8 ms·

If everyone complaining about GIMP in this thread (and most clearly spend a lot of time using it, myself included) donated $20 or an hour of their time to GIMP,

by ISL 8y ago

If everyone complaining about GIMP in this thread (and most clearly spend a lot of time using it, myself included) donated $20 or an hour of their time to GIMP, that'd be another $2k or ~100+ hours of time donated (as of this moment) to help make it better. I have to run to work, so I just donated $20. https://www.gimp.org/donating/ https://www.gimp.org/donating/

curuinor 8y ago
$20/hr for knows-wtf-they're-doing programmer time?
- ISL 8y ago
  $20/hr for doesn't-know-GIMP's-architecture-but-submits-a-possibly-useful-patch-anyway time. If $20 sounds too low, feel free to pitch in more. I'm a physics postdoc, not a software dev.
  - dboreham 8y ago
    You're about an order of magnitude off.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ISL 8y ago
      Please communicate that to the National Science Foundation (and by extension, the electorate). We're hemorrhaging some of our best scientists for that reason. I may soon join them.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - RussianCow 8y ago
      Do people really expect to be paid market rate for open source work?
      - daeken 8y ago
        If I'm doing something for free, I don't mind doing it for free (obviously). If I'm doing something for money, I want to be paid my going rate; otherwise, either find someone else or sell me on just volunteering. I'd never charge $20/hr for software stuff -- it's basically $0/hr (which is most of my time, by choice) or market rate. It's actually the market rate billing that free me up to volunteer with open source projects in the first place.
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Studies back you up and suggest "Pay enough or not at all." Paying below market rate tends to just piss people off and make them feel insulted and undervalued.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        RussianCow 8y ago
        That's interesting. Do you happen to have a link to an article or study about this so that I can learn more?
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        If you search for "pay enough or don't pay at all" you should have no problem finding sources. I'm not going to link to anything here because that implies vetting and I'm not going to vet anything. This isn't at all hard to find.
        RussianCow 8y ago
        Thanks, I couldn't get my search query just right. No need to be snarky, though.
    - vultour 8y ago
      I wonder what kind of wonderland you live in where most senior developers make close to half a million dollars.
      - LemonAndroid 8y ago
        It's called "Filter Bubble".
      - p_b_r 8y ago
        Define "senior". Senior citizen developers? Or you meant that title should mean stature? If you're still coding after being at it for >30 years then yes, you're worth that to help level up entire teams. But, yes, given the prevailing definition of senior, sure, they're worth nowhere near that.
      - dboreham 8y ago
        $20/hr was a contract rate. Your 1/2 million presumably is a salary (base). Not the same thing. $20/hr is roughly equivalent to $20k salary. $200k salary is reasonable for a competent developer who can hop on adding features to Gimp. In my reality no developer (even a sh*y one) makes $20k.
        ttsda 8y ago
        In my reality most do.
    - esrauch 8y ago
      I don't think a developer spending one hour of their time could produce something worth $20 to GIMP. I'm not convinced you could even get a build and Dev environment even set up in that time for most major OSS projects, much less craft a good pull request and follow up to feedback.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- joshumax 8y ago
  I make about $20 USD an hour doing low-level work writing performant C and x86 assembly at my current job. Granted, it's not my only source of income, but what is the average pay/hour for most devs?
  - icelancer 8y ago
    For those skills as a mid-tier seniority developer, not in Silicon Valley in the land of make-believe? Probably like $85k-110k. If you live in SV it might be like $210k or something absurd.
    - irrational 8y ago
      So, about $50 an hour for non-SV developers?
      - MiddleEndian 8y ago
        Plus benefits. A contractor or consultant will charge more.
    - thatfrenchguy 8y ago
      210k is what you’d get as a junior though
      - esrauch 8y ago
        Even FAANG in SV doesn't pay juniors over 200k in total compensation.
  - TheKarateKid 8y ago
    Check out Glassdoor.com.
- exadeci 8y ago
  They don't do it for the money but money helps them spend more time on it. If you ask people to give $50, fewer people will than if you ask them $20 so overall they will get more money.
TheDong 8y ago
Expecting a developer who hasn't yet worked in the gimp codebase to make a meaningful contribution worth a positive dollar value in an hour is vastly under-estimating the cost of ramping up a developer. In reality, if everyone in this thread tried to contribute to gimp for an hour, I expect we'd get two patches of any value out of it, and about 100 hours of time that did nothing but negatively impacted existing gimp developers. There are two realistic outcomes from a "1 hour to contribute something" thing: 1. A trivial patch which causes more lost time ($) for the existing gimp developers than it creates value 2. A developer jumping into irc and trying to ramp up, which for about the first 6 hours of time will likely be a drain on the existing developers with no positive value return until at least 15 work-hours of the developer ramping up (and that's assuming a developer who is already quite experienced and can ramp up pretty efficiently. For some developers, the numbers would be vastly worse). I would go so far as to argue that part of gimp's less intuitive UI is because of having more developers, and if there were fewer developers total the UI would be more cohesive.
- swerveonem 8y ago
  While what you say may be true, it's trivia. If one of those devs who attempt a fix learn a little and make a more significant contribution later in life. Only hindsight is 20/20.
  - RussianCow 8y ago
    The point is, the GIMP project would then be paying (in time and/or money) solely for someone else to "learn a little", when they could/should be spending that time/money actively improving the product.
dboreham 8y ago
Or...perhaps 15 hours of an actual competent developer?
lwhalen 8y ago
Pleasantly surprised that their Bitcoin donation route is as busy as it is. ~20BTC+ over 700 transactions ain't chump change!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Anyone know which of the donation options respects privacy, and isn't paypal? Haha.
- ducttape12 8y ago
  What's wrong with their bitcoin option?
  - exolymph 8y ago
    Bitcoin runs on an open ledger, it's not particularly private.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    There are people who don't want to use cryptocurrencies because of their downsides (one of which is the speculative nature of it or, depending on whom you ask, downright ponzi scheme).

by ISL 8y ago

curuinor 8y ago

$20/hr for knows-wtf-they're-doing programmer time?

