment, and I'm glad we can
| support your and the foundation's work! I've just shared
| this with my team, it makes everyone's day when we get
| feedback like this <3
| wyldfire wrote:
| Ok sounds like I can go ahead because you will accept from
| every.org and you do not plan to publish an address to
| accept donations directly?
|
| I'll match other HNers donations of as much as $100 to a
| total of an additional $1000. Not sure how to substantiate
| every.org donations but maybe I'll take HNers at their
| word.
|
| EDIT: scoreboard as of 22:20 UTC: $400 out of $1000 to be
| matched: easymuffin, slimsag, tav, _hl_.
|
| Because we need some kind of time bound, I'll leave this
| matching window open for the next 48 hours, so ~21:20 UTC
| on Saturday (this is ~5pm US Eastern time IIRC).
| _hl_ wrote:
| Is that conditional on donating via some cryptocoin? I'd
| be up for donating a well-deserved $100 (can't really
| afford much more right now sadly) but prefer traditional
| methods.
| wyldfire wrote:
| No, it's not. Donate to ZSF directly or via every.org and
| I'll match it.
| _hl_ wrote:
| Done. Thanks for being so generous.
| slimsag wrote:
| Sure, why not: here's my $100
| https://i.imgur.com/XwhkmzQ.png
|
| And just to make it interesting, I'll also match
| donations up to $100 each to a total of an additional
| $500 - starting now for the next 48 hours. :)
| easymuffin wrote:
| Thanks everyone. Donated $100
| https://i.imgur.com/BasBMKg.jpg
| slimsag wrote:
| Matched your $100 :) https://i.imgur.com/GCuXArQ.png
| aveao wrote:
| Not nearly as much as others, but I just donated $5
| directly through GitHub: https://imgur.com/a/5LIUu0y
| AndyKelley wrote:
| Ryan Worl is offering to match up to 1K as well:
| https://twitter.com/ryanworl/status/1446216478416584706
|
| slimsag up to 500:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28792172
|
| So I think that means if someone donates and then replies
| to the parent comment noting the amount, that amount will
| be quadrupled!
| tav wrote:
| Thanks for being so generous! Here's $500 from me:
|
| https://imgur.com/gallery/qGBGwXc
| slimsag wrote:
| Matched you $100 https://i.imgur.com/AIimbak.png
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Previous discussion from two years ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20268087
| hackcasual wrote:
| musl is also key for the Emscripten project.
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