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One thing I worry about is that this funding model only works for somewhat popular developers. You need to be well known to get people to donate to you monthly.

One thing I worry about is that this funding model only works for somewhat popular developers. You need to be well known to get people to donate to you monthly. If you're a person that prefers to just do some work and not talk about it much, this kind of sponsorship model wont work. To me, something like bountysource seems like an awesome model: people could all chip in to support a feature request or an issue, and anyone who is familiar enough with the subject matter can do the work. (Unfortunately the reward mostly seemed way too little for the effort required -- it would be a nice bonus if you would do the work anyway, but I don't think you could make a living by implementing issues from bountysource)

Bekwnn 7y ago
Your project being popular is enough. I had no idea who Andrew Kelly was but after reading Zig's documentation, trying it, and feeling like it satisfied what I want from a language of that style going forward, I started chipping in a bit each month. It probably helped that I watched his video demos on YouTube and such and saw there was a person behind the project. I'd imagine the project being something exciting or something that makes programming more fun helps a lot as well. An extremely useful but boring project probably won't inspire as many people to donate, even if that's not really fair.
koolba 7y ago
Once GitHub has financial data associated with accounts they could easily setup a bounty-for-PR system. I bet it’s already in the works.
wesleytodd 7y ago
This is me. I have been in the beta for almost a month now and not gotten any sponsors. I have talked with many in the JS community who have proof of this (https://github.com/feross/funding/issues/15#issuecomment-524589851 https://github.com/feross/funding/issues/15#issuecomment-524...). "Unfortunately, since it's opt-in it didn't move the needle at all. I think it directed a few hundred dollars to Sindre's Patreon. But that was it." I am currently looking at TideLift to see if there that is a more viable option. But to your point, it might all be "way too little for the effort required". EDIT: adding my link since I guess that is what others are doing in this thread. https://github.com/sponsors/wesleytodd https://github.com/sponsors/wesleytodd
davidw 7y ago
> If you're a person that prefers to just do some work and not talk about it much, this kind of sponsorship model wont work. Marketing is a fact of life, I think. Of course, there's good marketing (making people who might enjoy your product aware of it) and bad marketing (annoying people), but if you hope to reap the benefits of having your work in front of a lot of people, you do have to reach them.
- ronilan 7y ago
  > but if you hope to reap the benefits of having your work in front of a lot of people What OP says, and you miss, is that some people are not interested in reaping benefits. They are interested in doing work. They are constrained by time and money, so yes, sponsorship can help their projects, but they are not in it for the reaping. If anything they will be happy to see a lot of people reap benefits from their work, not the other way around. How many are like that? I don’t know. Maybe not a lot, but some for sure.
  - davidw 7y ago
    Well OP seemed to be unhappy about not getting the benefits of having people sponsor them with a model like this. There are tons of people who like to just go do stuff, and that's great! But if you don't promote it at all, certain avenues are not open to you.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  You assume that everyone works on their own projects. In that case, yes, you should probably market it, if nobody knows about your project it doesn't matter. I was more thinking about contributing to other projects. What incentive do I have for fixing an issue in someone elses repo? With this sponsorship model, the benefits will only go to the dev whose name is on the repo. It's going to be very hard to market yourself as the guy who fixes random issues in a bunch of unrelated projects.
  - ossworkerrights 7y ago
    Marketing yourself as someone who fixes bugs in unrelated projects is a noble cause. But the realities of oss are that you will likely get a fixed income job while some large corp will make loads more money off of your fixes and projects. I for one praise monetisation of open source and hope licensing will become more restrictive (i.e. if your company earns more than X$ then then you need to pay a license for it). Great engineering should be paid in freedom from 9 to 5 not just praise and contracts.
caniszczyk 7y ago
I agree with you, I think GitHub is doing a dis service by selling people that this will sustain open source developers: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/ https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... In my opinion, it's essentially "gig economy" at scale. GitHub should start publishing raw data on how much money developers are getting... median etc and how close that maps to a developer salary etc
zimbatm 7y ago
This is pretty true for every artist out there. If you code for the passion and want to survive on donations then it's quite close to being artist.

Bekwnn 7y ago

Your project being popular is enough. I had no idea who Andrew Kelly was but after reading Zig's documentation, trying it, and feeling like it satisfied what I want from a language of that style going forward, I started chipping in a bit each month. It probably helped that I watched his video demos on YouTube and such and saw there was a person behind the project. I'd imagine the project being something exciting or something that makes programming more fun helps a lot as well. An extremely useful but boring project probably won't inspire as many people to donate, even if that's not really fair.

koolba 7y ago

Once GitHub has financial data associated with accounts they could easily setup a bounty-for-PR system. I bet it’s already in the works.

wesleytodd 7y ago

This is me. I have been in the beta for almost a month now and not gotten any sponsors. I have talked with many in the JS community who have proof of this (https://github.com/feross/funding/issues/15#issuecomment-524589851 https://github.com/feross/funding/issues/15#issuecomment-524...). "Unfortunately, since it's opt-in it didn't move the needle at all. I think it directed a few hundred dollars to Sindre's Patreon. But that was it." I am currently looking at TideLift to see if there that is a more viable option. But to your point, it might all be "way too little for the effort required". EDIT: adding my link since I guess that is what others are doing in this thread. https://github.com/sponsors/wesleytodd https://github.com/sponsors/wesleytodd

davidw 7y ago

> If you're a person that prefers to just do some work and not talk about it much, this kind of sponsorship model wont work. Marketing is a fact of life, I think. Of course, there's good marketing (making people who might enjoy your product aware of it) and bad marketing (annoying people), but if you hope to reap the benefits of having your work in front of a lot of people, you do have to reach them.

ronilan 7y ago
> but if you hope to reap the benefits of having your work in front of a lot of people What OP says, and you miss, is that some people are not interested in reaping benefits. They are interested in doing work. They are constrained by time and money, so yes, sponsorship can help their projects, but they are not in it for the reaping. If anything they will be happy to see a lot of people reap benefits from their work, not the other way around. How many are like that? I don’t know. Maybe not a lot, but some for sure.
- davidw 7y ago
  Well OP seemed to be unhappy about not getting the benefits of having people sponsor them with a model like this. There are tons of people who like to just go do stuff, and that's great! But if you don't promote it at all, certain avenues are not open to you.
jakobegger 7y ago
You assume that everyone works on their own projects. In that case, yes, you should probably market it, if nobody knows about your project it doesn't matter. I was more thinking about contributing to other projects. What incentive do I have for fixing an issue in someone elses repo? With this sponsorship model, the benefits will only go to the dev whose name is on the repo. It's going to be very hard to market yourself as the guy who fixes random issues in a bunch of unrelated projects.
- ossworkerrights 7y ago
  Marketing yourself as someone who fixes bugs in unrelated projects is a noble cause. But the realities of oss are that you will likely get a fixed income job while some large corp will make loads more money off of your fixes and projects. I for one praise monetisation of open source and hope licensing will become more restrictive (i.e. if your company earns more than X$ then then you need to pay a license for it). Great engineering should be paid in freedom from 9 to 5 not just praise and contracts.

caniszczyk 7y ago

I agree with you, I think GitHub is doing a dis service by selling people that this will sustain open source developers: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/ https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... In my opinion, it's essentially "gig economy" at scale. GitHub should start publishing raw data on how much money developers are getting... median etc and how close that maps to a developer salary etc

zimbatm 7y ago

This is pretty true for every artist out there. If you code for the passion and want to survive on donations then it's quite close to being artist.