6 ms·

> Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). It's got a major

by Kalium 7y ago

> Seems what they are planning to offer is not better nor different than what others already are providing (see OpenCollective or LiberaPay). It's got a major company with deep and signficant expertise in security, payments, and accouting. A name that people and companies already trust with a raft of compliance all handled already. It might just be me, but if I were to speculate I would guess that OpenCollective and LiberaPay can't quite claim the same. I know that if I want to, I can get a SOC 2 report from GitHub. These are nor minor administrative details to be brushed aside idly. They matter, particularly to a company keen to ensure that they never have to apologize for a partner fucking up credit card handling or to someone with a corporate card who has to be careful how they use it. These things are major features.

diggan 7y ago
I guess our perspectives are different. You seem to see this from GitHubs point of view, I'm seeing it from the view of open source developers. Both perspectives are equally valuable.
- Kalium 7y ago
  I agree that our perspectives are different. I see this from the perspective of someone who wants to see developers get paid. Safely and securely, in a way that makes it easy for them to get paid the next time too. I'm also looking at this from the angle of "What non-nefarious reasons would GitHub have for making these decisions?". One of the first that sprang to mind is credit card security, which touches on quite a few issues at once. Further, my experience is that most of the time decisions that can be interpreted as being done for nefarious reasons were rarely actually made that way. I am willing to extend the HN-guideline principle of charity to GitHub, especially because I can see clear, real, valid reasons for standing up their own service over a partnership with a third-party service. I understand that some people will find these unconvincing or decide they are just a ploy. I haven't even touched on AML or KYC issues! You are definitely right about the importance of infrastructure made entirely of open source software. My perspective is, in essence, that there are other features that matter that may not fully live in code.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    What non-nefarious reasons would GitHub have for making these decisions? GitHub is owned by Microsoft now- they can afford to do this at a loss / zero sum amount because Microsoft thinks it's a good idea. As long as Microsoft is being altruistic here, we should be fine. I think.
- derefr 7y ago
  I think the key perspective here is that of “the average GitHub user who mostly ends up there in the process of attempting to fetch a library” (a.k.a. to use GitHub as the ecosystem-library package manager of last resort, for libraries nobody bothered to put into an actual package; or for special feature-branches or tracking bleeding-edge development.) If such users will be more attracted to donating to developers via GitHub itself, than via other systems linked to through the GitHub README they land on, then donations will spike. And if, at some point, this program becomes opt-out instead of opt-in, then these users might decide to donate to all sorts of people who never considered themselves “open-source developers” but who just happen to slap code up on the internet for free, mostly as a way of proving the provenance of the binary releases they make. For example, developers in the game-console homebrew community, or the Hackintosh driver community, might suddenly see financial support.
smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
You make a good point. I sponsor a couple of projects on opencollective, but it took an hour or so of reading before I trusted it enough to use. I think if it had been built into GitHub, I would have been much quicker to sponsor. I agree with diggan’s point too, but the reality is this is likely to get more people paying more open source maintainers. I just wish it could be on an open platform.
- patcon 7y ago
  > I just wish it could be on an open platform. It could be. Letting GitHub get away with this without criticism feels like a failure of imagination. They could have done integration of an open platform (heck, even one they created) if they gave a fuck :(
  - benatkin 7y ago
    The way I see it, it isn't an alternative to Open Collective that they're after. They've seen that it's fashionable for people to give money based on parasocial interaction. It's sort of like gambling, where there's a dopamine hit, but where the behavior doesn't get you meaningfully more involved with the community, whether it be Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook (just like gambling doesn't make you wealthier). I fell into that trap with Twitch for a while but cancelled all my subscriptions after realizing that my rationalizations for subscribing didn't hold up, and the real reason was the excitement of feeling like I was hanging out with a chess champion. I think there will probably be backlash after some stories of people spending more they can afford on Twitch subscriptions get out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction It is nice to see people make money doing what they love, but I wonder how much they can really make if people aren't influenced by parasocial interaction. The motivation for Open Collective of giving back to say thanks is a much more pure one than paying $5/mo on Twitch, of which Amazon gets a huge cut, to get a sense of belonging bolstered by custom emoji and subscriber-only programming.
patcon 7y ago
> It's got a major company with deep and signficant expertise in security, payments, and accouting. A name that people and companies already trust with a raft of compliance all handled already. Yes, and they are absolutely _robbing_ the opportunity from others to build in this space, when there are already some really capable players who would have gotten somewhere great. This is a total asshole, closed source company approach. The "loss leader" thing feels totally malicious, and designed to starve the open competition. This is classic Microsoft and rolls back all the positive feelings that had been growing about their growing in the right direction. Amazon does the same shit, to starve competition: "Yeah, you've a spot on our system, but we're going to steal every feature and embed our deeper and drive you out." For a real example of how OPEN companies work together: Balanced Payments was a daring effort to run an open source payment processor. When they wanted a way to fund and support Gratipay, they went in and submitted a pull request to incorporate their own open source payment processor into the Gratipay platform. If GitHub were in the true spirit of open source, it would have engaged OpenCollective in such a capacity. I am really disappointed about the hooray optimism and lack of criticism in this thread. I feel like we're all failing to engage in critical engagement with this idea and premise.
- osd 7y ago
  Your comment reads that you're angry at Github for not taking a more open source approach. That's a fine opinion to have, but it doesn't make sense to demonize them for being a for-profit company. They are not robbing anyone of anything. Starving the competition with loss-leader tactics is not an unbeatable strategy. If, however, you don't have anything to offer other than a run of the mill payment processing platform, then yea, you're going to have a tough time beating someone who can cut costs. They have a feature you don't, you should lose.
  - Nullabillity 7y ago
    > That's a fine opinion to have, but it doesn't make sense to demonize them for being a for-profit company. Because some people are just born as for-profit companies? Labels are useful to classify behaviour, but that doesn't automatically excuse that behaviour.

by Kalium 7y ago

diggan 7y ago

I guess our perspectives are different. You seem to see this from GitHubs point of view, I'm seeing it from the view of open source developers. Both perspectives are equally valuable.

