Top all-time · #17624
Chris Aniszczyk
Personal blog · aniszczyk.orgprogrammingculture
Chris Aniszczyk's personal blog at aniszczyk.org covers programming and culture. Since 2010, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 18 times, most often “Troubles with the Open Source Gig Economy and Sustainability Tip Jar”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
work. life. open source. diatribes.
Most-linked posts?
- Troubles with the Open Source Gig Economy and Sustainability Tip Jar2 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2019-04-22
- Open Source Gerrymandering (2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-08-16
What Hacker News says?
cool feature but putting the burden of funding on individuals vs companies is supporting what I call the "open source gig economy" - doesn't work well for Patreon and others - we need better ways to sustain individuals who choose not start their own company around open source projects or work full time at a company supporting open source https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “GitHub Sponsors”Submitted Open Source Gerrymandering (2019) as a story · 24 points
HN discussionSigh, GitHub is still promoting the "open source gig economy" https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... It's been about 2 years of GitHub sponsors and they haven't shared any data on how well people are doing.
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors”Submitted EGit and JGit Builds Available as a story · 2 points
HN discussiondonations don't work well though: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “GitHub stars won’t pay your rent”Submitted Troubles with the Open Source Gig Economy and Sustainability Tip Jar as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI've written about how donations are the wrong approach and things like GitHub sponsors are giving people a false promise of sustainability: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... The author is on point that you need to build a business or product that someone is willing to buy :)
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “GitHub stars won’t pay your rent”donation's don't work well https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “NPM Bans Terminal Ads”please proof this claim... the majority of open source seems to be sustained extremely well... there are some outliers like OpenSSL and others that have been fixed but the majority is well sustained https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “NPM Bans Terminal Ads”It is a sustainable career if you start a business. If no one wants to pay you for your project, that could be the market telling you something. At the end of, donations don't work and open source is being fairly well sustained if people seek employment or start a business: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “NPM Bans Terminal Ads”Apache isn't a silver bullet... there are plenty of Apache projects where the individuals are compromised mostly from one company and hide behind the veneer of the ASF... where they are working on the projects per their employment. Gerrymandering is definitely possible and has happened in the past, that's why you have to look at governance and ownership of the marks/build systems etc: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/…
Comment linking /2019/10/08/open-source-gerrymandering/
on “CockroachDB license change”There's a funding service by the Linux Foundation which projects can use as an option: https://funding.communitybridge.org You can see other options out there too via https://www.oss.fund In general, donations/sponsors I don't think will scale for many reasons: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “A new funding model for open source software”I wrote about this in the past how all these open source donation systems like OpenCollective and GitHub Sponsors are exploiting maintainers via gig economy dynamics: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... The solution is simple, having companies hire open source maintainers to work on their projects in some fashion or we need to make it easier for maintainers to start companies and build an…
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “Software Below the Poverty Line”Well written... I wrote a response last night that dives into some numbers and my experiences with helping the Eclipse Foundation move to Git and Gerrit... http://aniszczyk.org/2011/11/23/apache-and-politics-over-cod... Apache is pretty much the last major open source community to not move to some form of distributed version control. It's either politics (they host the Subversion project there) or negligence in my o…
Comment linking /2011/11/23/apache-and-politics-over-code/
on “Apache considered harmful”One problem with this approach is still that depending what country you're from, you're essentially creating an "open source gig economy" where developers work for scraps from company donations without health/retirement benefits: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... What I'd like to see instead of see people encouraging developers and open source maintainers start companies and create posi…
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “Funds for Open Source”I think folks need to be wary of supporting github sponsors, the way it's currently structured only perpetuates a gig style economy for open source maintainers, my guess is <1% of folks using sponsors get enough money equivalent to a salary (unfortunately GitHub doesn't share data on how well the sponsors program is doing) https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “Build a salary with GitHub Sponsors”I agree with you, I think GitHub is doing a dis service by selling people that this will sustain open source developers: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... In my opinion, it's essentially "gig economy" at scale. GitHub should start publishing raw data on how much money developers are getting... median etc and how close that maps to a developer salary etc
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “GitHub Sponsors is now out of beta in 30 countries”I wrote about this recently: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... There are plenty of business models out there that maintainers can make money with, in a capitalistic society, this usually involves creating your own business or working for company that uses the software. If no one is paying for your open source project, is it because you don't know how to build an actual product on top of…
Comment linking /2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/
on “Excerpts from Richard Stallman's talk in Mandya, India”