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You left out the rest of the paragraph (emphasis mine): > I remember being extremely sympathetic to this perspective, having also wasted countless hours of my

You left out the rest of the paragraph (emphasis mine): > I remember being extremely sympathetic to this perspective, having also wasted countless hours of my life maintaining open source for free only for others to benefit from it. I also recall a figure like either $200 or $250 per hour being mentioned as the rate he was effectively paying himself. Whatever the rate actually was, I distinctly remember thinking, "holy shit, that's a lot higher than individual donors would probably assume." I agree that maintainers of popular open-source projects deserve to be paid enough for a decent standard of living, but $200/hr (* 40hr/wk * 50wk/yr = $400k/yr) is excessive.

cramsession 1y ago
$200 /hr is a pretty low consulting rate. You are never going to be 100% utilized, so right off the bat you can divide that $400k by at least 50% over a long period of time. You also have to pay for your own insurance, equipment... $200 /hr would be what I would consider to be the going rate for any mid level, non-FAANG type developer and pretty fair imho!
- renewiltord 1y ago
  Seems fine to me if it's well known so that donors know what they're getting.
- armchairhacker 1y ago
  Another part of the article mentions him "wasting" money > Andre needed an adapter, so I ran up to lend him mine. As he was giving it back, I recall him making a half-joking, flippant remark about either his dongle or his computer, saying that "Ruby Together will just buy me another one." It really rubbed me the wrong way. Over the years to follow, more than one person told me stories of Andre paying for shared meals on behalf of Ruby Together without an apparent legitimate justification. The article also accuses him of misrepresenting if not lying where certain donations went when soliciting more. Presumably, if he had justified reasons to need more funds, he could've said them. Granted, we don't know how much Andre was making and what his expenses were, and the article seems to have its own biases. But I think at least the general outline of Andre's (and his organization's) funds/expenses should be public and accurate, so potential donors can decide whether he really needs their funds or another project needs them more.
  - wgjordan 1y ago
    It's a legal requirement for most US non-profits to file public and accurate accounting of their funds and expenses, Ruby Together is no exception and all the info is publicly available [1]. Having previously worked as a software engineer at an ed-tech non-profit, I found nothing nefarious or unusual in Andre receiving compensation for his work or in the anecdotes around expensing business-related technology purchases or meals to his employer, this is all standard industry practice. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473176659 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473...
- mystraline 1y ago
  And in the USA, if you volunteer professional labor, you cannot take it off on your taxes. So yeah, if I can't get the benefit of taking off of my taxes, I do want paid. Can't afford it otherwise, since my labor is taxed and simultaneously valued as 0 as a volunteer.
  - afandian 1y ago
    Are you saying that if you donate your time without pay you would still be taxed as though you _had_ been paid?
    - hobs 1y ago
      No, that's not how it works in the USA - apparently this person wants a tax deduction for their voluntary contribution as if it was a financial contribution to a non-profit which is tax deductible.
      - cyphar 1y ago
        On the flip side, contributions have financial value, otherwise what are we all doing here? I don't think they want a tax deduction necessarily, they're just pointing out that because of how voluntary labour is valued by the tax system it is rational to want to be paid for contributing to non-profits instead of doing it for free. If you spent N hours working and donated your $X*N salary to a non-profit, you'd get a tax deduction for that amount. However if you instead spend the same N hours contributing, you get literally nothing even though the work should be valued at some fraction of $X*N if not the same value (and some laws such as campaign finance limits do treat volunteering of this form to be valued at standard rates even if it's unpaid, so this is not without precedent). I don't think a tax deduction like that would work (everyone will pretend to be donating 16 hours of volunteer time a day), so it's back to charging for your work as a contractor.
        hobs 1y ago
        I just tell people to charge the non-profit a reasonable non corp rate. That would just be paid work for a non profit, which (the company) is already tax exempt.
- bradgessler 1y ago
  It’s also the SF Bay Area, which h has a very high cost of living. That context is important. Also the article was corrected, the rate was $150.
999900000999 1y ago
400k is about the total comp for most FANG devs. Plus theirs no proof he was constantly billing that. The only issue is a lack of transparency.
- pizlonator 1y ago
  Yeah. Sometimes more than that, even
pizlonator 1y ago
400k/yr is excessive?
- klustregrif 1y ago
  For an open source org that’s running on donations and falsely implying that their donations are going to maintain server costs, yes that’s excessive. If the donations where clearly communicating that they where directly for this persons personal salary then no.
  - pizlonator 1y ago
    According to TFA they were saying that the donations were to pay "our team".
    - klustregrif 1y ago
      I honestly don’t know if you are trying to bait or just completely missed the context of that part of TFA. But in either case here is the rest of TFA on that point: To pay our team … which initially linked to a list of the board members without any explanation of how the money was being allocated. This resulted in a nonzero number of donors believing they were funding the work of people like Steve Klabnik, Aaron Patterson, and Sarah Mei, when in fact only Andre was being paid at the time.
- chipotle_coyote 1y ago
  "Excessive" is obviously a subjective measurement. At times I don't think that HN's median audience appreciates that a 400k/yr salary is objectively extremely high, even for software engineers, even in 2025. A "mere" $367K/yr total compensation puts you in the 90th percentile of SWE earnings. I know Google, Facebook, and a few others greatly exceed that in total compensation at their higher SWE levels, but they're probably not the baseline you should be looking at across the industry. I would personally say that $400K/yr for being an open source developer is fantastic, although I appreciate that that's also subjective. Even in Silicon Valley, though, $400K/yr would net you about $18K/month, which would be enough to live quite comfortably while still socking away more than half of your income for retirement.
arximboldi 1y ago
That's not how you compute yearly earnings from a consulting rate. We consultants need to negotiate contracts, do marketing, accounting, etc. We get sick, we go on vacation and sometimes you're just hustling for clients. Also, that day that you're completely unmotivated, or moody, or hangover, or it was election day and the news are crazy, and you don't write a line of code in the whole day? You still get paid when on a salary, but you don't bill that to a client. 200 * 32 * 42 gives you a much better estimate for a highly productive individual.
mperham 1y ago
The eventual rate paid by Ruby Together settled on $150/hr and has remained that amount for the last decade. Justin’s data is far out of date.
qudat 1y ago
For such a critical piece of software/infrastructure that runs in massive companies making hundreds of millions, this is a rounding error. I literally do not see a single issue with that rate, even in 2000s. Now the arguments for frivolous spending is definitely an issue that should be criticized, but getting paid to support a massive language ecosystem and SaaS at-large, that’s a non issue at any rate
wgjordan 1y ago
As a non-profit, the exact amount that Ruby Together paid Andre was publicly disclosed in its annual tax filings [1]: 2015: $29,250 2016: $43,988 2017: $48,143 2018: $51,058 2019: $60,000 2020: $32,693 2021: $21,420 The filings also note that "The entire board of directors reviews and approves (by vote) compensation for the CEO." [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473176659 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473...
- fouc 1y ago
  Looking at the filings, it's not clear to me what the $250k "Program Services" were, or the $122k "Other Salaries and Wages" are. I guess there could potentially be additional non-salary compensation, i.e. using another business to charge fees of the non-profit? Looking closer at some filings there's also "$9k travel expenses" "$4k office expenses", "$12k IT expenses", which could potentially be supplementing his compensation as well.

