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That's true - although that should be an incentive to write and release good Open Source code! Even if a single person gives you $0.25/week (the minimum amount)
by jeresig 13y ago
That's true - although that should be an incentive to write and release good Open Source code! Even if a single person gives you $0.25/week (the minimum amount) you'll get $13/year. We're attempting to give most developers at least $1/week - and I should emphasize that this is only from Khan Academy. Just because we're giving this amount it doesn't mean that these devs won't get money from other sources. I, personally, receive donations from a couple dozen users on Gittip with a wide variety of amounts (most being in the $0.25 range).
It's very defeatist to give up before even trying ("only" a cup of coffee). Why not aspire to more?
- ronaldx 13y agoThis message is very confusing for me. I'm happy that you're finding personal benefit from Gittip. If it allows or helps you to keep providing great work to the community, that's excellent for everyone. However, the numbers you quote are not good. $13 is an amount that a Bangladeshi garment worker earns in a week or so. It's nobody's aspirational goal to earn that in a year. It may be the case (in the wider population) that such disproportionately small rewards actually discourage contributions compared to volunteerism, as it provides a (very bad) point of reference to compare the value of open source work to paid commercial work.
- whit537 13y agoImagine if we got some Bangledeshi garment workers on Gittip.
- jeresig 13y agoNaturally - but there are extremes and it's still the very beginning. There are definitely people earning very little (arguably EVERYONE is earning very little - even the top people are receiving just over minimum wage in the U.S.). Up until now there hasn't been a tool to have this consistent weekly donation for Open Source contributors. But given the growth that we're seeing on Gittip I hope that we can get to the point where people are seriously considering quitting their jobs to work on Open Source full time. It's doubtful that this will affect me now -- but I would've killed to have had this back in like 2004-2006. The old reality (people giving money to Open Source projects /developers sporadically) was bad. The new reality (consistently giving small amounts of money via Gittip) is better. The future (large amounts of money, equivalent to a paid job, in a consistent manner) will be even better. I'm pushing Gittip because I see it as the best way to bring that future about. It'll take a lot of work but it needs to happen - for the benefit of all Open Source developers.
- jmathai 13y agoThe point is that Gittip is in its infancy. I agree that most OSS developers aren't going to make a ton of money. I never viewed Gittip as a way to get paid as much as I view it as a way to support. Chad's goals for Gittip are much larger than paying people to write code. But all big ideas start somewhere. I'm an eternal pessimist and I can say that Chad is on to something really big with Gittip. Not sure anyone knows exactly what it is yet though.
- voltagex_ 13y agoCool, but if I can (eventually) increase the amount I'm receiving on GitTip to $60/year, there's my playground instance on DigitalOcean paid for.