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It sounds like the developers make some sort of “promise” to maintain the software. Not really sure how that’s enforced or what even constitutes regular mainte

by xienze 8y ago

It sounds like the developers make some sort of “promise” to maintain the software. Not really sure how that’s enforced or what even constitutes regular maintenance. I doubt anyone is committing to an SLA for fixes for the relatively paltry sums mentioned in the article (at least $10K over two years). It’s an interesting idea but it sounds like it lacks anything that really binds the developer to a level of service. Plus the pay isn’t “quit your day job”-good so ya know, that day job is gonna take priority. My gut reaction is that it sounds like an easy way for companies to pay a sum that lets them feel less guilty about freeloading off someone else’s work, and if the developer is more responsive to their requests, hey, bonus.

usrusr 8y ago
Correction: I appear to have misread some of sales copy to potential subscribers, there is no promise of individual support involved, just continued maintenance. -- Even that "far from quitting your dayjob" amount of money could in theory impact a lot of "do I keep maintaining that lib a younger version of myself once built?" decisions. If that was the only thing tidelift promised paying companies, protects that get donations are less likely to get abandoned, it would kind of make sense. But in their sales copy, they are actually selling services (no: see correction above) provided by "lifted" maintainers, and that's where it stops being funny, for all sides involved (except tidelift). I wonder if the terminolocal proximity to "shoplift" ever occurred in their investor talks... If they ever make it to the point of regular payouts, there will likely be some hidden scene of opportunists rushing to get recognised as the maintainer of as many abandoned - or just stabilized to the point of nondevelopment - packages as possible. Kind of like the alleged scooter-charging fights (no idea wether those are real or just news-fiction), perhaps something good could come out of that nonetheless? (maintainership-hoarders actually ending up doing some maintenance)
philliphaydon 8y ago
I think the idea is the more companies that sign up the more money can be given to a particular project and over time allow those people to go full time on their project. But since it’s new with little to no customers they are relying on capital to pay some developers guaranteed 10k over 2 years. Over this 2 years this could catch on and pay a lot more than 10k.
deleted 8y ago
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by xienze 8y ago

usrusr 8y ago

Correction: I appear to have misread some of sales copy to potential subscribers, there is no promise of individual support involved, just continued maintenance. -- Even that "far from quitting your dayjob" amount of money could in theory impact a lot of "do I keep maintaining that lib a younger version of myself once built?" decisions. If that was the only thing tidelift promised paying companies, protects that get donations are less likely to get abandoned, it would kind of make sense. But in their sales copy, they are actually selling services (no: see correction above) provided by "lifted" maintainers, and that's where it stops being funny, for all sides involved (except tidelift). I wonder if the terminolocal proximity to "shoplift" ever occurred in their investor talks... If they ever make it to the point of regular payouts, there will likely be some hidden scene of opportunists rushing to get recognised as the maintainer of as many abandoned - or just stabilized to the point of nondevelopment - packages as possible. Kind of like the alleged scooter-charging fights (no idea wether those are real or just news-fiction), perhaps something good could come out of that nonetheless? (maintainership-hoarders actually ending up doing some maintenance)

philliphaydon 8y ago

I think the idea is the more companies that sign up the more money can be given to a particular project and over time allow those people to go full time on their project. But since it’s new with little to no customers they are relying on capital to pay some developers guaranteed 10k over 2 years. Over this 2 years this could catch on and pay a lot more than 10k.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]