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Thanks. :-)

Note that we already raised the rates significantly (max used to be $1.28 instead of $24), and I'm personally looking for $2,000 per week. So I don't think Gittip understates the value of good programmers.

Here's the thinking behind the current tip amounts:

http://blog.gittip.com/post/26505682007/is-personal-funding-...

See the comment below about raising the minimum to $1, which has been ticketed here:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/180

I should add that I did read that before posting. And that's part of my point: you seem to have developed the tip amount framework without any regard to the larger market. My point is that the fact that many people gladly tip their bartenders > $1/week is relevant to your project. In the real world, $0.25 is not a tip, it's pocket change. (Here's a list of suggested tips, note the conspicuous lack of tips under a dollar: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/10/12/basic-tips-on-t...)

The other gripe I have is that you match expected tips for a "top open-source programmer" with an average salary for a "mid-career engineer". Why shouldn't a top open-source programmer be able to make top engineer money (read: a lot more that $160k) with Gittip? And why is there a max tip amount? What if my business wants to "tip" someone more than $100/mo? (I know, it's insane to think that code would be worth that much but to some it may be.)

So I guess I would ask you to reconsider:

1) The signaling issues around the idea that a quarter or a dollar is a reasonable amount to contribute for good programming. How do you explain to non-techies why your work is worth so much more than that?

2) The expected top end of the range for super-successful devs probably shouldn't be in the range of what recent grads are making at top firms.

Again, I'm trying to be constructive, and I think that if you want to meet your goals of helping programmers find a living building open source software, you could do a lot worse than asking folks who choose to tip to do so in amounts that are commensurate with the education, training, and thought required to build useful open source software.

Anyway, good luck with your project.

The rejoinder would be that, unlike my bartender, I could conceivably have 100,000 people tip me $0.25 through Gittip. When you compare $0.25 to a Facebook "Like", it's a lot more valuable.

That said, I appreciate people who want to make even more on Gittip than I do. Go for it! :-)

>> unlike my bartender, I could conceivably have 100,000 people tip me $0.25 through Gittip.

And if the minimum were $1 or $5, I don't see how that's a problem. Your bartender doesn't have global reach and his/her services don't have infinite scalability. The bartender/dry cleaner/barista examples were to illustrate lower bounds and not the maximum.

There's no reason to place artificial ceilings on how much developers can make with something like Gittip.

> And why is there a max tip amount?

To maintain "no strings attached." No one person or entity should unduly influence donees.

You're artificially limiting the maximum here. The range of contributions for e.g. a game will be different from B2B software, because the values derived are completely different. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to enforce a global limit.

If someone is willing to pay a large amount of money to influence a programmer, they'll be willing to manually negotiate / transfer it (rather than doing it through gittip).

I think all that is needed is a link that says... want to tip more? then donate directly to programmer by mailing him. This will remind the donor that he probably could give more... see how many people opt for this and figure out the nature of the donations.

That way, the service remains simple and manageable and won't end up being a money laundering operation for some terrorist.

Hey Chad, I wonder if Apple would allow a Gittip app using in-app purchases? They just released subscriptions too. That way every downloading user would already have his CC on file, and be a click away to donate.

And then 30% of all tips go to Apple. As much as I and others would love the convenience, I strongly object.

The idea is that the volume makes up for the tax - 100% CCs on file vs 4% is huge. Not the first thing you'd think of for supporting open-source, but something to consider.

I would really recommend looking into this - credit-cardless people who just buy top-up cards like myself would be able to get involved!

We do have a ticket for mobile payments, actually.

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/111

Who are the players here?

Consider using Dwolla.com instead of credit cards. No transaction fees at all for < $10. And it's run by a brilliant entrepreneur determined to disrupt the credit card industry. Cutting edge stuff.

+1 added here:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/65

The basic Gittip roadmap is to get the full circle working once with the most common case (credit card in, ACH out), and then iterate from there.

On the other hand, it adds up to $13/year, which is more than many commercial services charge for a subscription or an application download. It's a matter of perspective. But I'm with you on disliking the $0.25 amount.

I think it would even be better as $1.00/months as opposed to $0.25/week, even if there is no actual difference, due to it not being a sub-dollar amount.

I think you mean $13/year not $13/mo; I think you're comparing monthly fees with annual fees. In any case, tipping is optional and there is already a floor > $0.01.

We can't have it both ways. Either programming is worth something (we hate the idea of the quarter) or it's not ($13/yr is sooo expensive!).

Yes, that's what I wrote. Software sales spreads across the whole spectrum (example at hand: Sparrow, $9/eternity). I just wanted to provide a different view.

    $0.25/week is not something I'd really consider a tip

Should weekly tips only be given to people whose work I use weekly? If so, then yes, I agree that $0.25/week is not a good tip.

But what about the person whose Emacs config files I read at GitHub and found somewhat informative? And what about the person whose personal wiki (e.g., Org Mode files) I read at GitHub and found somewhat informative? Should I give these people good one-time tips instead of small weekly tips? Maybe I should, but I think I'd like to have the option to give them small weekly tips. Or is there some reason I shouldn't have this option?

This is more of a philosophical question for Gittip. I'd agree that the option for one-time tips makes sense. Maybe I periodically contribute to someone who periodically updates a personal wiki, or after a new release of a project I care about. I'm not sure why Gittip decided for subscription-only, but I'd agree that one-time tips make sense as well. If I had to choose only one model, I'd opt for one-time tips.

But (crucially) I still think a quarter is way too small a floor. If I don't value the project enough to make a one-time contribution of even $1 (ideally more), wouldn't everyone be better off with me just sending a nice tweet and/or email? The quarter doesn't really help the developer much more than that. If I were mailing a shareware payment in the olden days, a quarter would barely cover postage.

I'd like to see someone address this.

Preferably on the (newly updated) GitHub ticket:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/180

:-)

For those one-offs where I have interacted with the person directly, I would equate this very closely to the barista model, and expect to be able to give them a single-instance tip that doesn't recur.

I mentioned this before (I think, or somebody did) and Whit's response was that he wanted to be able to shore up the 'regularity' of the revenue stream, but I think that does the whole service an injustice.

I am likely to tip small amounts that recur, and larger amounts for, pardon the analogy, 'good service' or for someone who went out of their way to help me, or did something awesome. I might tip a $1 a week to the Apache Foundation, for example, and/or $10 to the guy who helped me figure out why Apache kept crashing.

As for the 'regularity' of the income, I see no reason why you couldn't just represent the values separately on admin panel... "You are 'earning' $200 a week on GitTip, and also got $50 extra in your tip jar this week."

Add to that the ability to integrate a 'tip jar' into websites, Trac, FogBugz, Github issues or anywhere people interact with other people who help them, and you've got a more rounded system (IMHO).

> I see no reason why you couldn't just represent the values separately on admin panel... "You are 'earning' $200 a week on GitTip, and also got $50 extra in your tip jar this week."

Right, this is how we would do it. I've reopened this ticket:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/5

Minimum raised to $1.00. See here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4292843