cramsession 1y ago

$200 /hr is a pretty low consulting rate. You are never going to be 100% utilized, so right off the bat you can divide that $400k by at least 50% over a long period of time. You also have to pay for your own insurance, equipment... $200 /hr would be what I would consider to be the going rate for any mid level, non-FAANG type developer and pretty fair imho!

renewiltord 1y ago
Seems fine to me if it's well known so that donors know what they're getting.
armchairhacker 1y ago
Another part of the article mentions him "wasting" money > Andre needed an adapter, so I ran up to lend him mine. As he was giving it back, I recall him making a half-joking, flippant remark about either his dongle or his computer, saying that "Ruby Together will just buy me another one." It really rubbed me the wrong way. Over the years to follow, more than one person told me stories of Andre paying for shared meals on behalf of Ruby Together without an apparent legitimate justification. The article also accuses him of misrepresenting if not lying where certain donations went when soliciting more. Presumably, if he had justified reasons to need more funds, he could've said them. Granted, we don't know how much Andre was making and what his expenses were, and the article seems to have its own biases. But I think at least the general outline of Andre's (and his organization's) funds/expenses should be public and accurate, so potential donors can decide whether he really needs their funds or another project needs them more.
- wgjordan 1y ago
  It's a legal requirement for most US non-profits to file public and accurate accounting of their funds and expenses, Ruby Together is no exception and all the info is publicly available [1]. Having previously worked as a software engineer at an ed-tech non-profit, I found nothing nefarious or unusual in Andre receiving compensation for his work or in the anecdotes around expensing business-related technology purchases or meals to his employer, this is all standard industry practice. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473176659 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473...
mystraline 1y ago
And in the USA, if you volunteer professional labor, you cannot take it off on your taxes. So yeah, if I can't get the benefit of taking off of my taxes, I do want paid. Can't afford it otherwise, since my labor is taxed and simultaneously valued as 0 as a volunteer.
- afandian 1y ago
  Are you saying that if you donate your time without pay you would still be taxed as though you _had_ been paid?
  - hobs 1y ago
    No, that's not how it works in the USA - apparently this person wants a tax deduction for their voluntary contribution as if it was a financial contribution to a non-profit which is tax deductible.
    - cyphar 1y ago
      On the flip side, contributions have financial value, otherwise what are we all doing here? I don't think they want a tax deduction necessarily, they're just pointing out that because of how voluntary labour is valued by the tax system it is rational to want to be paid for contributing to non-profits instead of doing it for free. If you spent N hours working and donated your $X*N salary to a non-profit, you'd get a tax deduction for that amount. However if you instead spend the same N hours contributing, you get literally nothing even though the work should be valued at some fraction of $X*N if not the same value (and some laws such as campaign finance limits do treat volunteering of this form to be valued at standard rates even if it's unpaid, so this is not without precedent). I don't think a tax deduction like that would work (everyone will pretend to be donating 16 hours of volunteer time a day), so it's back to charging for your work as a contractor.
      - hobs 1y ago
        I just tell people to charge the non-profit a reasonable non corp rate. That would just be paid work for a non profit, which (the company) is already tax exempt.
bradgessler 1y ago
It’s also the SF Bay Area, which h has a very high cost of living. That context is important. Also the article was corrected, the rate was $150.

