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I've long felt conflicted about accepting tips through Gittip, but John's nice argumentation here persuaded me to give it a try. On the one hand, working on op

I've long felt conflicted about accepting tips through Gittip, but John's nice argumentation here persuaded me to give it a try. On the one hand, working on open source software (especially many years after the original projects have shipped, and you've moved on to other things) is really about the love -- a hobbyist's satisfaction of polishing a well-honed tool. But on the other hand, when so many successful businesses are able to use that open-source tool to great effect, it can create a bit of a financial dissonance. I'm not sure if I'll keep the account open for very long -- for one thing, if I end up back at the NYT towards the end of the year, I'll probably have to close it -- but until then, let's see how it goes. Maybe it'll feel good in a kind of dirty-capitalist-but-gift-economy kinda way.

shmageggy 13y ago
Does NYT have a policy about taking on outside work or accepting money from outside sources? If NYT means New York Times, is this something to do with journalistic integrity? I liked the author's suggestion about donating unwanted tips to charity or turning them back around into tips.
- jashkenas 13y ago
  Yes. When you're working in the newsroom, you generally need to steer clear of accepting any gifts, free services, or free products. It really matters when it's from a company that the Times has covered, or might write about in the future -- but that's a pretty wide net, and most startup employees would arguably fall into that category. The Khan Academy's sponsored donation program certainly would. Here's the actual language: Staff members may not accept gifts, tickets, discounts, reimbursements or other inducements from any individuals or organizations covered by The Times or likely to be covered by The Times. (Exceptions may be made for trinkets of nominal value, say, $25 or less, such as a mug or a cap with a company logo.) Gifts should be returned with a polite explanation. From this little gem of a handbook: http://nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf http://nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf ... it's the Times' internal ethics rulebook specifically aiming at the conundrums of journalism -- but I think that quite a lot of it applies to ethical business practices in general.
  - whit537 13y ago
    I had a go-round on this with Gabe Stein of FastCo.Labs. Since Gittip is anonymous in the particulars I thought maybe that would get around the journalistic conflict of interest, but Gabe articulated how that probably wasn't sufficient because there's always the threat of finding out (as with jashkenas and Khan in this case). Queued up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerW0Q_2_7o#t=32m03s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerW0Q_2_7o#t=32m03s Not sure yet what, if anything, is to be done about this. Gabe is experimenting with Gittip as well: https://www.gittip.com/gabestein/ https://www.gittip.com/gabestein/
    - patcon 13y ago
      What if there was a mode that folks could set their accounts to, where they couldn't cash out and could only pass it on to other users? People could go into that mode when they were in a job that frowned upon gifts, and it could be displayed prominently so that allow donors were aware :) Perhaps the system could even convert dollars to some sort of non-monetary "token", which they could pass along to someone who could cash it out, and then there's further reason that it wouldn't be considered a gift?
      - whit537 13y ago
        If you don't connect a bank account then this is effectively what happens. Also, it's currently public on your profile whether you've attached a bank account.
        dllthomas 13y ago
        But presumably you could let cash accumulate, and add a bank account later. I think probably passing the money through to a charity is the safest.
      - jashkenas 13y ago
        I'm afraid that wouldn't help in this case. The conflict of interest here is the possibility of any appearance of favoritism -- whether you happen to be on the giving or the receiving end of the equation doesn't make much difference. There are sections in that guidebook about donations to political parties. Gittip forwarding would be a similar, albeit grayer, area -- donating to (say) prominent folks from Microsoft Research would be iffy. More so if you then proceeded to work on any Microsoft-related stories in the future.
jeresig 13y ago
I'm really happy that you've signed up! Amusingly I'm in a very similar boat to you. I'm fairly certain that almost all the money that I'm receiving on Gittip is due to my work on jQuery - which I haven't actively worked in quite a few years. One way in which Chad explained it to me, that resonated, was that Gittip can be better thought of as a "genius grant". People are giving you money not to support a specific thing (otherwise Gittip would be project-centric, not person-centric) but to support YOU and the things you want to do. It's kind of crazy because I'm fairly certain that I'm getting donations because of my work on jQuery and not for my current side-project research into Japanese woodblock printing - but people don't seem to mind! (And I've made it clear on my profile what it is, exactly, that I'm working on right now and what I'm using the money for.) I have a full-time job at Khan Academy and I'm well paid so I don't need the extra money - but it is appreciated. I'm re-donating a portion of the money that I get. Additionally it's paying for my extra server costs for my side projects and it's probably even paying for a good chunk of my monthly utility bill. I've been trying to think of other ways in which I can use the money that'll have a more obvious "money in -> using money -> output" pipeline but I'm not sure what that is, yet. Let's hope you'll be able to keep your account open and find good uses for the money!
- jashkenas 13y ago
  Hah. I'm afraid that -- between being currently funemployed, having just had all of my worldly possessions (at least for this year) stolen out of the back of my car last week, and discovering that travel insurance doesn't really cover it very well ... I can certainly think of a few good uses for it ;) I'm afraid that I'm still "actively" working on everything (except for Ruby-Processing, which has been passed along), but it's all on a light simmer on the slow burner. More excitingly, there's a new OSS project, still in the early planning stages, which I'm pretty jazzed about. Seriously though, thanks for the nudge. Much of the time, open source can feel like a slog through a bottomless pit for inane GitHub issues, with the occasional diamond in the rough. Your article is making open source feel more like a friendly love-in tonight.
  - whit537 13y ago
    Geez, man. Wow. I'm sorry. :-( I can't believe I'm asking this, but what would it take for you to work on open-source full time instead of going back to NYT in the winter? Is that something you would even want? What would it take to keep you funemployed forever?
mercuryrising 13y ago
Just an idea, but if you get a bunch of tips coming in, that'd be awesome if you tip them to projects that you use. You probably have a pretty good idea of what the cool things on the horizon might be.
- jashkenas 13y ago
  That, and perhaps even better -- I have some tireless contributors to projects like Backbone who really deserve the thanks. For (one, good) example, @braddunbar is a shining paragon of helpful and polite open source contributions.
  - whit537 13y ago
    https://www.gittip.com/on/twitter/braddunbar/ https://www.gittip.com/on/twitter/braddunbar/

