[HN Gopher] Open-Source Contributors Worth Sponsoring
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Open-Source Contributors Worth Sponsoring
Author : astoilkov
Score : 105 points
Date : 2021-10-28 11:32 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (astoilkov.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (astoilkov.com)
| faho wrote:
| This really seems like a rich-getting-richer sort of deal.
|
| It recommends Sindre Sorhus, who already gets over $10K/month via
| Github Sponsors [0].
|
| If you're interested in making this sort of funding viable, it
| would be better to give your money to someone else, maybe to
| allow them to do it full-time or part-time?
|
| Github itself also likes recommending already popular people.
|
| [0]: https://sindresorhus.com/thanks
| jdorfman wrote:
| IMO Sindre is still under paid comparing that to a
| distinguished software engineer's salary[0].
|
| [0]: https://hired.com/salary-calculator/software-
| engineering/san...
| tephra wrote:
| * in the U.S.. For example 10 000 USD translates to ~85 000
| Swedish kronor, a monthly salary that would probably put you
| in the top 5% (if not higher) income wise.
| jdorfman wrote:
| Great point, didn't even consider that.
| astoilkov wrote:
| Another good argument. Maybe I should include him but clarify
| why I'm adding him.
| oscargrouch wrote:
| Also apparently is Javascript only, which are the most well
| served community in terms of recognition, funding and
| (comparatively) less complex and smaller codebases.
|
| I wonder how a underfunded and complex crypto library, emulator
| or VM feel about the effort expended vs. the funds that goes to
| 3000 line of code javascript libraries that are linked
| everywhere.
|
| Not to understate the work and effort in those libraries, but
| the guy who creates a engine (lets say in C++) which is wrapper
| in a popular python library and do the heavy lifting will be
| underfunded while the guy that wraps it over python will
| receive all the funding.
|
| My guess is, well organized, hype-based language communities
| will win in the end, even if the technology is inferior(not the
| language, but the libraries), giving they will be able to
| generate more funding.
|
| Other language communities should keep an eye on this and step
| up, because in the end "it's the economy, stupid".
| astoilkov wrote:
| I agree, I'm helping the Power Law distribution.
|
| I wondered a lot if I should add Sindre to the list -- most
| people know him, he earns a lot. I decided to add him because
| he contributes back (sponsors other open-source creators) and
| creates tons of value for the community.
| faho wrote:
| But he'll do that whether he gets $10000 or $10005 a month.
|
| Giving to someone who makes less is much more of a change for
| them, giving you more bang for your buck.
| astoilkov wrote:
| All the arguments make sense. I've removed him from the
| list.
| faho wrote:
| All the arguments here apply to TJ at the very least as
| well, considering 39 sponsors at $400 adds up to >$10k.
|
| Plus: Do you believe anyone reading this will shell out
| $400 for one person?
| Kovah wrote:
| > Open-source creators are underpaid.
|
| Maybe you should rephrase your article, or remove him. Sindre
| is one of the most-paid open source creators. There are other
| creators which definitely deserve to be listed here instead
| of him.
| astoilkov wrote:
| All the arguments make sense. I've removed him from the
| list.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| The price of freedom aka not to have your work crippled by
| stakeholder interests
| hiyer wrote:
| I would like to nominate Kovid Goyal, the author of Calibre[1]
| and Kitty[2], to this list. I don't know if he accepts
| sponsorship (and/or donations) - I've not seen anything of that
| sort on his websites - but I'll be eternally grateful for the
| wonderful stuff he's created!
|
| 1. https://calibre-ebook.com/
|
| 2. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
|
| Edit: formatting
| astoilkov wrote:
| I'm looking at him right now -- https://github.com/kovidgoyal.
| You can sponsor him at https://github.com/sponsors/kovidgoyal.
|
| It seems like he's spending a lot of time developing Calibre
| and has only 9 sponsors. Do you know of any other way he can
| make money out of Calibre?
