

Why I want to see Gittip succeed - whit537
http://peak5390.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/why-i-want-to-see-gittip-succeed/

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daenz
It's a feel-good idea, but I don't like it for the following reason:

Developer A works on Project X. Everyone loves Project X, it becomes very
popular, and consequently, Developer A receives a bunch of Gittips to continue
work on it. Say this amount is nothing to sneeze at...$250/week or something.

Developer B thinks Project X is good, but it _could_ be really great.
Developer B really loves to make great software, and he doesn't care about
being paid for his open source contributions, so he decides to fork it into
Project Y. Project Y has significant improvements and changes, so that if it
could be compared objectively, it would be better than Project X across the
board.

Developer A sees will see Project Y as a competitor and a threat to his tips.
Now he has a financial incentive to discourage the adoption of Project Y. He
doesn't want his tips to disappear, so why would he bring attention to
something better? Some changes and improvements could be ported from Project Y
to Project X, but if the overall direction of Y is different, there would be
no way to reconcile the disparity. Project Y would continue to gain adopters,
and Project X would lose them.

TLDR; Financial incentive to discourage competing OS projects is bad for
everyone.

I've seen this happen before on OS projects when there wasn't money involved
(only pride and reputation), so I think this problem would be intensified by
cash. It would be cool if this never happens though.

~~~
whit537
I think people would notice what Developer A is doing, and stop tipping him.

------
cjdrake
Gittip does not allow the giver to identify himself. This isn't exactly
"patronage", IMO, it is like dropping a few coins in a street performer's hat
on the way to work. That's more like "charity", except worse--you cannot
deduct it on your taxes.

BTW, I like gittip. I got an account the other day
(<https://www.gittip.com/cjdrake/>). Just not sure about the definition of
"success" here. Probably a few people could make a nice side-income from
donations, but we're going to have to keep our day jobs :).

~~~
japhyr
_This isn't exactly "patronage", IMO, it is like dropping a few coins in a
street performer's hat on the way to work._

It's much stronger than that. It's like dropping a few coins in a street
performer's hat on the way to work, and making a commitment to drop the same
number of coins in that person's hat every day.

It's even stronger, though. It's like handing a $10 bill (or more) to a
trusted person standing next to the street performer, knowing that person will
drop the same amount of money in the performer's hat every day. And further,
you make a commitment to renew that $10 whenever necessary.

Gittip is removing the friction from making small, recurring donations. That
is a powerful model, and if it continues to grow, a not insignificant number
of people will be drawing a reliable, meaningful income from their open source
work.

~~~
cjdrake
I agree with your points. Perhaps my use of "drop a few coins" sounds a little
more dismissive than I was intending.

Artistic patronage is when a rich guys pays you a salary to produce art. When
Michaelangelo worked for the pope, his "day job" was to build the pope's tomb
:).

Gittip allows people to tip artists, and it does this very well. Can it truly
be extended to patronage?

~~~
whit537
Yes, Gittip is crowd-sourced patronage. In another context I've said that
Gittip will be born when the first person announces that they're depending on
it for their livelihood:

[http://ryandeussing.com/blog/2012/09/24/chad-whitacre-
gittip...](http://ryandeussing.com/blog/2012/09/24/chad-whitacre-gittip/)

Personally, I think we'll get there in a year or two.

------
jerguismi
I like gittip, but it really needs international payouts. I don't see much
point collecting these tips for 1st world programmers, who probably don't need
them that much. For developers in 3rd world countries, even small monthly tips
could make a huge difference.

~~~
jordanmessina
Just because someone is a first world programmer doesn't mean tipping them
couldn't make a huge difference. If someone is doing something that makes the
world better for the rest of us, and tipping them means they can spend even
more time on that, then we all win.

Look at <https://www.gittip.com/freakboy3742/> . $500/week gets him one full
day dedicated to Django dev.

~~~
fusiongyro
That's nice, but $500/week might get you two full-time programmers in India.
Cost of living is a huge factor in determining programmer salary.

~~~
jordanmessina
Find me two Russell Keith-Magees that will work for $250/week and you have a
valid argument.