shmageggy 13y ago

Does NYT have a policy about taking on outside work or accepting money from outside sources? If NYT means New York Times, is this something to do with journalistic integrity? I liked the author's suggestion about donating unwanted tips to charity or turning them back around into tips.

jashkenas 13y ago
Yes. When you're working in the newsroom, you generally need to steer clear of accepting any gifts, free services, or free products. It really matters when it's from a company that the Times has covered, or might write about in the future -- but that's a pretty wide net, and most startup employees would arguably fall into that category. The Khan Academy's sponsored donation program certainly would. Here's the actual language: Staff members may not accept gifts, tickets, discounts, reimbursements or other inducements from any individuals or organizations covered by The Times or likely to be covered by The Times. (Exceptions may be made for trinkets of nominal value, say, $25 or less, such as a mug or a cap with a company logo.) Gifts should be returned with a polite explanation. From this little gem of a handbook: http://nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf http://nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf ... it's the Times' internal ethics rulebook specifically aiming at the conundrums of journalism -- but I think that quite a lot of it applies to ethical business practices in general.
- whit537 13y ago
  I had a go-round on this with Gabe Stein of FastCo.Labs. Since Gittip is anonymous in the particulars I thought maybe that would get around the journalistic conflict of interest, but Gabe articulated how that probably wasn't sufficient because there's always the threat of finding out (as with jashkenas and Khan in this case). Queued up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerW0Q_2_7o#t=32m03s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerW0Q_2_7o#t=32m03s Not sure yet what, if anything, is to be done about this. Gabe is experimenting with Gittip as well: https://www.gittip.com/gabestein/ https://www.gittip.com/gabestein/
  - patcon 13y ago
    What if there was a mode that folks could set their accounts to, where they couldn't cash out and could only pass it on to other users? People could go into that mode when they were in a job that frowned upon gifts, and it could be displayed prominently so that allow donors were aware :) Perhaps the system could even convert dollars to some sort of non-monetary "token", which they could pass along to someone who could cash it out, and then there's further reason that it wouldn't be considered a gift?
    - whit537 13y ago
      If you don't connect a bank account then this is effectively what happens. Also, it's currently public on your profile whether you've attached a bank account.
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        But presumably you could let cash accumulate, and add a bank account later. I think probably passing the money through to a charity is the safest.
    - jashkenas 13y ago
      I'm afraid that wouldn't help in this case. The conflict of interest here is the possibility of any appearance of favoritism -- whether you happen to be on the giving or the receiving end of the equation doesn't make much difference. There are sections in that guidebook about donations to political parties. Gittip forwarding would be a similar, albeit grayer, area -- donating to (say) prominent folks from Microsoft Research would be iffy. More so if you then proceeded to work on any Microsoft-related stories in the future.

