As a counter-opinion, I prefer the way Gittip is set up so far. Small-but-recurring donations seem to be a better long-term model than larger-donations-in-burst

As a counter-opinion, I prefer the way Gittip is set up so far. Small-but-recurring donations seem to be a better long-term model than larger-donations-in-bursts. (For examples of the latter struggling, there's Wikipedia and OpenBSD, both of which have to spend significant resources on collecting money on a regular basis, which is a distraction from what they would rather be doing.) I'm a member of the Long Now Foundation, which charges a small amount to me every month. I've almost certainly donated more to them in this way than I would have in a one-time payment, and yet it still feels less painful to me. Win-win. Gittip looks to me like it's trying to be more than just a reward system ... it's trying to be another way to sustain active contributors to open source. Keeping the donations anonymous helps keep people from expecting to have leverage over open source contributors, which I think is a good idea.