Ask HN: How can I monetize GitHub Issues? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I monetize GitHub Issues?

19 pointssochix11 comments

Hello everyone! I'm an author of TLSharp (https://github.com/sochix/TLSharp) - open source Telegram library. I got a lot of issues from users on my GitHub profile. At the very first time, I tried to answer everyone and help with project. But as time goes, I got annoyed by it. Also there is a lot of silly question, not connected to library development.

I noticed that it's a common problem of open-source projects on GitHub. After some time contributor got annoyed/not interested in working with community.

I decided, that some small amount of money to answer a question or help user using your library is a win-win for user and the OSS project.

Do you know any way to monetize GitHubs issues?

View on HN

I looked into something similar (albeit briefly) and found BountySource, which is almost what I wanted: https://www.bountysource.com/

Preferably, like you, I'd rather this be user-oriented, like a kickstarter for features or issues, rather than just paying developers for implementations, but I will confess I didn't look at BountySource too closely. Perhaps it would fit both our needs.

Hi, what is your contact info ?

Signal has a pay-per-PR system that might be just want you want. https://whispersystems.org/blog/bithub/

I reckon what you suggest is not a bad idea: when someone posts an issue that you do not particularly feel like working on, set a price on it! When/if anyone pays, you work on it.

Or someone else can come in and say "I'll do it for X".

Most successful projects that I know of are those where the developer is actually getting paid for his work. QGIS is a great example.

Exactly what I mean!

Go for it then, and good luck! ;)

I suggest you looking into Gratipay. It's a service that's in progress that allow for contributors of FOSS software to get paid for their contributions.

I work in a blockchain company and I'm building a tool that allows users to vote on pull requests to be merged to github, all done on the blockchain.

Naturally reading this has spun some ideas in my mind - it would be cool to build a system where people are incentivized to respond to issues, and having it on the blockchain removes a lot of the trust issues that comes along with payouts and rewards.

Any thoughts on this?

That's not going to go well. If you aren't motivated working on it for free, then consider trying to find someone who can take over maintainership.

For those of us that haven't spent too much time in the open-source community, can you elaborate on why?

I've tried to find someone who can take maintainership, but it's very hard. I'm motivated to work on the code, but I hate to answer silly questions about C# syntax

Reply on news.ycombinator.com