|
| GitHub contributions graph shows that he has consistently
| worked on Calibre for the past 12 years. That's amazing!
| heurisko wrote:
| I've used ebook-convert [1] from the Calibre project. It is
| unrivalled in my opinion.
|
| [1] https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/generated/en/ebook-
| convert....
| ddoeth wrote:
| Damn, I have never seen a git contribution overview with so
| little missing days.
| david_allison wrote:
| I've posted about Kovid before.
|
| He's on sponsors[0] making >=$40/m. He also makes $2,142/m on
| Patreon[1] and ~$74/m on Liberapay[2]. The calibre site[3] also
| accepts PayPal.
|
| [0] https://github.com/sponsors/kovidgoyal
|
| [1] https://www.patreon.com/kovidgoyal
|
| [2] https://liberapay.com/kovidgoyal/donate
|
| [3] https://calibre-ebook.com/donate
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Calibre is a great piece of software. I am using it for Legos
| instructions set for my partner hobby which have over 300 paper
| instruction booklets. I have majority of the digital
| instruction sets in PDF from various sources and put them in
| Calibre Web for my partner to access the PDFs without needing
| to through the box to find it. Surely Legos have their own
| digital library but they only hold small pool of instructions
| on their sites which prompted me to use Calibre Web. It works
| well for him and I am happy with that.
| math-dev wrote:
| Calibre is Amazing!
| kuon wrote:
| I do not want to hijack this thread or promote myself, but maybe
| you could suggest something.
|
| I realized I was working up to 50% on open source projects, and I
| wanted to accept sponsoring, but I moved away from github (which
| is surely a terrible idea for an open source guy, but I had my
| "stallman moment").
|
| I do work mostly on gitlab and my own gitea instance.
|
| What I did is setup stripe, with donate button on my blog but it
| is not very friendly and there is no social effect.
|
| Do you know an alternative to github sponsor that allow source to
| be scattered around?
| TylerLives wrote:
| What made you move away from GitHub?
| kuon wrote:
| Well, I do realize I might be way over reacting, but:
|
| https://github.com/kuon/WhyILeftGithub
|
| It is a general feeling of putting everything in the same
| basket.
| teddyh wrote:
| I am not grandparent, but:
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation#GitHub
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| opencollective, maybe?
|
| Here's an example: https://opencollective.com/neovim
| kuon wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion.
| brightly-salty wrote:
| ko-fi.com is an alternative, similar to Patreon. It offers many
| different types of links and buttons, and is comparable to
| GitHub sponsors in terms of features and tiers, as far as I can
| tell. (Not affiliated, by the way)
| kuon wrote:
| This is a nice platform, it seems to be close to what I was
| thinking.
| david_allison wrote:
| https://liberapay.com/
|
| https://opencollective.com/ (typically requires OSS license +
| 100 stars + 2 contributors)
| kuon wrote:
| Thank you for the suggestions. I am looking more for
| "personal" donation rather than "project" donation. I realize
| it might be harder to sponsor an individual rather than a
| project.
| david_allison wrote:
| https://ko-fi.com/ - one-off
|
| https://www.patreon.com/ - recurring
|
| https://github.com/sponsors - you can use it while
| contributing on other sites
|
| https://www.paypal.com/
| tpxl wrote:
| You could keep a github mirror of your work with issues/pull
| requests/wiki/... disabled, have links to your gitlab/issue
| tracker and automatically push to github whenever you push to
| gitlab or on a cron. This would give you the discoverability of
| github with the control of your own instance.
|
| That is if you are willing to touch github again.
| kuon wrote:
| Yes I could do that, but it is a big hassle. But yeah, it
| provides discoverability.
| 0des wrote:
| Submitted for the approval of the midnight society: I'd like to
| propose the currently underappreciated and undersupported
| developer of Qutebrowser - a minimal browser with our best
| interests in mind that isn't another chrome clone.
