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Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Not immoral, but it's a huge HR headache. Once people get paid, you have to deal with what people are worth. And everyone thinks everyone (including themselves) is worth different amounts. Coming to a consensus about that is a huge hassle, and will still end up with hurt feelings.

Bad moral is bad for code.

If you have enough money, you can swallow that pill and push through. If you don't, it will make things worse.

They have enough money for what they do, but they haven't got nearly enough income (donations) to pay everyone market wages.

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I find it hard to believe receiving nothing is better for moral than receiving something.

They acknowledge they have issues they can't fix due to a manpower shortage, they also acknowledge they have more money than they can spend.

Paying market wage may not be realistic, but supporting or donating something to developers who support them would go a long way to attracting additional volunteers.

Some people might be receptive to getting $100 for something they spent dozens of hours on, but then others will wonder why they didn't also get $100 for their dozens of hours recently.

Others will look at that and calculate how far under minimum wage it was, and start to question if it's worth their time after all.

You end up with bad feelings on every side unless you pay market wages, and even then you end up with people questioning if they just took on another full-time job, instead of a hobby.

It's really, really hard to add money to the equation and not make things worse.

There's only 10 people since 2024 that have made more than 10 commits to JellyFin.

I think if they gave an incentive they would have benefited more so than lost.

> I find it hard to believe receiving nothing is better for moral than receiving something.

Check the ultimatum game for proof that people are definitely able to prefer no money at all.

I’m not saying this is what is happening here, but money doesn’t come alone, and overall it might be worse than no money. My point is, money is not everything - sounds really old, but it’s surprisingly true still.

I'm not sure I agree.

I mean, a silicon valley developer getting paid $200k/year might fix a bug in some open source software for free because it was bothering him and he wanted to give something back to the project.

But if I offer that same developer $100 to bail on date night with his wife to fix a bug for me? That's not an offer I'd expect him to take me up on.

I broadly agree with your point - that in many situations people feel happier and more willing to donate their time than to be paid but paid less than they feel their time is worth commercially.

But you made the point badly, confusing things by adding in the date night - so that instead of comparing "fix bug for free" vs "fix bug and be paid, but much less than their usual hourly rate", you instead compared "fix bug for free at a time that suits them" vs "fix bug at an inconvenient time and get paid less than their usual hourly rate".

I can't actually work out why you bothered to bring bailing on a date night into it at all...

I mention that merely to illustrate that our hypothetical $200k developer has good things he could be doing with his limited discretionary time.

The time spent fixing a bug for $100 doesn't get magicked out of nowhere - that's time that could be spent meeting friends, doing sports, spending time with family, reading books, creating art, enjoying good food and wine, learning new things, or even sleeping!

For a similar concept expressed in a wordier way, read about Maslow's hierarchy of needs [1]. Our hypothetical developer's physiological and safety needs are fully met - and their unmet needs won't be much helped by $100. I avoided this and chose the wording I did because some of Maslow's wording like "self-actualization" and "transcendence" kinda invites confusion IMHO.

Far less confusing and questionable, I thought, to merely argue that sex is more fun than software development. But apparently not...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Could they go the tinygrad route and post bounties like "$1000 for fixing this major bug"

That's not nearly enough to sustain a competent developer, but it is enough to make a project feel like work to a hobbyist.

> That's not nearly enough to sustain a competent developer

It doesn't have to be enough to sustain a developer, only enough to attract a developer who would have otherwise not bothered.

> but it is enough to make a project feel like work to a hobbyist

I really don't see how anyone would do something but then decide not to once they found out there is a reward.

> I really don't see how anyone would do something but then decide not to once they found out there is a reward.

The people who can realistically claim the reward realistically can get better rewards elsewhere.

Once you shift the thought process from considering how much fun you have hacking into accounting how much you can make, people start spending time in a way to that will optimize earning potential. You start losing.

How many people paint for fun? Do you think they'd do it if it was a job that paid $3/hour?

> The people who can realistically claim the reward realistically can get better rewards elsewhere.

Yes, but why does that mean someone who was going to do something no longer would. Or that someone who was tempted but wouldn't, still won't now there is more incentive.

> Once you shift the thought process from ... how much you can make...

I'm talking about a reward / incentive, not employment. JellyFin has a merch store, offer contributors some merch via vouchers or something!

> How many people paint for fun? Do you think they'd do it if it was a job that paid $3/hour?

Do you think that if everyone automatically received $3/hour for all hobby painting they did that nobody would paint anymore? I think they'd get a coffee with it and take a moment to look back on their work.

When was the last time you committed to open source outside the context of full time employment? What motivated you to do it?

If they really have something that can't be done by their current developers, rather than just something they don't have time for yet, that might work. But it'd be a lot more than $1000 bounty, and they'd still need people to maintain it.

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