

Is personal funding viable? - whit537
http://blog.gittip.com/post/26505682007/is-personal-funding-viable

======
MrFoof
> _Is personal funding viable?_

Here's a question: What verifiable documented successes exist in the world?

The one that always comes to my mind is Dwarf Fortress. It's not open source,
but Tarn Adams has gone with the donation-ware model since January of 2007.
I've been tracking those numbers since, and recently have attempted to start
getting data on community size where that's also verifiable:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhPaW9RBi5v4dGF...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhPaW9RBi5v4dGFYZ05PVTY4dGxxSVBVVXUzY3dkTFE)

> _Instead we should expect a few people to tip a lot, and a long tail of
> people to tip a little._

Based on anecdotes, this doesn't surprise me, but I'd certainly be curious to
have a look at hard data. I know in the case of Dwarf Fortress about 1% of Bay
12's income is from one person: me. Additionally, I'm aware of other big
tippers as well.

However to get back to my original question, if folks could provide links or
other sources to other successful donation-funded endeavors that aren't
humanitarian efforts or fitting the typical charity mold, I'd be interested in
hearing about it.

~~~
whit537
Love seeing data, MrFoof! Thank you. To me those numbers establish Tarn Adams
as a successful example of personal funding.

I want to see a culture of people funding each other. I want Tarn Adams to
have been ahead of the curve.

------
ForrestN
I think that it will be quite difficult to make this possible exclusively from
individuals. Unless there were a threat that the projects will stop, or an
offer of doing more that's pretty clear, most don't have a strong incentive to
give. Something like kick starter helps to solve this in a way tipping
doesn't.

What about a sponsorship component? Facilitating companies sponsoring a
programmer? Their github page gets a logo or something, and they get a bit
check each month. It's not a new model. Skateboarding, for example, which has
no practical use aside from entertainment, often works this way I think. Many
skaters earn their living from sponsorship and make next to nothing from
competitions or whatever else.

If there were a major github competitor (maybe there is, I'm not so much in a
position to know), the rivals might also pay these figures to work on the
projects they control on their platforms. It helps Github immensely to have
all these projects on its platform.

~~~
boralben
I think sponsorship is a great idea. Look at the success Meetup has had with
this strategy. The nice thing about sponsorship money is that once a contract
is signed, the revenue will be consistent month to month.

The payoff for the sponsoring company will be the good reputation it gets from
that developer ecosystem. There could even be a way to connect this
sponsorship to recruiting developers from that ecosystem as employees (the
bonus being that they are already familiar with this project)

~~~
whit537
I made a ticket for this:

<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/106>

------
Draiken
Unfortunately I think only the internet stars have even a chance of living
like this... The irony is that these superstars normally already have huge
paychecks :/

~~~
astrofinch
Agreed. This system rewards getting attention from the public, not necessarily
adding lots of valuable features.

~~~
whit537
Yeah, this is the most serious criticism I've heard so far.

------
jlarocco
This seems really strange, to me. Isn't it basically working around an
arbitrary, self-imposed restriction to give code away?

As a developer, if I want to make money from one of my projects, I'll charge
people to use it or to buy a copy. If I can't sell enough copies to fund
development, I don't see how I would ever be able to fund development with
"tips."

As a user, I don't mind paying for software, and I don't think many people do.
Most people realize that it takes time and skill to create a piece of
software, and that the people creating it could have spent that time doing
something else.

~~~
awsum
You just don't getting open-source right.

------
prawn
Looked at one of the suggested profiles and they'd clocked under $4 and I
thought "That's not even a beer." Made me think.

What about a site along similar lines - FridayBeer or whatever - that perks up
via social media and supporters at the end of each week. You're having a
knock-off drink in the final hours of your working day, or heading off to the
pub and the site asks who or what made a difference to your week. Someone's
work on an open source project meant that you continued earning a living.
Maybe someone else was out there volunteering in the muck while you had it
comparably easy in your office. Perhaps it's just a Twitter user or HN
commenter who shared an appreciated article you might otherwise not have seen.
Shout a beer or, if you're generous, a carton/case.

