4 ms·

No good deed goes unpunished. They didn’t have to do this, and now that they did, not surprisingly people (who probably aren’t even the recipients) are complain

by oefrha 4y ago

No good deed goes unpunished. They didn’t have to do this, and now that they did, not surprisingly people (who probably aren’t even the recipients) are complaining that the amount is too tiny, the donation isn’t ongoing, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if the complainers’ employers paid a tiny, one time $550 to open source projects they depend on.

blagie 4y ago
I usually don't consider something to be a good deed if more money is spent promoting the deed than cost of the deed. That's kind of my threshold. I often see that a corporation spends e.g. $1M on a marketing blitz about a $50,000 donation, or runs some campaign where consumers need to do something for some very nominal donation somewhere. The cynic in me also looks at this as a bribe. Someone who got a $500 gift is much more likely to stay on github. Do that for the top 1000 projects, and you've stemmed the flow to gitlab. The cynic in me became a lot more cynical when github started selling my own code back to me with copilot.
- oefrha 4y ago
  To companies using my open source projects: please donate $550 then go on a $1m marketing blitz telling everyone about it. I don’t care how you spend your money outside your donation. Now, this is a pseudonymous account so you obviously don’t know whether you use my projects. Just donate to whatever you use. To expand: I see grandstanding all the time. I see precious little money flowing into my PayPal tip jar. Casual users of my completely free web services have been a lot more generous than companies/developers using my open source libraries/tools. I’m completely fine with the lack of donations, but that certainly makes all the grandstanding from stingy people who don’t give a dime very annoying.
  - infinitezest 4y ago
    How do you know the people that are grandstanding are the same people that are stingy?
    - oefrha 4y ago
      There’s no way to know for sure. And there must be outliers. But 1. From my observation, donors tend to appreciate other donors a bit more. 2. I’ve confronted a few of these people in the past. When asked how much they donated, the answer was always I don’t donate because excuses X, Y, Z. But rich companies/people must donate more; they’re all PR stunts; blah blah.
      - blagie 4y ago
        1. As one of "these people," I would encourage you to watch this video on the neurology of hate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeZ3_OtDa7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeZ3_OtDa7E 2. I only work on open source. My income is at most half of what it would be if I worked on proprietary software. I do donate to other projects, and I do appreciate (serious) donors. I've never gotten (or asked for) tips, but I've gotten one or two donations big enough to make a difference. 3. I would also encourage you to read about how con artists (and marketers) manipulate people by generate reciprocity: - Someone on the street hands you a "free" pamphlet / flower / etc. and asks for a donation. - Thought leaders are sent a free product - Managers / executives are wined and dined just below what conflict-of-interest laws allow ... and so on. I don't appreciate being manipulated. I have turned down gifts and donations before which felt in bad faith.
- markphip 4y ago
  My guess is a blog post probably costs less than $500K to create so I guess that makes this a good deed.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  > I usually don't consider something to be a good deed if more money is spent promoting the deed than cost of the deed. That's kind of my threshold. Why you think that it applies here?
  - blagie 4y ago