|
| https://github.com/sponsors/The-Compiler/
| [deleted]
| mythz wrote:
| Drilling down this list helped me to find https://notable.app by
| @fabiospampinato
|
| It looks like a beautifully simple Markdown Notes Desktop App
| (Win/Mac/Linux). Have just been playing with it to import plain
| .txt files lying around on my Desktop. Has a simple out-of-the-
| way UI for creating markdown pages, organize active ones in tags,
| favorites or pin to top. Saves as plain .md files in 1 folder.
| Zen, floating & translucent modes. Looks like a TODO.txt
| notepad.exe replacement that might stick.
| jimaek wrote:
| GitHub Sponsors is great but there is still not enough people and
| companies willing to spend money to support free and open
| projects.
|
| It's a lot easier to get them to give you free services worth
| thousands of dollars than donate 20$ per month.
|
| Another problem is that the people building these projects are
| often developers who focus on the technology and completely
| ignore the marketing side of things. Or simply have no idea how
| to do marketing. Which makes it finding sponsors almost
| impossible.
|
| Our project is a good example of that, I've been trying to fix
| the marketing issue for years and I'm still struggling
| https://github.com/jsDelivr
|
| If anyone has any ideas how to make it more attractive to
| companies to support us please let me know, I would really
| appreciate it.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| If you look at recent case of switch to Ks from lisp, it is not
| the money but the community formation that is the key. No doubt
| it is nit either or. But more money may not be helpful if people
| just copy cat. Money ok as open source is not free source. But
| money is not the key.
| chucke wrote:
| Don't forget me. I'm incendiary too!
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Personally, I would much prefer we move over to source-available
| options that would allow people to charge commerical companies
| generating x amount of money a fee while providing free of charge
| for everyone else.
|
| The whole idea that I as a private person need to sponsor someone
| else to do open source work so I can use their code at my paid
| job to do something for my for-profit employer seems outragous to
| me and a sign that out ecosystem is corrupt. Companies get rich
| while we pay out.
| rglullis wrote:
| Does "source available" allow people to fork a project and
| redistribute it? What happens if the original author abandons
| the project for any reason?
|
| "Source available" is just a nicer name for shareware. I am
| _less_ inclined to support someone making shareware than
| someone who is making free software.
|
| > so I can use their code at my paid job
|
| Free software is not just about "your code at work". There are
| plenty of projects not related to dev tooling that you could
| contribute.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| >Does "source available" allow people to fork a project and
| redistribute it? What happens if the original author abandons
| the project for any reason?
|
| A project generating enough revenue would just be outsourced
| to someone else, sold, etc. Just like normal commerical
| software.
|
| > I am less inclined to support someone making shareware than
| someone who is making free software
|
| The point is you wouldn't need to support them, they would be
| generating revenue from for-profit companies using the
| software. Companies that generate money using the code would
| have to pay for the code.
| rglullis wrote:
| > Just like normal commerical software.
|
| Yeah, but that means that it is "just like normal
| commercial software", which is _not_ the point of Free
| /Libre/Open Source Software.
|
| You are basically saying "I wish that people writing FOSS
| stopped doing that."
|
| > they would be generating revenue from for-profit
| companies using the software.
|
| That makes the very naive assumption that a FOSS project
| that has grown to be successful would have reached the same
| status if it were "source available".
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > You are basically saying "I wish that people writing
| FOSS stopped doing that."
|
| Yes. I wish people would stop doing FOSS and started
| doing source avaialble instead of open source and charged
| companies money. I wish people who built super valuable
| software got properly rewarded for their efforts.
|
| I know it's odd that someone doesn't think FOSS is great.
| But some of us honestly think it's the worst thing in
| tech. It's the cause of so many hassles for companies and
| open source maintainers alike. It seems like every month
| some open source maintainer has to tell people that
| they're not getting paid for this and they don't have
| time to work on it properly because they have a day job
| and a life. So they have very limited time to work on
| this project. Then we have maintainers who tell people
| they don't really want pull requests because pull
| requests are work since they need to maintain them. All
| of this is solved when people are paid for thier work and
| it's not a hobby project.