I think I've seen virtual buy-a-coffee or shout-a-beer sites, but can't
remember them being a regularly scheduled thing that makes you consider who
you'd like to thank in that moment.

------
TimJRobinson
I love this concept!

Another idea that could work well is partnering up with some influential
bloggers / open source evangelists and holding an international "Feed a coder"
day, which brings awareness to the open source community and asks people to
make a donation to their favourite projects / libraries / Wordpress plugins on
that day.

There are a lot of Wordpress Bloggers out there who would be happy to donate
to their favourite plugin authors but just haven't and this could push them
over the line (this is just one community I'm quite involved with).

~~~
whit537
Yes, please! How do we make this happen?

Are you on GitHub? Can we move this conversation there?

<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/109>

------
pdeuchler
This is pretty cool. Hopefully this will encourage more people to not only
develop more for open source, but also encourage those open source heavy
developers to possibly invest more or all of their time.

------
kiba
I see that it supports credit cards, but it doesn't support bitcoin.

~~~
kingkilr
Yes, that could be related to the fact that bitcoin isn't something anyone
with any familiarity with economics should take seriously. (For the purposes
of this comment "familiarity with economics" should be understood to mean: has
so much as shopped in a grocery store).

~~~
whit537
Mind saying more or linking? I keep hearing strong opinions against bitcoin
but haven't heard details.

~~~
nhaehnle
The most clear-cut argument against Bitcoin is that it is a ridiculous waste
of energy. The nature of mining in the protocol implies that if Bitcoin takes
off on any significant scale, there is a dichotomy going on: either there are
so few miners that single large actors can dominate the total hashing power of
the network, making it vulnerable; or, a significant fraction of the total
world computing power goes towards mining - which means that the electricity
used up by the Bitcoin network would be much larger on any reasonable measure
than what you need to maintain other currencies. Wasting energy is not exactly
a good plan for the future.

~~~
2367o1
Note how ridiculous the counter arguments.

I too have made this argument several times and I have gotten similar nonsense
in response.

I recall reading a story about some guy who was visited by police as they
thought he was running an indoor pot growing operation, only to find after
searching the premises that he was a bitcoin miner. It takes quite a power
surge to draw that kind of attention from police. Bitcoin is geeky, and maybe
it's idealistic in some good ways, but it's not "green" and it's not
practical.

What happens when there's a loss of electricity?

Do we fallback to paper currency then?

~~~
sgornick
Bitcoin payments for person-to-person can be done on mobile. Merchants can run
their own point-of-sale or use a hosted solution (or, us a mobile / tablet,
just like an individual).

For merchants, just like if VISA/Mastercard/Debit card, etc., goes out due to
power problems (and there there is no battery backup or local generation), a
merchant can't accept payments until power is restored.

As far as power outages for those mining -- there is no disturbance to Bitcoin
even for lots of power distruptions. If the entire world goes dark, your
inability to spend bitcoins will be the least of your problems.

------
jay_kyburz
Hey Whit, kill the weekly payment thing and make tips one off payments. Have a
look at the freemium model that is all the rage these days. Apparently players
hate subscriptions and would much rather pay for one off consumables.

Also, allow tips of any size. $2048 or $4096 would not be crazy.

~~~
whit537
Sounds like a fork. :-)

------
juanbyrge
What's wrong with them getting jobs?

~~~
kingkilr
We have jobs right now, it's not like we're hobos. But if you ask any open
source developer what's stopping them from adding cool new feature X, fixing
bug Y, or starting project Z that they're excited about the answer
distribution will look like:

25% - I haven't needed that yet 75% - I don't have the time .00001 % - That is
completely technically infeasaible

(Numbers may not add up to 100 after rounding).

I'll write on my personal blog later today why you should care about all of
that, but that's the view from 10,000 feet.

~~~
whit537
For the record: <http://alexgaynor.net/2012/jul/04/why-personal-funding/>