Kalium 7y ago
I agree that our perspectives are different. I see this from the perspective of someone who wants to see developers get paid. Safely and securely, in a way that makes it easy for them to get paid the next time too. I'm also looking at this from the angle of "What non-nefarious reasons would GitHub have for making these decisions?". One of the first that sprang to mind is credit card security, which touches on quite a few issues at once. Further, my experience is that most of the time decisions that can be interpreted as being done for nefarious reasons were rarely actually made that way. I am willing to extend the HN-guideline principle of charity to GitHub, especially because I can see clear, real, valid reasons for standing up their own service over a partnership with a third-party service. I understand that some people will find these unconvincing or decide they are just a ploy. I haven't even touched on AML or KYC issues! You are definitely right about the importance of infrastructure made entirely of open source software. My perspective is, in essence, that there are other features that matter that may not fully live in code.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  What non-nefarious reasons would GitHub have for making these decisions? GitHub is owned by Microsoft now- they can afford to do this at a loss / zero sum amount because Microsoft thinks it's a good idea. As long as Microsoft is being altruistic here, we should be fine. I think.
derefr 7y ago
I think the key perspective here is that of “the average GitHub user who mostly ends up there in the process of attempting to fetch a library” (a.k.a. to use GitHub as the ecosystem-library package manager of last resort, for libraries nobody bothered to put into an actual package; or for special feature-branches or tracking bleeding-edge development.) If such users will be more attracted to donating to developers via GitHub itself, than via other systems linked to through the GitHub README they land on, then donations will spike. And if, at some point, this program becomes opt-out instead of opt-in, then these users might decide to donate to all sorts of people who never considered themselves “open-source developers” but who just happen to slap code up on the internet for free, mostly as a way of proving the provenance of the binary releases they make. For example, developers in the game-console homebrew community, or the Hackintosh driver community, might suddenly see financial support.

smudgymcscmudge 7y ago

You make a good point. I sponsor a couple of projects on opencollective, but it took an hour or so of reading before I trusted it enough to use. I think if it had been built into GitHub, I would have been much quicker to sponsor. I agree with diggan’s point too, but the reality is this is likely to get more people paying more open source maintainers. I just wish it could be on an open platform.

patcon 7y ago
> I just wish it could be on an open platform. It could be. Letting GitHub get away with this without criticism feels like a failure of imagination. They could have done integration of an open platform (heck, even one they created) if they gave a fuck :(
- benatkin 7y ago
  The way I see it, it isn't an alternative to Open Collective that they're after. They've seen that it's fashionable for people to give money based on parasocial interaction. It's sort of like gambling, where there's a dopamine hit, but where the behavior doesn't get you meaningfully more involved with the community, whether it be Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook (just like gambling doesn't make you wealthier). I fell into that trap with Twitch for a while but cancelled all my subscriptions after realizing that my rationalizations for subscribing didn't hold up, and the real reason was the excitement of feeling like I was hanging out with a chess champion. I think there will probably be backlash after some stories of people spending more they can afford on Twitch subscriptions get out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction It is nice to see people make money doing what they love, but I wonder how much they can really make if people aren't influenced by parasocial interaction. The motivation for Open Collective of giving back to say thanks is a much more pure one than paying $5/mo on Twitch, of which Amazon gets a huge cut, to get a sense of belonging bolstered by custom emoji and subscriber-only programming.

patcon 7y ago

> It's got a major company with deep and signficant expertise in security, payments, and accouting. A name that people and companies already trust with a raft of compliance all handled already. Yes, and they are absolutely _robbing_ the opportunity from others to build in this space, when there are already some really capable players who would have gotten somewhere great. This is a total asshole, closed source company approach. The "loss leader" thing feels totally malicious, and designed to starve the open competition. This is classic Microsoft and rolls back all the positive feelings that had been growing about their growing in the right direction. Amazon does the same shit, to starve competition: "Yeah, you've a spot on our system, but we're going to steal every feature and embed our deeper and drive you out." For a real example of how OPEN companies work together: Balanced Payments was a daring effort to run an open source payment processor. When they wanted a way to fund and support Gratipay, they went in and submitted a pull request to incorporate their own open source payment processor into the Gratipay platform. If GitHub were in the true spirit of open source, it would have engaged OpenCollective in such a capacity. I am really disappointed about the hooray optimism and lack of criticism in this thread. I feel like we're all failing to engage in critical engagement with this idea and premise.

osd 7y ago
Your comment reads that you're angry at Github for not taking a more open source approach. That's a fine opinion to have, but it doesn't make sense to demonize them for being a for-profit company. They are not robbing anyone of anything. Starving the competition with loss-leader tactics is not an unbeatable strategy. If, however, you don't have anything to offer other than a run of the mill payment processing platform, then yea, you're going to have a tough time beating someone who can cut costs. They have a feature you don't, you should lose.
- Nullabillity 7y ago
  > That's a fine opinion to have, but it doesn't make sense to demonize them for being a for-profit company. Because some people are just born as for-profit companies? Labels are useful to classify behaviour, but that doesn't automatically excuse that behaviour.