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I got $550 from this yesterday (as did a few others I asked, so I think the dollar amount was the same for everyone). Not life changing but certainly always a

I got $550 from this yesterday (as did a few others I asked, so I think the dollar amount was the same for everyone). Not life changing but certainly always a nice way to start the day, with some unexpected $$.

Fnoord 4y ago
This is a PR stunt, but that does not mean we should not be allowed to appreciate it. The impact is going to differ per country. For example, 550 USD might not be much for an average American programmer but for an average Ukrainian or Indian (the latter has a heart connected to) its a whole lot more. I also suppose Russian devs are out of luck.
- fnord123 4y ago
  They are literally paying people to stay on GitHub instead of moving to gitlab. Reminds me of their OEM deals. Microsoft never changes.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Do you have any other alternative for FOSS developers to get funding? Is Google paying anything? Do they still do GSOC? What about Apple? I mean, of course MS is not donating out of pure altruism. But so what?
    - rsstack 4y ago
      Google's GSoC is still happening every year.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Good, but it is still not an alternative for funding open source maintainers.
        account42 4y ago
        Right, GSoC has always been very targeted towards getting new developers involved as well as perhaps as a recruitment tool for Google.
      - matkoniecz 4y ago
        Only newbies are allowed to participate.
    - fnord123 4y ago
      Is 500 USD "funding"? The topic of FOSS funding is quite large and actually something where I'm surprised there's not more consulting around. You have government grants. You have university employees. You have company employees of which Google and, indeed, Microsoft have many working solely on open source. You have open core companies (Elastic, Scylla, data bricks, ...). You have self funding and Patreon (not usually sustainable). You have funding via FOSS organizations (python, rust foundation, ...). Did you not know about all these?
      - rglullis 4y ago
        > Is 500 USD "funding"? Does the money come with any strings attached? Are they blocking other companies from pitching in? Your issue is with the amount they are giving, not with the fact that they giving. The way to fix this is not by saying "this is so little, just shove it", the way to fix this is by getting other companies (regardless of their size) to contribute as well. > The topic of FOSS funding is quite large and actually something where I'm surprised there's not more consulting around. Yes, that I completely agree. I am still puzzled at a recent conversation I had here on HN with a self-professed "tech strategy advisor for PE firms" who simply could not understand the possible benefits in looking at the services that a company depends on and in funding open source alternatives.
        fnord123 4y ago
        >Your issue is with the amount they are giving, not with the fact that they giving No, my issues are manifold. With the slice of conversation I'm having with you, the issue I am stressing here is that a one off payment of 500 USD is not "funding" in the sense that someone can quite their job or even go to a 4 day week and shore up their finances with it. It's a one off.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You mentioned Patreon as an alternative. Do you think that the people supporting with $5/month shouldn't be considered "backers" or "funders"? You also mentioned the FOSS Foundations, like the PSF. Where do you think that their money comes from? I have $25/month sent their way to support the JazzBand devs. Do you think that I should stop my contribution just because it is so small in the grand scheme of things? Of course no one is going to quit their jobs over one company giving $500/year. But I'm failing to see how this is an issue. It's not like MS / Github are announcing they are going to hire all the FOSS devs from all projects they depend on. They just gave some money. Instead of looking at this and thinking "this is BS", why can't we look at this and think "Oh, nice! If even shitty companies like MS are starting to help, how can we get the better ones to do it too?"
  - jacooper 4y ago
    GitLab is sure not a replacement for GitHub, it has way more limits even for public repositories, and you have to go through a complex application process for Open source projects so you can get full features. So its either small community hosting like Codeberg.org or independent hosting, which both hurt a projects discoverability and ease to contribute.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      For now, that may be true. But codeberg and forgefed are working on adding activitypub to gitea. How about we contribute to it so that we can have a fully-FOSS alternative?
      - Fnoord 4y ago
        I'm a big fan of Gitea for small teams. Its also rather lightweight. Is ActivityPub / decentralization viable for git though?
        rglullis 4y ago
        Why wouldn't it be? Git itself is already decentralized, the main advantage of github is that it lets you discover/follow other projects. With activitypub, you could have people hosting their own servers (or outsourcing to someone like codeberg) and you could follow others no matter where they are.
        jacooper 4y ago
        The problem is, GitHub and Gitlab will probably not support Forgefed, Gitlab may do it if there is a PR, but GitHub won't, it kills one of their biggest features, exposure. Also Gitea still lacks a Decent CI/CD integration/workflow, GitHub Actions and Gitlab CI/CD are much better than the Drone/Woodpecker + Gitea workflow.
        rglullis 4y ago
        If the people at Gitlab are minimally smart, they will pick it up after at least one working implementation comes. Imagine being the largest company and ignoring something that could give them not only reach parity but go beyond the incumbent in such a key feature.
qubyte 4y ago
Same here. I'd completely forgotten that I'd even set sponsors up. At the time I was just sort of hoping for coffee money now and then. That never happened of course. Most of the stuff I write is a bit too niche. I got the email about $550 on Friday after work and it was a nice way to wrap up the week!
stevekemp 4y ago
Yeah I also received the donation, my first thought was "wow, thanks!". After that I'm actually really curious, which of my repositories was responsible? I guess I have a bunch of repos with lots of stars, but equally very few actual real users. But nothing that seems significantly "special" enough to make me a top user, and nothing that I'd expect github themselves are using, even indirectly. Weird. But nice. I've been signed up for sponsors for a year or so, because people keep saying it's a good thing. In all that time I had one guy sponsor me for a few months, then stop. A nice experience, but at the same time I guess you have to be extremely lucky, prolific, or shamefully promoting yourself to actual get enough income to live on.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  > I guess you have to be extremely lucky, prolific, or shamefully promoting yourself to actual get enough income to live on. I expect that user facing programs are more likely to succeed than libraries.