    I might be wrong, and from the number of comments, perhaps I am wrong. However, my experience is that cost structures at FAANG, Microsoft, etc. are astronomical. In abstract, if the CEO decides to donate $500k and make a blog post, things can sometimes be relatively fast and easy. In practice, usually one person spends a few weeks or months working to make a case for it, which bounces around the reporting channels, approvals, etc. Communication about it is approved through legal and marketing. Legal brings up issues about what to do if a maintainer is in Cuba and subject to Cuban embargoes, China and subject to Chinese taxes, or the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic. Median compensation is around $350k (and total cost close to double that). Basically anything external-facing like this usually ends up costing a lot by small business standards. $500k is 0.0003% of Microsoft's annual revenues, or on the order of magnitude of the annual cost of 1 employee (or 0.0006% of the organization). At a trillion-dollar scale, it kinda makes sense to have process. A mistake can wipe out single-digit percent of stock value overnight. My experience, also, is that the process doesn't improve quality. It just prevents stupid shit from going out.
    - matkoniecz 4y ago
      Note that such organizational costs would apply also to just funding OS without any PR. I would not count it as "promoting the deed". How much more they needed to spend to make also blog post PR and other PR stuff, in addition to donations?
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Has github done any more to promote the deed than that blog post?
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  There's an Arabic saying that goes something like "charity that's broadcasted is cruelty to the one that it's helping".
amelius 4y ago
> No good deed goes unpunished. It's not punishment. I think everybody here would reply in the same way if someone asked a week ago "what if GitHub donated $500 to top-1000 OSS projects?"
- targafarian 4y ago
  It's absolutely punishment. A company gives to open source projects. People complain about how little it is, and generate negative PR for the donation. For a company, negative PR is a punishment. What's the lesson here? At least the lesson some in the HN community are teaching is that if you are a big company and you donate to open source projects, you will generate negative PR for yourself. (We can assume and/or question their motivations, but to me, motivations are almost always irrelevant to an act of generosity. Feel good about yourself if you help others out! Garner positive PR if you help others out as a company! Why should positive things for the giver detract from an act of generosity? Got a problem with the system? That's a problem with the system, not the person or company being generous.)
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    That company is a known bad actor. All actions from them are hostile.
    - GordonS 4y ago
      I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should read back some of your own comments and reflect on them. You're coming off as a very bitter actor, with all comments verging on trolling.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        Thanks for not being rude, Gordon!
      - carapace 4y ago
        Look I'm not trying to defend "fartcannon" per se, but I gotta point out that if there's any bitterness here it's due to Microsoft's past actions. People who are suspicious of MS have good reasons. I'm sure if some other company donated $0.5M to FOSS maintainers the negativity would be greatly muted or even absent.
chrischen 4y ago
Yea honestly github is just one user, and paying probably more than their own fair share for usage of all these open source libraries. It’s ridiculous that some people even suggest somehow github is responsible for maintaining the livelihoods of all these developers. Maybe follow github’s lead and all the people complaining made donations as well.

