Open-Source Contributors Worth Sponsoring(astoilkov.com)
astoilkov.com
Open-Source Contributors Worth Sponsoring
https://astoilkov.com/open-source-contributors-worth-sponsoring
62 comments
IMO Sindre is still under paid comparing that to a distinguished software engineer's salary[0].
[0]: https://hired.com/salary-calculator/software-engineering/san...
[0]: https://hired.com/salary-calculator/software-engineering/san...
Another good argument. Maybe I should include him but clarify why I'm adding him.
Also apparently is Javascript only, which are the most well served community in terms of recognition, funding and (comparatively) less complex and smaller codebases.
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".
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".
I agree, I'm helping the Power Law distribution.
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.
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.
> Open-source creators are underpaid.
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.
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.
The price of freedom aka not to have your work crippled by stakeholder interests
All the arguments make sense. I've removed him from the list.
But he'll do that whether he gets $10000 or $10005 a month.
Giving to someone who makes less is much more of a change for them, giving you more bang for your buck.
Giving to someone who makes less is much more of a change for them, giving you more bang for your buck.
I would like to nominate Kovid Goyal, the author of Calibre[1] and Kitty[2], to this list. I don't know if he accepts sponsorship (and/or donations) - I've not seen anything of that sort on his websites - but I'll be eternally grateful for the wonderful stuff he's created!
1. https://calibre-ebook.com/
2. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
Edit: formatting
1. https://calibre-ebook.com/
2. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
Edit: formatting
I've posted about Kovid before.
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
[2] https://liberapay.com/kovidgoyal/donate
[3] https://calibre-ebook.com/donate
He's on sponsors[0] making >=$40/m. He also makes $2,142/m on Patreon[1] and ~$74/m on Liberapay[2]. The calibre site[3] also accepts PayPal.
[0] https://github.com/sponsors/kovidgoyal
[1] https://www.patreon.com/kovidgoyal
[2] https://liberapay.com/kovidgoyal/donate
[3] https://calibre-ebook.com/donate
I'm looking at him right now — https://github.com/kovidgoyal. You can sponsor him at https://github.com/sponsors/kovidgoyal.
It seems like he's spending a lot of time developing Calibre and has only 9 sponsors. Do you know of any other way he can make money out of Calibre?
GitHub contributions graph shows that he has consistently worked on Calibre for the past 12 years. That's amazing!
It seems like he's spending a lot of time developing Calibre and has only 9 sponsors. Do you know of any other way he can make money out of Calibre?
GitHub contributions graph shows that he has consistently worked on Calibre for the past 12 years. That's amazing!
I've used ebook-convert [1] from the Calibre project. It is unrivalled in my opinion.
[1] https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/generated/en/ebook-convert....
[1] https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/generated/en/ebook-convert....
Damn, I have never seen a git contribution overview with so little missing days.
Calibre is a great piece of software. I am using it for Legos instructions set for my partner hobby which have over 300 paper instruction booklets. I have majority of the digital instruction sets in PDF from various sources and put them in Calibre Web for my partner to access the PDFs without needing to through the box to find it. Surely Legos have their own digital library but they only hold small pool of instructions on their sites which prompted me to use Calibre Web. It works well for him and I am happy with that.
Calibre is Amazing!
GitHub Sponsors is great but there is still not enough people and companies willing to spend money to support free and open projects.
It's a lot easier to get them to give you free services worth thousands of dollars than donate 20$ 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.
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.
I personally sponsor:
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.
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.
Cool. I will need some time to understand what they are doing as I'm not an expert on Linux.
I would like to nominate XhmikosR[0], maintainer of Bootstrap. At the time of this writing he has 4 sponsors.
We were co-maintainers of BootstrapCDN and even though we recently archived & split our Open Collective earnings, I know he barely gets by.
[0]: https://github.com/sponsors/XhmikosR
We were co-maintainers of BootstrapCDN and even though we recently archived & split our Open Collective earnings, I know he barely gets by.
[0]: https://github.com/sponsors/XhmikosR
Thanks.
I like this nomination as maintainers of popular repos are even more underpaid than the original creators of the repos.
I like this nomination as maintainers of popular repos are even more underpaid than the original creators of the repos.
Personally, I would much prefer we move over to source-available options that would allow people to charge commerical companies generating x amount of money a fee while providing free of charge for everyone else.
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.
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.
Does "source available" allow people to fork a project and redistribute it? What happens if the original author abandons the project for any reason?
"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.
"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.
>Does "source available" allow people to fork a project and redistribute it? What happens if the original author abandons the project for any reason?
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.
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.
> Just like normal commerical software.
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".
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".
> You are basically saying "I wish that people writing FOSS stopped doing that."
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.
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.
> 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".
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".