ISL 8y ago
$20/hr for doesn't-know-GIMP's-architecture-but-submits-a-possibly-useful-patch-anyway time. If $20 sounds too low, feel free to pitch in more. I'm a physics postdoc, not a software dev.
- dboreham 8y ago
  You're about an order of magnitude off.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ISL 8y ago
    Please communicate that to the National Science Foundation (and by extension, the electorate). We're hemorrhaging some of our best scientists for that reason. I may soon join them.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - RussianCow 8y ago
    Do people really expect to be paid market rate for open source work?
    - daeken 8y ago
      If I'm doing something for free, I don't mind doing it for free (obviously). If I'm doing something for money, I want to be paid my going rate; otherwise, either find someone else or sell me on just volunteering. I'd never charge $20/hr for software stuff -- it's basically $0/hr (which is most of my time, by choice) or market rate. It's actually the market rate billing that free me up to volunteer with open source projects in the first place.
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Studies back you up and suggest "Pay enough or not at all." Paying below market rate tends to just piss people off and make them feel insulted and undervalued.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        RussianCow 8y ago
        That's interesting. Do you happen to have a link to an article or study about this so that I can learn more?
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        If you search for "pay enough or don't pay at all" you should have no problem finding sources. I'm not going to link to anything here because that implies vetting and I'm not going to vet anything. This isn't at all hard to find.
        RussianCow 8y ago
        Thanks, I couldn't get my search query just right. No need to be snarky, though.
  - vultour 8y ago
    I wonder what kind of wonderland you live in where most senior developers make close to half a million dollars.
    - LemonAndroid 8y ago
      It's called "Filter Bubble".
    - p_b_r 8y ago
      Define "senior". Senior citizen developers? Or you meant that title should mean stature? If you're still coding after being at it for >30 years then yes, you're worth that to help level up entire teams. But, yes, given the prevailing definition of senior, sure, they're worth nowhere near that.
    - dboreham 8y ago
      $20/hr was a contract rate. Your 1/2 million presumably is a salary (base). Not the same thing. $20/hr is roughly equivalent to $20k salary. $200k salary is reasonable for a competent developer who can hop on adding features to Gimp. In my reality no developer (even a sh*y one) makes $20k.
      - ttsda 8y ago
        In my reality most do.
  - esrauch 8y ago
    I don't think a developer spending one hour of their time could produce something worth $20 to GIMP. I'm not convinced you could even get a build and Dev environment even set up in that time for most major OSS projects, much less craft a good pull request and follow up to feedback.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
joshumax 8y ago
I make about $20 USD an hour doing low-level work writing performant C and x86 assembly at my current job. Granted, it's not my only source of income, but what is the average pay/hour for most devs?
- icelancer 8y ago
  For those skills as a mid-tier seniority developer, not in Silicon Valley in the land of make-believe? Probably like $85k-110k. If you live in SV it might be like $210k or something absurd.
  - irrational 8y ago
    So, about $50 an hour for non-SV developers?
    - MiddleEndian 8y ago
      Plus benefits. A contractor or consultant will charge more.
  - thatfrenchguy 8y ago
    210k is what you’d get as a junior though
    - esrauch 8y ago
      Even FAANG in SV doesn't pay juniors over 200k in total compensation.
- TheKarateKid 8y ago
  Check out Glassdoor.com.
exadeci 8y ago
They don't do it for the money but money helps them spend more time on it. If you ask people to give $50, fewer people will than if you ask them $20 so overall they will get more money.

TheDong 8y ago

Expecting a developer who hasn't yet worked in the gimp codebase to make a meaningful contribution worth a positive dollar value in an hour is vastly under-estimating the cost of ramping up a developer. In reality, if everyone in this thread tried to contribute to gimp for an hour, I expect we'd get two patches of any value out of it, and about 100 hours of time that did nothing but negatively impacted existing gimp developers. There are two realistic outcomes from a "1 hour to contribute something" thing: 1. A trivial patch which causes more lost time ($) for the existing gimp developers than it creates value 2. A developer jumping into irc and trying to ramp up, which for about the first 6 hours of time will likely be a drain on the existing developers with no positive value return until at least 15 work-hours of the developer ramping up (and that's assuming a developer who is already quite experienced and can ramp up pretty efficiently. For some developers, the numbers would be vastly worse). I would go so far as to argue that part of gimp's less intuitive UI is because of having more developers, and if there were fewer developers total the UI would be more cohesive.

swerveonem 8y ago
While what you say may be true, it's trivia. If one of those devs who attempt a fix learn a little and make a more significant contribution later in life. Only hindsight is 20/20.
- RussianCow 8y ago
  The point is, the GIMP project would then be paying (in time and/or money) solely for someone else to "learn a little", when they could/should be spending that time/money actively improving the product.

dboreham 8y ago

Or...perhaps 15 hours of an actual competent developer?

lwhalen 8y ago

Pleasantly surprised that their Bitcoin donation route is as busy as it is. ~20BTC+ over 700 transactions ain't chump change!

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Anyone know which of the donation options respects privacy, and isn't paypal? Haha.

ducttape12 8y ago
What's wrong with their bitcoin option?
- exolymph 8y ago
  Bitcoin runs on an open ledger, it's not particularly private.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  There are people who don't want to use cryptocurrencies because of their downsides (one of which is the speculative nature of it or, depending on whom you ask, downright ponzi scheme).