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Author here - 100% agree on all fronts! I was dancing around this conclusion but it really does need to be GitHub. And I agree people would be fine paying thei

Author here - 100% agree on all fronts! I was dancing around this conclusion but it really does need to be GitHub. And I agree people would be fine paying their own fees if it came to that. Also, in that case, if someone is donating a non-trivial amount, they're incentivized to fund their wallet with a cheaper payment method like an ACH transfer.

black_puppydog 6y ago
I just want to point out that in Europe we have 0-fee SEPA transfers that also work for regular payments. I'm not sure why nobody makes use of that more really. There are simple-as-paypal solutions for it, and given the amount that CC processing costs I'd have expected it to be picked up more. Maybe someone here has practical experience to share on why it's not that easy?
- maccard 6y ago
  What happens if the transaction is fraudulent?
  - black_puppydog 6y ago
    This might actually be the right question to ask, thanks for poking. :) From a customer's perspective, fraudulent transactions are handled in the best way possible. Here's Stripes docs on it [1]: > Customers can dispute a payment through their bank on a “no questions asked” basis up to eight weeks after their account is debited. Any disputes within this period are automatically honored. > After eight weeks and up to 13 months, a customer can only dispute a payment with their bank if the debit is considered unauthorized. If this occurs, we automatically provide the bank with the mandate that the customer approved. This does not guarantee cancellation of the dispute; the bank can still decide that the debit was unauthorized and the customer is entitled to a refund. > Unlike credit card disputes, SEPA Direct Debit disputes are final and there is no process for appeal. If a customer successfully disputes a payment, you must contact them if you want to resolve the situation. So for a small company I can see how this process would be stressful. Although I'm not sure what the rate of fraud by the customers would be. After all, the customer still signed a contract. But that would likely need litigation then. So, I haven't been on the vendor side of that. Not sure how much more stressful it is than CC, and if it's worth a few % of your revenue... [1]: https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit#disputed-payments https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit#disputed-payment...
    - rowland66 6y ago
      What you are describing here are SEPA direct debits. Many countries including the USA have a similar instrument. While it is free for the consumer from whom money is being collected, it is generally not free for the business that is collecting the money. So in that way, it is the same as credit cards, but the fee is a lot less.
      - black_puppydog 6y ago
        True, but if the fees are a lot less then the question remains if they're just not worth the hassle, or if there are other reasons why adoption in companies (that I have seen) has been slow. Regardless, an organization like github should be able to handle this, if they wanted to.
- biztos 6y ago
  Yes SEPA transfers are free in the Eurozone, which as you know is a subset of “Europe,” but there is the tricky issue of VAT — which might be due on your donations.
CaptArmchair 6y ago
Can I be fair & frank? Your article does raise a few great points... about Github specifically. But not about funding sustainable OSS development in general. Open source also is not a business model. It's a principle that relates to intellectual rights and copyright: the author explicitly stating that they won't exercise their rights as to what others do with their work, provided then that others share any modifications under the same terms of use. That's open source in a nutshell. The direct implication, then, is that any business model that hinges on selling licenses that give a very restricted permission on the use of (a copy of) the software, is excluded. Which is exactly how games and products from Adobe or Microsoft are sold: you buy a license - a permission from the original author - to use the software. Github itself has never been a marketplace to sell software. There are no affordances that allows anyone to sell and buy license keys or whatever. It's always been a descendant in the spirit of SourceForge or Freshmeat: a platform for hosting codebases via version control. No more, no less. Github pushes open source as a matter of principle because it's - above all - excellent marketing that doesn't need complex tooling: simply adding a LICENSE.md file with the GPL or MIT license is already enough. Open source is not flawed, as you state. It's above all a principled choice you make. And it's a choice you make depending on the type of value you want to extract from the project you're writing. In your article, you are lamenting the low income numbers from publishing code under an open source license on Github. Well, ask yourself this: Maybe it's not open source that's flawed, but the other way around: The tools you choose to extract value not fitting your expectations. If you really want to monetize software, then maybe you're better off looking into a closed source license and a platform that does allow you to sell license keys. Much like what Sublime or InteliJ and such do. It's true though that funding Open Source projects is problematic. But this has always been true for any non-profit venture: Ranging from charity, culture, environmentalist causes or other types of citizen activism that doesn't involve setting up a private business. Open Source software is no exception, and unless you're able to charge for consultancy or derivative products (e.g. a service build on top of OSS software), you're funding options are very much limited to grants, philanthropy or donations. Nadia Eghbal did an excellent study for the Ford Foundation that sums up the issues with funding open source nicely: Roads & Bridges, the unseen labor behind our digital infrastructure: https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report... It's a recommended read on this topic. Beyond that, the pool & wallet solution you're proposing is above all an attempt to incentivise a specific type of funding: private, individual donations. I think it's a great idea in it's own right, and something worth considering. But it should be clear that it's a far cry from a silver bullet that will solve the disparity between the many profiting from labor of a few against a low financial reward for their efforts. Personally, I think that if you're willing to work on your own open source projects, you have to mindful that you exclude the possibility to directly derive wealth from what you've build. It's up to you then to figure out the alternatives: e.g. selling training, workshops, support,... or maybe getting hired by a company who are willing to let you work part time on your OSS project, or getting publicly funded because your project caters to the public good (e.g. culture, health, education, mobility,...)

