by patrick91 on 7/14/23, 12:09 PM with 135 comments
by yoavm on 7/14/23, 2:01 PM
I could very much be wrong about this, but the whole thing feels like it's coming from the perspective of someone thinking "I've heard about OSS, let's see how I can monetize it", rather than "I've participated in the OSS world for a long time, and I have an idea that can improve it".
by password4321 on 7/14/23, 1:35 PM
It doesn't seem logical but I hope someone can pull it off!
I would like to learn more about the background of the founders - what they've already done in any way related to this. Why does Polar have a chance?
by brigadier132 on 7/14/23, 1:35 PM
by iamflimflam1 on 7/14/23, 1:28 PM
The problem is that I don't know if people/businesses are really willing to pay the actual cost of getting things done.
I'm not even sure people even appreciate the work that is involved in most of their requests - how many times have you looked at some commercial software and had the "could build that in a weekend" reaction.
My other concern is around expectations. I've always tried to be very clear with any donation type thing that it's a donation. There's no obligation created on my part to provide any services or support. Directly coupling payments to requests might turn this into much more of a "I paid you to do this, why isn't it done yet".
by woodruffw on 7/14/23, 2:28 PM
There’s a secret third thing that never seems to get mentioned: not pittances through donations and not speculative investment from VCs, but plain old paid engineering. Most open source maintainers don’t want to be “entrepreneurs”; they just want to be paid an (approximately) fair rate for their time. Hiring them (or paying them for consultation time) achieves this.
by jph on 7/14/23, 1:42 PM
https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision...
(I'm on the fence about the value of Polar for this kind of issue... see what you think)
by bogwog on 7/14/23, 2:49 PM
I have some questions:
1. Can anybody place a bounty on any issue? That seems like it could take control away from the maintainer. Is there a way for a maintainer to reject an issue bounty, so they can keep control over the direction/architectural decisions of the project?
2. Could someone pledge money towards a milestone (e.g. the next major version) rather than specific issues?
3. Are you offering any kind of business support to maintainers, such as reaching out to business users on their behalf to negotiate a sponsorship/support contract/bounty/etc? The sales part of all of this seems like it's the biggest challenge for OSS projects where it's just a few engineers who don't have the time or skill to do sales.
by avodonosov on 7/14/23, 2:16 PM
From the article I didn't understand the model. Or how it is diffirent from existing projects like https://bountysource.com/ and others.
by mintone on 7/14/23, 2:26 PM
by ThinkBeat on 7/14/23, 6:10 PM
If I wanted to be a social media influencer, I'd be on Instagram / OnlyFans.
If i wanted to spend my time "an entrepreneur with superpowers to convert the community into backers", I would be running a company / start up doing sales.
I wish to write code.
Some of that code is open source. Some of it I write because someone pays me to do so.
I dont have to do any sales and that is fantastic.
So far nobody has given me money for my open-source code and that is fine.
I write my open-source tools because I admire those who came before me and all they have contributed to the world. It is a civic duty.
They gave us operating systems, compilers, databases, libraries.
When someone creates a new thing and its 90% derived from free tools with a bit of code sauce / UI on top it, call it open source and then run around wanting to get paid for it they are in the wrong pasture.
If you are wanting to make billions of dollars and you create some form of "open source" system but you get angry if someone uses it and does make money from it, you are in the wrong pasture.
Contemplate Linux, (Open)*BSD, GNU tools, Postgres and everything open source you use to make your product and none of which you have paid for. Imagine if Theo had $1 for every OpenBSD install. (I love OpenBSD) Id owe him at least a few hundred dollars. On aggregate he would be at least a millionaire.
For people who do want to inject money into open source that is great. Dont pick me.
Pick projects that are vital in the stack and who are underfunded.
by traviswt on 7/14/23, 1:32 PM
by jph on 7/14/23, 1:29 PM
For example, I want to donate $100 toward Rust Rocket version 1.0.0.
Can Polar help with this goal? If so, what's my next step?
by toyg on 7/14/23, 2:22 PM
However, I don't see how this is not fundamentally just a Github feature. They don't have it now, but if Polar gets any traction, they'll implement it pretty swiftly and probably eat your lunch.
by tibor_a on 7/14/23, 2:09 PM
by mustache_kimono on 7/14/23, 1:32 PM
Yes, obviously donation/sponsorship doesn't work, but I'm not sure pay per issue resolved is the best model either. Good apps shouldn't be punished for having few issues, or needing few features.
People should be able to opt in, but I think opting in at the distro level is the right choice as it would create a broad base of support. Of course, there will be those that don't want to pay, but I think a premium model for power users and enterprise customers makes sense. These premium users could have access to beta/nightly channels, early SRPMS/src debs, and priority or triaged issue/PR resolution?
Are there issues to be resolved? Yes, of course. How to divide payments to apps, and within app communities, but these aren't insurmountable problems. Canonical, etc., could simply set standards and require app communities to explain any variance from those standards.
by mfts0 on 7/14/23, 12:34 PM
The big BUT is that software needs to be maintained whereas a video once uploaded on YouTube doesn‘t need to be edited again.
I have a feeling that Birk and the Polar team have the right insights to build the right tools to serve the specific needs of open-source software maintainers.
by fizzynut on 7/14/23, 1:56 PM
A company might want to buy 1000 tokens and allocate tokens individually to specific issues, but they also might want to put tokens in a pot the maintainer can access to "spend" on issues they want to prioritise for the project or allow them to "spend" tokens at a specific rate, etc.
It also means that money is committed upfront by the companies, i.e. the money is real and exists, has been set aside for this thing and in case of a dispute polar can make decisions, etc
by jehna1 on 7/14/23, 5:00 PM
by dboreham on 7/14/23, 1:48 PM
Edit: to expand -- these initiatives seem to always be cooked up by people who do not write software, don't fix bugs, don't hire software developers. They never work because adding a feature to a product or fixing a bug isn't a commodity item that you can just buy with a click and spread cost between many parties.
The result is that most of the prospective purchasers end up having an easier path to get what they want, which is to fork and fix themselves (usually via in-house devs already on staff).
by rglullis on 7/14/23, 2:04 PM
by PaulDavisThe1st on 7/14/23, 4:47 PM
Conclusion:
> Bounties are a lousy foundation for sustainable development of large projects like FreeCAD. They typically represent a gross underestimation of real work required to solve a problem, commonly miss a bigger picture, and encourage worst software development practices.
Growing larger is fun but also really overwhelming. Most ambitious projects that aim to stay afloat will have to experiment with different approaches to getting funded on a regular basis and come up with their own mix of solutions. It’s that or perish.
by vendiddy on 7/14/23, 1:50 PM
by VoxPelli on 7/14/23, 2:32 PM
by laurent123456 on 7/14/23, 4:24 PM
by ducktective on 7/14/23, 4:29 PM
>Join our Discord to discuss ideas, early design proposals and upcoming features
Yeah, no...disheartening to see this many FOSS developers opting for Discord for realtime chat.
by ushakov on 7/14/23, 2:05 PM
by posnet on 7/14/23, 1:51 PM
by XCSme on 7/14/23, 9:42 PM
$1.8M VC funding for what?
by meagher on 7/14/23, 5:29 PM
Worst case: Maintainers paid, GitHub copies Polar.
by RobotToaster on 7/14/23, 2:00 PM
Arguably, putting a restrictive licence on manuals makes something not free software https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html
by homanp on 7/14/23, 3:13 PM