Open-Source Contributors Worth Sponsoring
astoilkov.com
astoilkov.com
It recommends Sindre Sorhus, who already gets over $10K/month via Github Sponsors [0].
If you're interested in making this sort of funding viable, it would be better to give your money to someone else, maybe to allow them to do it full-time or part-time?
Github itself also likes recommending already popular people.
I wondered a lot if I should add Sindre to the list — most people know him, he earns a lot. I decided to add him because he contributes back (sponsors other open-source creators) and creates tons of value for the community.
Maybe you should rephrase your article, or remove him. Sindre is one of the most-paid open source creators. There are other creators which definitely deserve to be listed here instead of him.
Giving to someone who makes less is much more of a change for them, giving you more bang for your buck.
Plus: Do you believe anyone reading this will shell out $400 for one person?
[0]: https://hired.com/salary-calculator/software-engineering/san...
I wonder how a underfunded and complex crypto library, emulator or VM feel about the effort expended vs. the funds that goes to 3000 line of code javascript libraries that are linked everywhere.
Not to understate the work and effort in those libraries, but the guy who creates a engine (lets say in C++) which is wrapper in a popular python library and do the heavy lifting will be underfunded while the guy that wraps it over python will receive all the funding.
My guess is, well organized, hype-based language communities will win in the end, even if the technology is inferior(not the language, but the libraries), giving they will be able to generate more funding.
Other language communities should keep an eye on this and step up, because in the end "it's the economy, stupid".
2. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
Edit: formatting
It seems like he's spending a lot of time developing Calibre and has only 9 sponsors. Do you know of any other way he can make money out of Calibre?
GitHub contributions graph shows that he has consistently worked on Calibre for the past 12 years. That's amazing!
[1] https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/generated/en/ebook-convert....
He's on sponsors[0] making >=$40/m. He also makes $2,142/m on Patreon[1] and ~$74/m on Liberapay[2]. The calibre site[3] also accepts PayPal.
[0] https://github.com/sponsors/kovidgoyal
[1] https://www.patreon.com/kovidgoyal
It's a lot easier to get them to give you free services worth thousands of dollars than donate 20$ per month.
Another problem is that the people building these projects are often developers who focus on the technology and completely ignore the marketing side of things. Or simply have no idea how to do marketing. Which makes it finding sponsors almost impossible.
Our project is a good example of that, I've been trying to fix the marketing issue for years and I'm still struggling https://github.com/jsDelivr
If anyone has any ideas how to make it more attractive to companies to support us please let me know, I would really appreciate it.
Hector Martin: https://github.com/sponsors/marcan Apple M1 silicon RE & Linux port
Ryan C. Gordon: https://github.com/sponsors/icculus SDL lib maintainer
They make awesome work and look like decent human beings.
We were co-maintainers of BootstrapCDN and even though we recently archived & split our Open Collective earnings, I know he barely gets by.
I like this nomination as maintainers of popular repos are even more underpaid than the original creators of the repos.
The whole idea that I as a private person need to sponsor someone else to do open source work so I can use their code at my paid job to do something for my for-profit employer seems outragous to me and a sign that out ecosystem is corrupt. Companies get rich while we pay out.
"Source available" is just a nicer name for shareware. I am less inclined to support someone making shareware than someone who is making free software.
> so I can use their code at my paid job
Free software is not just about "your code at work". There are plenty of projects not related to dev tooling that you could contribute.
A project generating enough revenue would just be outsourced to someone else, sold, etc. Just like normal commerical software.
> I am less inclined to support someone making shareware than someone who is making free software
The point is you wouldn't need to support them, they would be generating revenue from for-profit companies using the software. Companies that generate money using the code would have to pay for the code.
Yeah, but that means that it is "just like normal commercial software", which is not the point of Free/Libre/Open Source Software.
You are basically saying "I wish that people writing FOSS stopped doing that."
> they would be generating revenue from for-profit companies using the software.
That makes the very naive assumption that a FOSS project that has grown to be successful would have reached the same status if it were "source available".
Yes. I wish people would stop doing FOSS and started doing source avaialble instead of open source and charged companies money. I wish people who built super valuable software got properly rewarded for their efforts.
I know it's odd that someone doesn't think FOSS is great. But some of us honestly think it's the worst thing in tech. It's the cause of so many hassles for companies and open source maintainers alike. It seems like every month some open source maintainer has to tell people that they're not getting paid for this and they don't have time to work on it properly because they have a day job and a life. So they have very limited time to work on this project. Then we have maintainers who tell people they don't really want pull requests because pull requests are work since they need to maintain them. All of this is solved when people are paid for thier work and it's not a hobby project.
> That makes the very naive assumption that a FOSS project that has grown to be successful would have reached the same status if it were "source available".
The thing is, it wouldn't even need to reach the same status to generate a livable income. Seriously, if you have a project that you sell to revenue generating companies for 1k a year each. And you only get 75 companies using it heavily instead of 30,000 companies. You're good to live off that and work on that project full time.
What if they don't want to work on it full time? What if they don't feel like they are tied to their work or obligated to serve "customers"?
Software is not just about creating tools for a trade. Software is also self-expression and leverage for creating other things of worth.
Your issue is with FOSS developers who are amateurs (in the good sense of the word) and thus "fail" at supporting themselves and their "customers" with their work.
This is a not only an incredibly myopic view - I really don't even want to imagine what would be the state of the industry if FOSS projects like GNU, Linux, Apache and many others who are successfully funded didn't exist - it is also one that serves only the big corporate world that you think "should be paying". It reeks of a Protestant worldview that acts as something is only worth doing if you can make money off it.
Anyway, your problem is with "amateurism" in the industry, not with FOSS. For every "hassle" you find in FOSS projects, there are plenty of others who are successfully managed, with developers who know to answer "This is Free Software, but it does not mean you are entitled to free work or my time. If you want me to solve a problem you are having, you have to pay for it".
This pushed me towards adapting my tutorials to ebooks and self publishing. I promoted the books as pay-what-you-want for a few days after completing each book. This method of donation worked much better for me [0]
I feel free software could also adapt similar approach during installation/download in addition to setting up Sponsors.
[0] https://learnbyexample.github.io/my-book-writing-experience/
The main developer is currently getting $100 a month on Patreon.
patreon: https://patreon.com/guitarml
(disclosure: i'm a contributor)
It looks like a beautifully simple Markdown Notes Desktop App (Win/Mac/Linux). Have just been playing with it to import plain .txt files lying around on my Desktop. Has a simple out-of-the-way UI for creating markdown pages, organize active ones in tags, favorites or pin to top. Saves as plain .md files in 1 folder. Zen, floating & translucent modes. Looks like a TODO.txt notepad.exe replacement that might stick.
I realized I was working up to 50% on open source projects, and I wanted to accept sponsoring, but I moved away from github (which is surely a terrible idea for an open source guy, but I had my "stallman moment").
I do work mostly on gitlab and my own gitea instance.
What I did is setup stripe, with donate button on my blog but it is not very friendly and there is no social effect.
Do you know an alternative to github sponsor that allow source to be scattered around?
Here's an example: https://opencollective.com/neovim
https://opencollective.com/ (typically requires OSS license + 100 stars + 2 contributors)
https://www.patreon.com/ - recurring
https://github.com/sponsors - you can use it while contributing on other sites
https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation#GitHub
https://github.com/kuon/WhyILeftGithub
It is a general feeling of putting everything in the same basket.
That is if you are willing to touch github again.