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.