black_puppydog 6y ago

I just want to point out that in Europe we have 0-fee SEPA transfers that also work for regular payments. I'm not sure why nobody makes use of that more really. There are simple-as-paypal solutions for it, and given the amount that CC processing costs I'd have expected it to be picked up more. Maybe someone here has practical experience to share on why it's not that easy?

maccard 6y ago
What happens if the transaction is fraudulent?
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  This might actually be the right question to ask, thanks for poking. :) From a customer's perspective, fraudulent transactions are handled in the best way possible. Here's Stripes docs on it [1]: > Customers can dispute a payment through their bank on a “no questions asked” basis up to eight weeks after their account is debited. Any disputes within this period are automatically honored. > After eight weeks and up to 13 months, a customer can only dispute a payment with their bank if the debit is considered unauthorized. If this occurs, we automatically provide the bank with the mandate that the customer approved. This does not guarantee cancellation of the dispute; the bank can still decide that the debit was unauthorized and the customer is entitled to a refund. > Unlike credit card disputes, SEPA Direct Debit disputes are final and there is no process for appeal. If a customer successfully disputes a payment, you must contact them if you want to resolve the situation. So for a small company I can see how this process would be stressful. Although I'm not sure what the rate of fraud by the customers would be. After all, the customer still signed a contract. But that would likely need litigation then. So, I haven't been on the vendor side of that. Not sure how much more stressful it is than CC, and if it's worth a few % of your revenue... [1]: https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit#disputed-payments https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit#disputed-payment...
  - rowland66 6y ago
    What you are describing here are SEPA direct debits. Many countries including the USA have a similar instrument. While it is free for the consumer from whom money is being collected, it is generally not free for the business that is collecting the money. So in that way, it is the same as credit cards, but the fee is a lot less.
    - black_puppydog 6y ago
      True, but if the fees are a lot less then the question remains if they're just not worth the hassle, or if there are other reasons why adoption in companies (that I have seen) has been slow. Regardless, an organization like github should be able to handle this, if they wanted to.
biztos 6y ago
Yes SEPA transfers are free in the Eurozone, which as you know is a subset of “Europe,” but there is the tricky issue of VAT — which might be due on your donations.

CaptArmchair 6y ago

Can I be fair & frank? Your article does raise a few great points... about Github specifically. But not about funding sustainable OSS development in general. Open source also is not a business model. It's a principle that relates to intellectual rights and copyright: the author explicitly stating that they won't exercise their rights as to what others do with their work, provided then that others share any modifications under the same terms of use. That's open source in a nutshell. The direct implication, then, is that any business model that hinges on selling licenses that give a very restricted permission on the use of (a copy of) the software, is excluded. Which is exactly how games and products from Adobe or Microsoft are sold: you buy a license - a permission from the original author - to use the software. Github itself has never been a marketplace to sell software. There are no affordances that allows anyone to sell and buy license keys or whatever. It's always been a descendant in the spirit of SourceForge or Freshmeat: a platform for hosting codebases via version control. No more, no less. Github pushes open source as a matter of principle because it's - above all - excellent marketing that doesn't need complex tooling: simply adding a LICENSE.md file with the GPL or MIT license is already enough. Open source is not flawed, as you state. It's above all a principled choice you make. And it's a choice you make depending on the type of value you want to extract from the project you're writing. In your article, you are lamenting the low income numbers from publishing code under an open source license on Github. Well, ask yourself this: Maybe it's not open source that's flawed, but the other way around: The tools you choose to extract value not fitting your expectations. If you really want to monetize software, then maybe you're better off looking into a closed source license and a platform that does allow you to sell license keys. Much like what Sublime or InteliJ and such do. It's true though that funding Open Source projects is problematic. But this has always been true for any non-profit venture: Ranging from charity, culture, environmentalist causes or other types of citizen activism that doesn't involve setting up a private business. Open Source software is no exception, and unless you're able to charge for consultancy or derivative products (e.g. a service build on top of OSS software), you're funding options are very much limited to grants, philanthropy or donations. Nadia Eghbal did an excellent study for the Ford Foundation that sums up the issues with funding open source nicely: Roads & Bridges, the unseen labor behind our digital infrastructure: https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report... It's a recommended read on this topic. Beyond that, the pool & wallet solution you're proposing is above all an attempt to incentivise a specific type of funding: private, individual donations. I think it's a great idea in it's own right, and something worth considering. But it should be clear that it's a far cry from a silver bullet that will solve the disparity between the many profiting from labor of a few against a low financial reward for their efforts. Personally, I think that if you're willing to work on your own open source projects, you have to mindful that you exclude the possibility to directly derive wealth from what you've build. It's up to you then to figure out the alternatives: e.g. selling training, workshops, support,... or maybe getting hired by a company who are willing to let you work part time on your OSS project, or getting publicly funded because your project caters to the public good (e.g. culture, health, education, mobility,...)