jeresig 13y ago

I'm really happy that you've signed up! Amusingly I'm in a very similar boat to you. I'm fairly certain that almost all the money that I'm receiving on Gittip is due to my work on jQuery - which I haven't actively worked in quite a few years. One way in which Chad explained it to me, that resonated, was that Gittip can be better thought of as a "genius grant". People are giving you money not to support a specific thing (otherwise Gittip would be project-centric, not person-centric) but to support YOU and the things you want to do. It's kind of crazy because I'm fairly certain that I'm getting donations because of my work on jQuery and not for my current side-project research into Japanese woodblock printing - but people don't seem to mind! (And I've made it clear on my profile what it is, exactly, that I'm working on right now and what I'm using the money for.) I have a full-time job at Khan Academy and I'm well paid so I don't need the extra money - but it is appreciated. I'm re-donating a portion of the money that I get. Additionally it's paying for my extra server costs for my side projects and it's probably even paying for a good chunk of my monthly utility bill. I've been trying to think of other ways in which I can use the money that'll have a more obvious "money in -> using money -> output" pipeline but I'm not sure what that is, yet. Let's hope you'll be able to keep your account open and find good uses for the money!

jashkenas 13y ago
Hah. I'm afraid that -- between being currently funemployed, having just had all of my worldly possessions (at least for this year) stolen out of the back of my car last week, and discovering that travel insurance doesn't really cover it very well ... I can certainly think of a few good uses for it ;) I'm afraid that I'm still "actively" working on everything (except for Ruby-Processing, which has been passed along), but it's all on a light simmer on the slow burner. More excitingly, there's a new OSS project, still in the early planning stages, which I'm pretty jazzed about. Seriously though, thanks for the nudge. Much of the time, open source can feel like a slog through a bottomless pit for inane GitHub issues, with the occasional diamond in the rough. Your article is making open source feel more like a friendly love-in tonight.
- whit537 13y ago
  Geez, man. Wow. I'm sorry. :-( I can't believe I'm asking this, but what would it take for you to work on open-source full time instead of going back to NYT in the winter? Is that something you would even want? What would it take to keep you funemployed forever?

mercuryrising 13y ago

Just an idea, but if you get a bunch of tips coming in, that'd be awesome if you tip them to projects that you use. You probably have a pretty good idea of what the cool things on the horizon might be.

jashkenas 13y ago
That, and perhaps even better -- I have some tireless contributors to projects like Backbone who really deserve the thanks. For (one, good) example, @braddunbar is a shining paragon of helpful and polite open source contributions.
- whit537 13y ago
  https://www.gittip.com/on/twitter/braddunbar/ https://www.gittip.com/on/twitter/braddunbar/