999900000999 1y ago

400k is about the total comp for most FANG devs. Plus theirs no proof he was constantly billing that. The only issue is a lack of transparency.

pizlonator 1y ago
Yeah. Sometimes more than that, even

pizlonator 1y ago

400k/yr is excessive?

klustregrif 1y ago
For an open source org that’s running on donations and falsely implying that their donations are going to maintain server costs, yes that’s excessive. If the donations where clearly communicating that they where directly for this persons personal salary then no.
- pizlonator 1y ago
  According to TFA they were saying that the donations were to pay "our team".
  - klustregrif 1y ago
    I honestly don’t know if you are trying to bait or just completely missed the context of that part of TFA. But in either case here is the rest of TFA on that point: To pay our team … which initially linked to a list of the board members without any explanation of how the money was being allocated. This resulted in a nonzero number of donors believing they were funding the work of people like Steve Klabnik, Aaron Patterson, and Sarah Mei, when in fact only Andre was being paid at the time.
chipotle_coyote 1y ago
"Excessive" is obviously a subjective measurement. At times I don't think that HN's median audience appreciates that a 400k/yr salary is objectively extremely high, even for software engineers, even in 2025. A "mere" $367K/yr total compensation puts you in the 90th percentile of SWE earnings. I know Google, Facebook, and a few others greatly exceed that in total compensation at their higher SWE levels, but they're probably not the baseline you should be looking at across the industry. I would personally say that $400K/yr for being an open source developer is fantastic, although I appreciate that that's also subjective. Even in Silicon Valley, though, $400K/yr would net you about $18K/month, which would be enough to live quite comfortably while still socking away more than half of your income for retirement.

arximboldi 1y ago

That's not how you compute yearly earnings from a consulting rate. We consultants need to negotiate contracts, do marketing, accounting, etc. We get sick, we go on vacation and sometimes you're just hustling for clients. Also, that day that you're completely unmotivated, or moody, or hangover, or it was election day and the news are crazy, and you don't write a line of code in the whole day? You still get paid when on a salary, but you don't bill that to a client. 200 * 32 * 42 gives you a much better estimate for a highly productive individual.

mperham 1y ago

The eventual rate paid by Ruby Together settled on $150/hr and has remained that amount for the last decade. Justin’s data is far out of date.

qudat 1y ago

For such a critical piece of software/infrastructure that runs in massive companies making hundreds of millions, this is a rounding error. I literally do not see a single issue with that rate, even in 2000s. Now the arguments for frivolous spending is definitely an issue that should be criticized, but getting paid to support a massive language ecosystem and SaaS at-large, that’s a non issue at any rate

wgjordan 1y ago

As a non-profit, the exact amount that Ruby Together paid Andre was publicly disclosed in its annual tax filings [1]: 2015: $29,250 2016: $43,988 2017: $48,143 2018: $51,058 2019: $60,000 2020: $32,693 2021: $21,420 The filings also note that "The entire board of directors reviews and approves (by vote) compensation for the CEO." [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473176659 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473...

fouc 1y ago
Looking at the filings, it's not clear to me what the $250k "Program Services" were, or the $122k "Other Salaries and Wages" are. I guess there could potentially be additional non-salary compensation, i.e. using another business to charge fees of the non-profit? Looking closer at some filings there's also "$9k travel expenses" "$4k office expenses", "$12k IT expenses", which could potentially be supplementing his compensation as well.