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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I understand how this project is supposed to help OSS devs?

20k over 10 weeks is fine and all, but then what? I've been writing open source software and maintaining projects for decades, and have in total received less than $500 from thoughtful donors.

Don't get me wrong; I'd LOVE to be able to do open source work full time, as my list of projects to benefit humanity extend far beyond what I could do in a lifetime where I must support myself with fulltime work. But the problem is how to maintain a steady income stream so that I can focus my attention on the projects...

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In addition it says people that receive it will have to participate in GitHub events for it (they say a 10 hour per week commitment) and provide material/info for GitHub to share about the program. So they're going to waste your time (which is already scarce, overworked and limited) so you can do marketing for them.

Just cut checks, don't make people act out reality show or circus tricks. Ask maintainers what they need and give it to them--that's how you help, not by adding to their workload.

> Just cut checks, don't make people act out reality show or circus tricks. Ask maintainers what they need and give it to them--that's how you help, not by adding to their workload.

You confuse this for a project trying to benefit developers or Open Source. It's a PR project.

$20K for 10 weeks is decent change for folks in the Global South.

I got a much smaller-sized grant for a FOSS project from Mozilla in July 2020 (a bit more than $4K), and that helped pay the bills for over a year.

Even in the US. Minimum wage is $7.25

That's 2759 hours, (a 9-5 for over a year). The opportunity cost is obviously massive, but it's a sacrifice a lot of people will happily take.

Its life-changing money here. Unfortunately a lot of places where thats the case are not supported by Github Sponsors.

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