|
| > That makes the very naive assumption that a FOSS
| project that has grown to be successful would have
| reached the same status if it were "source available".
|
| The thing is, it wouldn't even need to reach the same
| status to generate a livable income. Seriously, if you
| have a project that you sell to revenue generating
| companies for 1k a year each. And you only get 75
| companies using it heavily instead of 30,000 companies.
| You're good to live off that and work on that project
| full time.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| Recently wanted to back up my CD collection and came upon Aaru,
| which supports an impressive amount of formats:
| https://github.com/aaru-dps/Aaru
|
| The main developer is currently getting $100 a month on Patreon.
| ivan4th wrote:
| Somewhat related: if you're using Common Lisp, and SBCL in
| particular, please consider sponsoring Stas Boukarev, who is an
| important SBCL contributor https://www.patreon.com/stassats JS is
| here to stay regardless of the sponsorships, but lispers are few
| and far between ;)
| darthcloud wrote:
| I personally sponsor:
|
| Hector Martin: https://github.com/sponsors/marcan Apple M1
| silicon RE & Linux port
|
| Ryan C. Gordon: https://github.com/sponsors/icculus SDL lib
| maintainer
|
| They make awesome work and look like decent human beings.
| astoilkov wrote:
| Cool. I will need some time to understand what they are doing
| as I'm not an expert on Linux.
| [deleted]
| pid-1 wrote:
| I sponsor the FastAPI dude, great project.
| fps_doug wrote:
| I'd like to throw in PhotoPrism[1], a web-based photo management
| tool. It's already moving forward steadily, having recently added
| a first version of facial recognition. The author wants to make
| it his full time job, but isn't quite there yet funding-wise.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism
| astoilkov wrote:
| I like this type of business model. Create it for free and earn
| from your biggest fans. However, it's probably a big struggle
| for them.
| asicsp wrote:
| I tried getting donations on my GitHub repos (this was before
| Sponsors was announced). I got just one sponsor for about
| $1/month, which got cancelled after some months due to payment
| gateway changes. In hindsight, I didn't do a good job of asking
| for donation and my repos were on programming tutorials rather
| than open source software.
|
| This pushed me towards adapting my tutorials to ebooks and self
| publishing. I promoted the books as pay-what-you-want for a few
| days after completing each book. This method of donation worked
| much better for me [0]
|
| I feel free software could also adapt similar approach during
| installation/download in addition to setting up Sponsors.
|
| [0] https://learnbyexample.github.io/my-book-writing-experience/
| Alacart wrote:
| I also recommend sponsoring Matt Holt for his work on Caddy and
| several other very useful and high quality open source repos.
| He's very under sponsored for having built a server that a lot of
| companies use.
|
| https://github.com/sponsors/mholt
| mholt wrote:
| Thank you. Could definitely use more sponsorships, particularly
| from companies. I'm also open to ideas on how to make
| sponsorships more attractive to those who are considering it!
| (Without taking away too much from dev time, if possible.)
| jdorfman wrote:
| I would like to nominate XhmikosR[0], maintainer of Bootstrap. At
| the time of this writing he has 4 sponsors.
|
| We were co-maintainers of BootstrapCDN and even though we
| recently archived & split our Open Collective earnings, I know he
| barely gets by.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/sponsors/XhmikosR
| astoilkov wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| I like this nomination as maintainers of popular repos are even
| more underpaid than the original creators of the repos.
| keb_ wrote:
| I've never seen a more self-congratulatory community than the
| JS/Node world.
| ushakov wrote:
| If you like Guitars, Machine Learning and FOSS, consider checking
| out GuitarML
|
| http://github.com/guitarml
|
| patreon: https://patreon.com/guitarml
|
| (disclosure: i'm a contributor)
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(page generated 2021-10-28 23:02 UTC)