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> To supercharge community funding, GitHub created the GitHub Sponsors Matching Fund, which matches up to $5000 per sponsored developer in their first year of s

by koolba 7y ago

> To supercharge community funding, GitHub created the GitHub Sponsors Matching Fund, which matches up to $5000 per sponsored developer in their first year of sponsorship. In the first year, GitHub will not charge any fees, so 100% of sponsorships will go to the sponsored developer. In the future, we may charge a nominal processing fee. What's to stop me^Wsomeone else and their friend from sponsoring each other for $5K to collect the $5K in matching funds?

AsyncAwait 7y ago
Idk, you can abuse everything. Does that mean nothing that could be abused should exist? I expect them to at least verify that you're doing some useful work on GitHub. If you are, I don't even particularly mind you exploiting this, even if it's perhaps not ideal.
- marktani 7y ago
  Perhaps you don't mind it, but it would be interesting to know more about GitHub's and Microsoft's thoughts/thought process on this topic.
xbryanx 7y ago
A fraud conviction.
pluma 7y ago
Well, that would be fraud and illegal. Other than that, nothing. What's stopping you from conning an old lady out of her pension?
- koolba 7y ago
  Why would it be fraud? We both contribute to open source projects and appreciate the effort that the other contributes.
  - pluma 7y ago
    I don't know whether you're trolling or simply naive but that's clearly fraud and the scenario you describe explicitly aims to commit fraud. At the very least it's violating the terms of service. But very clearly the two of you would have conspired to defraud GitHub and in this case there would even be evidence in the form of an HN comment where you literally ask if this would work. You may think you're clever but trust me when I tell you that no, you're not, and I've seen enough people try to be exceptionally clever and think "plausible deniability" would cover their butts and then get sued for fraud.
    - marktani 7y ago
      How do you distinguish (A) two random developers that met each other at several conferences over the years, have contributed to a few same projects and really like the efforts the other one is putting into their OSS project (B) two random developers that met each other at several conferences over the years, have contributed to a few same projects and want to fraud GitHub for the donation match I think this could be a real practical problem for GitHub. And lawyering up against developers supporting the campaign potentially counteracts the marketing benefit of it.
      - koolba 7y ago
        Option (A) is the exact situation I'm envisioning. Rather than waiting for some third party fans to give money, we'd be immediately rewarding the work that the other has done over the years with a one-off $5K (to maximize the match) contribution.
      - Udo 7y ago
        If I was GitHub, I'd make a distinction between two random people shuffling 10 bucks back and forth and two people shoving hundreds or thousands around. The first scenario is probably an accident, the second is not. Come to think of it, they probably should have capped individual contribution matching to something reasonable (maybe they'll still do that).
    - nlowell 7y ago
karmelapple 7y ago
When joining the waitlist, they ask about a variety of open source projects you've been involved in. I imagine they'll vet what kind of contribution level people did on different repos they claim, or just on open source repos in general.
rswail 7y ago
If Github aren't doing KYC and AML, then their payment processor better have. Otherwise this is the swiftest way I've seen to make $5K.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  KYC: know your customer. AML: anti money-laundering. Basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering
- Applejinx 7y ago
  Epic Games is doing stuff like this in order to own the concept of a video-game storefront. I don't think Microsoft would go quite so far as to subsidize massive fraud just to get people engaged with this scenario, but they're clearly prepared to throw some money at it.
sequoia 7y ago
"me", I mean "another github user", I mean "anyone on the internet who wants to create a github account & start cashing in." This feature really makes no sense, either they figure the fraud will be low enough to not matter, or there's some oversight mechanism to prevent it. I am certain they don't want to try to sue ten thousand random people to attempt to claw back $5k each. I imagine there's some flag/approval process.

by koolba 7y ago

AsyncAwait 7y ago

Idk, you can abuse everything. Does that mean nothing that could be abused should exist? I expect them to at least verify that you're doing some useful work on GitHub. If you are, I don't even particularly mind you exploiting this, even if it's perhaps not ideal.

marktani 7y ago
Perhaps you don't mind it, but it would be interesting to know more about GitHub's and Microsoft's thoughts/thought process on this topic.

xbryanx 7y ago

A fraud conviction.

pluma 7y ago

Well, that would be fraud and illegal. Other than that, nothing. What's stopping you from conning an old lady out of her pension?

koolba 7y ago
Why would it be fraud? We both contribute to open source projects and appreciate the effort that the other contributes.
- pluma 7y ago
  I don't know whether you're trolling or simply naive but that's clearly fraud and the scenario you describe explicitly aims to commit fraud. At the very least it's violating the terms of service. But very clearly the two of you would have conspired to defraud GitHub and in this case there would even be evidence in the form of an HN comment where you literally ask if this would work. You may think you're clever but trust me when I tell you that no, you're not, and I've seen enough people try to be exceptionally clever and think "plausible deniability" would cover their butts and then get sued for fraud.
  - marktani 7y ago
    How do you distinguish (A) two random developers that met each other at several conferences over the years, have contributed to a few same projects and really like the efforts the other one is putting into their OSS project (B) two random developers that met each other at several conferences over the years, have contributed to a few same projects and want to fraud GitHub for the donation match I think this could be a real practical problem for GitHub. And lawyering up against developers supporting the campaign potentially counteracts the marketing benefit of it.
    - koolba 7y ago
      Option (A) is the exact situation I'm envisioning. Rather than waiting for some third party fans to give money, we'd be immediately rewarding the work that the other has done over the years with a one-off $5K (to maximize the match) contribution.
    - Udo 7y ago
      If I was GitHub, I'd make a distinction between two random people shuffling 10 bucks back and forth and two people shoving hundreds or thousands around. The first scenario is probably an accident, the second is not. Come to think of it, they probably should have capped individual contribution matching to something reasonable (maybe they'll still do that).
  - nlowell 7y ago

karmelapple 7y ago

When joining the waitlist, they ask about a variety of open source projects you've been involved in. I imagine they'll vet what kind of contribution level people did on different repos they claim, or just on open source repos in general.

rswail 7y ago

If Github aren't doing KYC and AML, then their payment processor better have. Otherwise this is the swiftest way I've seen to make $5K.

dredmorbius 7y ago
KYC: know your customer. AML: anti money-laundering. Basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering
Applejinx 7y ago
Epic Games is doing stuff like this in order to own the concept of a video-game storefront. I don't think Microsoft would go quite so far as to subsidize massive fraud just to get people engaged with this scenario, but they're clearly prepared to throw some money at it.

sequoia 7y ago

"me", I mean "another github user", I mean "anyone on the internet who wants to create a github account & start cashing in." This feature really makes no sense, either they figure the fraud will be low enough to not matter, or there's some oversight mechanism to prevent it. I am certain they don't want to try to sue ten thousand random people to attempt to claw back $5k each. I imagine there's some flag/approval process.