~~~
fusiongyro
We're not debating that. We're debating whether or not gittip should support
international payments, and the point is that small amounts of money here are
much more significant in countries like India.

~~~
jordanmessina
There is no debate as to whether or not gittip should support international
payments. It absolutely should and they're already trying to figure it out:
<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/126>

I don't understand the point of mentioning the obvious economics of tips in
third world countries. It doesn't matter where someone lives, if they're the
best for the job then I'm going to tip them. Hopefully it helps them free up
some time to work on amazing things.

~~~
fusiongyro
It would be a lot more fun to converse with you if your attention spanned all
the way back to the beginning of the conversation.

~~~
whit537
Hey, whoa, easy tigers! Yes, Gittip needs to solve the non-US payouts problem,
and yes, Gittip can and should work for people in many different parts of the
world with many different standards of living.

------
kriro
I really like the idea especially for things like blogs and so forth.

I love the picture of the kid reading that you used but I have some
reservations about what you use it for.

I think it might be somewhat dangerous to crowdfund or tip for Open Source
projects. There's some research in behavioral economics that suggests mixing
social norms and market norms is not a good idea.

In essence someone is more likely to help you if you offer them nothing than
if you offer them 1$ because if you offer nothing the social norms and "help
your neighbor" kicks in whereas if you offer them 1$ they apply market
standards and think something like "WTF only 1$...GTFO"

I think anonymous tips might actually not show this effect not sure if there
is any research in that regard.

Maybe tipping non-monetary stuff would be better. I.e. keep a counter and once
the money to buy item X is reached the guy being tipped gets that. Developer
conferences, hardware and so forth are obvious candidates.

[A good pop-book on the topic I liked is "Predictably Irrational" by Dan
Ariely...he also has a TED Talk on this iirc]

~~~
japhyr
_I love the picture of the kid reading that you used but I have some
reservations about what you use it for._

I didn't use that picture lightly. That is my son, and I am pretty interested
in the different ways he will be able to consider supporting himself. I
believe that Gittip has the potential to support people's livelihoods. I don't
know how many people it will support, but it will be interesting to see how
this plays out.

[edit] That said, it was a fun picture to set up last year. :)

------
alan57
I love this because the founder gets compensated the same way users do.

~~~
whit537
:D

------
japhyr
OP here, nice to see Gittip get positive attention every week.

I am really looking forward to seeing non-programmers on the leaderboard. That
is nothing against programmers; it would just be a clear sign that the Gittip
model has generalized to more than just os work.

Chad, are you aware of anyone receiving tips who is not involved in
programming? I looked through the long list of people who have signed up, but
most have zero tips so far. It might be interesting to post a table that lists
user, tagline, and current funding level. I thought I saw a list by funding
level once, but I can't seem to find it right now.

~~~
whit537
We just started adding Twitter support two weeks ago, so we're just getting
started with non-programmers. Here's a few early adopters I'm aware of:

<https://www.gittip.com/joshuasven/>

<https://www.gittip.com/eriiicam/>

<https://www.gittip.com/umemusic/>

Maybe this is the page you saw?

<https://www.gittip.com/about/goals.html>

------
pixie_
Seriously, how does gittip get upvoted consistently to the front page all the
time? And.. nevermind I just answered my own question, he tweets the link to
the HN article. I have to start doing that with my own projects as well..

Anyways, it's been a neat idea, but at this point I'd say pivot.

~~~
japhyr
Many projects grow organically, day to day, but Gittip's funding cycle
naturally brings it to people's attention each week. It makes me think about
whether I can identify natural check-in points for my own projects.

~~~
whit537
Yeah, the weekly rhythm has been a serendipitous boon to Gittip's growth.
Definitely something to consider when building something.

------
mparramon
So how is this different from Flattr (<http://flattr.com/>), apart from
recurring instead of one-time payments?

~~~
whit537
Start here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4239247>

The update is that I hung out with Flattr's bizdev, @gaiapunk, at #xoxofest,
and we had a great time. I love the spirit and vision behind Flattr. IMO their
hands are tied because they're a traditional pound-of-flesh business. Gittip
is funded on Gittip.

~~~
mparramon
That was very clarifying, thanks!

~~~
whit537
:^)

------
drivingmenuts
Does Gittip also earn interest on money that sits in it's accounts waiting to
be tipped out?

~~~
whit537
No. If anyone does, it'd be Balanced, our payment processor. Here's the Gittip
ticket about this:

<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/279>

------
whit537
I love this because it's from an educator, not a programmer.