Fnoord 4y ago

This is a PR stunt, but that does not mean we should not be allowed to appreciate it. The impact is going to differ per country. For example, 550 USD might not be much for an average American programmer but for an average Ukrainian or Indian (the latter has a heart connected to) its a whole lot more. I also suppose Russian devs are out of luck.

fnord123 4y ago
They are literally paying people to stay on GitHub instead of moving to gitlab. Reminds me of their OEM deals. Microsoft never changes.
- rglullis 4y ago
  Do you have any other alternative for FOSS developers to get funding? Is Google paying anything? Do they still do GSOC? What about Apple? I mean, of course MS is not donating out of pure altruism. But so what?
  - rsstack 4y ago
    Google's GSoC is still happening every year.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      Good, but it is still not an alternative for funding open source maintainers.
      - account42 4y ago
        Right, GSoC has always been very targeted towards getting new developers involved as well as perhaps as a recruitment tool for Google.
    - matkoniecz 4y ago
      Only newbies are allowed to participate.
  - fnord123 4y ago
    Is 500 USD "funding"? The topic of FOSS funding is quite large and actually something where I'm surprised there's not more consulting around. You have government grants. You have university employees. You have company employees of which Google and, indeed, Microsoft have many working solely on open source. You have open core companies (Elastic, Scylla, data bricks, ...). You have self funding and Patreon (not usually sustainable). You have funding via FOSS organizations (python, rust foundation, ...). Did you not know about all these?
    - rglullis 4y ago
      > Is 500 USD "funding"? Does the money come with any strings attached? Are they blocking other companies from pitching in? Your issue is with the amount they are giving, not with the fact that they giving. The way to fix this is not by saying "this is so little, just shove it", the way to fix this is by getting other companies (regardless of their size) to contribute as well. > The topic of FOSS funding is quite large and actually something where I'm surprised there's not more consulting around. Yes, that I completely agree. I am still puzzled at a recent conversation I had here on HN with a self-professed "tech strategy advisor for PE firms" who simply could not understand the possible benefits in looking at the services that a company depends on and in funding open source alternatives.
      - fnord123 4y ago
        >Your issue is with the amount they are giving, not with the fact that they giving No, my issues are manifold. With the slice of conversation I'm having with you, the issue I am stressing here is that a one off payment of 500 USD is not "funding" in the sense that someone can quite their job or even go to a 4 day week and shore up their finances with it. It's a one off.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You mentioned Patreon as an alternative. Do you think that the people supporting with $5/month shouldn't be considered "backers" or "funders"? You also mentioned the FOSS Foundations, like the PSF. Where do you think that their money comes from? I have $25/month sent their way to support the JazzBand devs. Do you think that I should stop my contribution just because it is so small in the grand scheme of things? Of course no one is going to quit their jobs over one company giving $500/year. But I'm failing to see how this is an issue. It's not like MS / Github are announcing they are going to hire all the FOSS devs from all projects they depend on. They just gave some money. Instead of looking at this and thinking "this is BS", why can't we look at this and think "Oh, nice! If even shitty companies like MS are starting to help, how can we get the better ones to do it too?"
- jacooper 4y ago
  GitLab is sure not a replacement for GitHub, it has way more limits even for public repositories, and you have to go through a complex application process for Open source projects so you can get full features. So its either small community hosting like Codeberg.org or independent hosting, which both hurt a projects discoverability and ease to contribute.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    For now, that may be true. But codeberg and forgefed are working on adding activitypub to gitea. How about we contribute to it so that we can have a fully-FOSS alternative?
    - Fnoord 4y ago
      I'm a big fan of Gitea for small teams. Its also rather lightweight. Is ActivityPub / decentralization viable for git though?
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Why wouldn't it be? Git itself is already decentralized, the main advantage of github is that it lets you discover/follow other projects. With activitypub, you could have people hosting their own servers (or outsourcing to someone like codeberg) and you could follow others no matter where they are.
        jacooper 4y ago
        The problem is, GitHub and Gitlab will probably not support Forgefed, Gitlab may do it if there is a PR, but GitHub won't, it kills one of their biggest features, exposure. Also Gitea still lacks a Decent CI/CD integration/workflow, GitHub Actions and Gitlab CI/CD are much better than the Drone/Woodpecker + Gitea workflow.
        rglullis 4y ago
        If the people at Gitlab are minimally smart, they will pick it up after at least one working implementation comes. Imagine being the largest company and ignoring something that could give them not only reach parity but go beyond the incumbent in such a key feature.

qubyte 4y ago

Same here. I'd completely forgotten that I'd even set sponsors up. At the time I was just sort of hoping for coffee money now and then. That never happened of course. Most of the stuff I write is a bit too niche. I got the email about $550 on Friday after work and it was a nice way to wrap up the week!

stevekemp 4y ago

Yeah I also received the donation, my first thought was "wow, thanks!". After that I'm actually really curious, which of my repositories was responsible? I guess I have a bunch of repos with lots of stars, but equally very few actual real users. But nothing that seems significantly "special" enough to make me a top user, and nothing that I'd expect github themselves are using, even indirectly. Weird. But nice. I've been signed up for sponsors for a year or so, because people keep saying it's a good thing. In all that time I had one guy sponsor me for a few months, then stop. A nice experience, but at the same time I guess you have to be extremely lucky, prolific, or shamefully promoting yourself to actual get enough income to live on.

matkoniecz 4y ago
> I guess you have to be extremely lucky, prolific, or shamefully promoting yourself to actual get enough income to live on. I expect that user facing programs are more likely to succeed than libraries.