[flagged]
Golang world? I mean they congratulate themselves on not having generics and not having absolute value functions because everyone can just write the function themselves.
I'd like to throw in PhotoPrism[1], a web-based photo management tool. It's already moving forward steadily, having recently added a first version of facial recognition. The author wants to make it his full time job, but isn't quite there yet funding-wise.
[1]: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism
[1]: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism
I like this type of business model. Create it for free and earn from your biggest fans. However, it's probably a big struggle for them.
I tried getting donations on my GitHub repos (this was before Sponsors was announced). I got just one sponsor for about $1/month, which got cancelled after some months due to payment gateway changes. In hindsight, I didn't do a good job of asking for donation and my repos were on programming tutorials rather than open source software.
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/
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/
Recently wanted to back up my CD collection and came upon Aaru, which supports an impressive amount of formats: https://github.com/aaru-dps/Aaru
The main developer is currently getting $100 a month on Patreon.
The main developer is currently getting $100 a month on Patreon.
Submitted for the approval of the midnight society: I'd like to propose the currently underappreciated and undersupported developer of Qutebrowser - a minimal browser with our best interests in mind that isn't another chrome clone.
https://github.com/sponsors/The-Compiler/
https://github.com/sponsors/The-Compiler/
If you like Guitars, Machine Learning and FOSS, consider checking out GuitarML
http://github.com/guitarml
patreon: https://patreon.com/guitarml
(disclosure: i'm a contributor)
http://github.com/guitarml
patreon: https://patreon.com/guitarml
(disclosure: i'm a contributor)
Drilling down this list helped me to find https://notable.app by @fabiospampinato
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.
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 nominate Synfig, which is a 2D vector animation tool. This is the most mature opensource tool in its category, but it still needs a lot of work to be able to compete with the commercial offering.
https://www.synfig.org/
https://www.synfig.org/donate/
https://www.synfig.org/
https://www.synfig.org/donate/
Somewhat related: if you're using Common Lisp, and SBCL in particular, please consider sponsoring Stas Boukarev, who is an important SBCL contributor
https://www.patreon.com/stassats
JS is here to stay regardless of the sponsorships, but lispers are few and far between ;)
I also recommend sponsoring Matt Holt for his work on Caddy and several other very useful and high quality open source repos. He's very under sponsored for having built a server that a lot of companies use.
https://github.com/sponsors/mholt
https://github.com/sponsors/mholt
Thank you. Could definitely use more sponsorships, particularly from companies. I'm also open to ideas on how to make sponsorships more attractive to those who are considering it! (Without taking away too much from dev time, if possible.)
If you look at recent case of switch to Ks from lisp, it is not the money but the community formation that is the key. No doubt it is nit either or. But more money may not be helpful if people just copy cat. Money ok as open source is not free source. But money is not the key.
[deleted]
I do not want to hijack this thread or promote myself, but maybe you could suggest something.
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?
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?
opencollective, maybe?
Here's an example: https://opencollective.com/neovim
Here's an example: https://opencollective.com/neovim
Thanks for the suggestion.
ko-fi.com is an alternative, similar to Patreon. It offers many different types of links and buttons, and is comparable to GitHub sponsors in terms of features and tiers, as far as I can tell. (Not affiliated, by the way)
This is a nice platform, it seems to be close to what I was thinking.
https://liberapay.com/
https://opencollective.com/ (typically requires OSS license + 100 stars + 2 contributors)
https://opencollective.com/ (typically requires OSS license + 100 stars + 2 contributors)
Thank you for the suggestions. I am looking more for "personal" donation rather than "project" donation. I realize it might be harder to sponsor an individual rather than a project.
https://ko-fi.com/ - one-off
https://www.patreon.com/ - recurring
https://github.com/sponsors - you can use it while contributing on other sites
https://www.paypal.com/
https://www.patreon.com/ - recurring
https://github.com/sponsors - you can use it while contributing on other sites
https://www.paypal.com/
What made you move away from GitHub?
Well, I do realize I might be way over reacting, but:
https://github.com/kuon/WhyILeftGithub
It is a general feeling of putting everything in the same basket.
https://github.com/kuon/WhyILeftGithub
It is a general feeling of putting everything in the same basket.
I am not grandparent, but:
https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation#GitHub
https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation#GitHub
You could keep a github mirror of your work with issues/pull requests/wiki/... disabled, have links to your gitlab/issue tracker and automatically push to github whenever you push to gitlab or on a cron. This would give you the discoverability of github with the control of your own instance.
That is if you are willing to touch github again.
That is if you are willing to touch github again.
Yes I could do that, but it is a big hassle. But yeah, it provides discoverability.
I sponsor the FastAPI dude, great project.
[deleted]
Don't forget me. I'm incendiary too!
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.
[0]: https://sindresorhus.com/thanks