by oefrha 4y ago

blagie 4y ago

I usually don't consider something to be a good deed if more money is spent promoting the deed than cost of the deed. That's kind of my threshold. I often see that a corporation spends e.g. $1M on a marketing blitz about a $50,000 donation, or runs some campaign where consumers need to do something for some very nominal donation somewhere. The cynic in me also looks at this as a bribe. Someone who got a $500 gift is much more likely to stay on github. Do that for the top 1000 projects, and you've stemmed the flow to gitlab. The cynic in me became a lot more cynical when github started selling my own code back to me with copilot.

oefrha 4y ago
To companies using my open source projects: please donate $550 then go on a $1m marketing blitz telling everyone about it. I don’t care how you spend your money outside your donation. Now, this is a pseudonymous account so you obviously don’t know whether you use my projects. Just donate to whatever you use. To expand: I see grandstanding all the time. I see precious little money flowing into my PayPal tip jar. Casual users of my completely free web services have been a lot more generous than companies/developers using my open source libraries/tools. I’m completely fine with the lack of donations, but that certainly makes all the grandstanding from stingy people who don’t give a dime very annoying.
- infinitezest 4y ago
  How do you know the people that are grandstanding are the same people that are stingy?
  - oefrha 4y ago
    There’s no way to know for sure. And there must be outliers. But 1. From my observation, donors tend to appreciate other donors a bit more. 2. I’ve confronted a few of these people in the past. When asked how much they donated, the answer was always I don’t donate because excuses X, Y, Z. But rich companies/people must donate more; they’re all PR stunts; blah blah.
    - blagie 4y ago
      1. As one of "these people," I would encourage you to watch this video on the neurology of hate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeZ3_OtDa7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeZ3_OtDa7E 2. I only work on open source. My income is at most half of what it would be if I worked on proprietary software. I do donate to other projects, and I do appreciate (serious) donors. I've never gotten (or asked for) tips, but I've gotten one or two donations big enough to make a difference. 3. I would also encourage you to read about how con artists (and marketers) manipulate people by generate reciprocity: - Someone on the street hands you a "free" pamphlet / flower / etc. and asks for a donation. - Thought leaders are sent a free product - Managers / executives are wined and dined just below what conflict-of-interest laws allow ... and so on. I don't appreciate being manipulated. I have turned down gifts and donations before which felt in bad faith.
markphip 4y ago
My guess is a blog post probably costs less than $500K to create so I guess that makes this a good deed.
matkoniecz 4y ago
> I usually don't consider something to be a good deed if more money is spent promoting the deed than cost of the deed. That's kind of my threshold. Why you think that it applies here?
- blagie 4y ago
  I might be wrong, and from the number of comments, perhaps I am wrong. However, my experience is that cost structures at FAANG, Microsoft, etc. are astronomical. In abstract, if the CEO decides to donate $500k and make a blog post, things can sometimes be relatively fast and easy. In practice, usually one person spends a few weeks or months working to make a case for it, which bounces around the reporting channels, approvals, etc. Communication about it is approved through legal and marketing. Legal brings up issues about what to do if a maintainer is in Cuba and subject to Cuban embargoes, China and subject to Chinese taxes, or the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic. Median compensation is around $350k (and total cost close to double that). Basically anything external-facing like this usually ends up costing a lot by small business standards. $500k is 0.0003% of Microsoft's annual revenues, or on the order of magnitude of the annual cost of 1 employee (or 0.0006% of the organization). At a trillion-dollar scale, it kinda makes sense to have process. A mistake can wipe out single-digit percent of stock value overnight. My experience, also, is that the process doesn't improve quality. It just prevents stupid shit from going out.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    Note that such organizational costs would apply also to just funding OS without any PR. I would not count it as "promoting the deed". How much more they needed to spend to make also blog post PR and other PR stuff, in addition to donations?
jrochkind1 4y ago
Has github done any more to promote the deed than that blog post?
heavyset_go 4y ago
There's an Arabic saying that goes something like "charity that's broadcasted is cruelty to the one that it's helping".

amelius 4y ago

> No good deed goes unpunished. It's not punishment. I think everybody here would reply in the same way if someone asked a week ago "what if GitHub donated $500 to top-1000 OSS projects?"

targafarian 4y ago
It's absolutely punishment. A company gives to open source projects. People complain about how little it is, and generate negative PR for the donation. For a company, negative PR is a punishment. What's the lesson here? At least the lesson some in the HN community are teaching is that if you are a big company and you donate to open source projects, you will generate negative PR for yourself. (We can assume and/or question their motivations, but to me, motivations are almost always irrelevant to an act of generosity. Feel good about yourself if you help others out! Garner positive PR if you help others out as a company! Why should positive things for the giver detract from an act of generosity? Got a problem with the system? That's a problem with the system, not the person or company being generous.)
- fartcannon 4y ago
  That company is a known bad actor. All actions from them are hostile.
  - GordonS 4y ago
    I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should read back some of your own comments and reflect on them. You're coming off as a very bitter actor, with all comments verging on trolling.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Thanks for not being rude, Gordon!
    - carapace 4y ago
      Look I'm not trying to defend "fartcannon" per se, but I gotta point out that if there's any bitterness here it's due to Microsoft's past actions. People who are suspicious of MS have good reasons. I'm sure if some other company donated $0.5M to FOSS maintainers the negativity would be greatly muted or even absent.

chrischen 4y ago

Yea honestly github is just one user, and paying probably more than their own fair share for usage of all these open source libraries. It’s ridiculous that some people even suggest somehow github is responsible for maintaining the livelihoods of all these developers. Maybe follow github’s lead and all the people complaining made donations as well.