

Eric S. Raymond only gets $20/mo on GitTip - grhmc
https://www.gittip.com/esr/

======
jnbiche
1\. It's per week.

2\. Even well-known, active coders only receive ~$200/week. The creator of
Drupal looks like the highest-paid coder at $420 (I know Chad Whitacre is a
coder but I'm guessing much of his compensation is for his valuable work on
gittip?).

3\. Yes, we've all read Cathedral and the Bazaar -- an influential work in
hacker and open source culture. And we've all read his opinionated guide on
how to be a hacker. But I had never heard or used any of his listed tools:
reposurgeon, deheader, coverity-submit, irkerd, doclifter, and cvs-fast-
export. Also, it's not clear if he wrote those or maintains them. I'm sure the
GPS and gif libraries he maintains are important, but I wasn't personally
familiar with them.

My point is: what is Eric S. Raymond doing these days, other than maintaining
a few interesting repos? And why do we owe him a living?

~~~
fecak
On his site he claims "One way or another, I have a couple meg of code and
documentation in the core toolset of every general-purpose Linux and BSD
distribution in existence." Assuming that is true, would your opinion about
'owing him a living' be different? I'm not suggesting that it should change
your opinion, but it's an interesting concept (to me anyway) to consider if
one's unpaid past work that benefits many others is a legacy worthy of some
compensation.

~~~
pedrocr
> _One way or another, I have a couple meg of code and documentation in the
> core toolset of every general-purpose Linux and BSD distribution in
> existence_

Is this true though? Wikipedia only lists CML2 (the rejected new config system
for the kernel). Grepping through Ubuntu's /usr/share/doc doesn't turn up much
either (libpng, libgif and some minor stuff).

~~~
fecak
I wasn't claiming it was or wasn't (those are ESR's words). My point was that
if it were true, would the poster's opinion be different. I'd be curious as to
how many people would actually pay past open source contributors due to some
personal sense of obligation or perhaps respect.

Some in this thread are asking 'what have you done for me lately?', but would
that feeling change if someone had done substantial (and assume again unpaid)
work that comprises the foundations of today's preferred toolset. Just an
interesting concept to consider.

~~~
kybernetikos
I pay people (not many of them yet, but I like gittip and hope to do more) who
I want to be free to create something interesting in the future. I do not see
it as recompense for their previous work but as a way for me to help them keep
doing the things that make us all great.

------
mherrmann
That's the problem with OS software - it's very hard to make money with it. I
have a startup developing a library for web automation. First question people
asked when I posted it here: "why is this not open source and why the fuck do
I need to pay?".

~~~
jh3
The response you're receiving seems normal if you're targeting developers.

------
chimeracoder
At the risk of getting downvoted, I'm more surprised that he's earning that
much.

Frankly, ESR hasn't contributed that much to the FOSS world, (either as a
coder or as an activist) in the last 5-10 years (ie, since 2009/2004),
compared to the late 90s/early 2000s.

Nowadays, the only times I hear about him are when he actively trolls the GNU
listserv, which is simply counterproductive and only hurts _both_ the free
software and open source movements.

For evidence, look at the search results, ordered by date, for "ESR" and
mentally filter out the ones that are posts of old articles or have too few
points to make the front page:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ESR#!/story/sort_by_date/0/ESR](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ESR#!/story/sort_by_date/0/ESR).
The two biggest recent posts were ones where he tries to get the FSF and/or
GNU projects to "admit" that "open source" is superior. Fortunately, IIRC,
both were flagged off the front page relatively quickly (possibly for setting
off the flamewar detector).

~~~
djur
ESR seems to like to take over maintainership of projects. There's nothing
wrong with that, but I know plenty of people who maintain lots of low-profile
projects who don't make a point of listing just how many projects they're
responsible for.

He also has a long history of turning whatever one-off tool he built for a
particular project into its own project (that nobody but him uses or develops)
and citing that as well.

He's done some decent work but that doesn't seem to satisfy him. He has to be
a leading light and a visionary, and he doesn't seem to know or care that
describing oneself as such is off-putting.

------
gwern
Are you implying he should get more?

~~~
JohnTHaller
I think it's more a matter of that's probably the most anyone is getting
tipped per week and they assumed it would be more. The same way people assume
that flattr and similar services adds up to meaningful amounts of money on a
regular basis for the large projects that use it.

~~~
_delirium
There are people who get considerably more than that on Gittip, though it's
true most people don't. ESR isn't that active a coder anymore, and afaict he
hasn't spent much time advertising his Gittip either, so it's extremely
passive income on his part.

The Gittip front page lists the top recipients, who are in the $150-650/wk
range. The top few recipients are actually making the equivalent of a modest
salary solely from Gittip contributions ($500/wk = $26k/yr).

------
IvyMike
It seems relevant to recall Raymond's VA Linux windfall post from back in the
day, if for no other reason than it illuminates his position on wealth.

[https://lwn.net/1999/1216/a/esr-rich.html](https://lwn.net/1999/1216/a/esr-
rich.html)

~~~
fecak
He also wrote this

[http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY)

------
scottydelta
This is because everyone in developer's community is asking for tips and
donations even if they can afford a standard living without it. I remember
reading an article which conveyed, ask for tips and donations only if your
livelihood depends on it and it sounds very reasonable.

------
akx
Per week.

