Ugh, not again! First they introduce a Package Registry that not only splits the ecosystem in two parts but also has no open governance or even open source code. Great.
Now they are doing the same thing with donations. Instead of collaborating with already open platforms (like OpenCollective or LiberaPay), they decide to build their own closed-source platform.
I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open source developers, but doing it via a closed-source platform they developed on their own, they are effectively saying they don't care about "open development", they just want to be the one-stop for everything open source as to not lose mind-share of developers.
I'd be wary of joining this program and I urge people to get involved with something like OpenCollective instead, which is a open project you can actually contribute to. It also helps that OpenCollective's success is based on it's members success. "GitHub Sponsors" isn't as well aligned with you as a developer, as OpenCollective et al.
Obviously, I'm a bit biased, as I run a project for creating transparent open source infrastructure. But I do think this is a important issue, and I'm getting more and more scared GitHub is out to make open source development more ivory tower-like.
I'm not sure what OP is complaining about. From GitHub's announcement it's clear that there's also a new functionality to make it easy for projects to link to whatever funding platform they use. Open Collective is mentioned specifically:
> Open source projects can also express their funding models directly from their repositories. When .github/FUNDING.yml is added to a project’s master branch, a new “Sponsor” button will appear at the top of the repository. Clicking the button opens a natively rendered view of the funding models listed in that file.
> The YAML format is flexible, so a project’s maintainers and contributors can decide how they want to fund the project on their own terms. They can showcase any (or all!) of the following: the GitHub Sponsors profiles of the developers who contribute to the project; a list of popular funding models including Open Collective, Community Bridge, Tidelift, Ko-fi, and Patreon; and custom links to alternative funding models.
I'm complaining about that this feature is not trying to improve the ecosystem long-term for open source developers.
It's great that you can now have a fancier link to OpenCollective. Thank you for that, Githubbers who are reading the HN comments. But it feels like smoke-and-mirrors.
The real announcement is the other, built-in funding platform they built. Which, if they wanted to, could have been built entirely on something open, instead of their own stuff. There is no special features that for example OpenCollective does not already have.
Instead they (not surprisingly) continue to walk down the path of closed platforms, while cheering for open source.
> It's great that you can now have a fancier link to OpenCollective. Thank you for that, Githubbers who are reading the HN comments.
It improves discoverability, which is important enough that it's a big part of why people use GitHub. It might just be me, but that seems like it might benefit open source developers no matter what platform they use.
In the short-term, I think a lot of open source developers will get funding, who might not have gotten it otherwise. But I'm not too optimistic of a future where GitHub, as a closed platform, basically owns open source.
Copying from another comment I made:
> But with the new owner who sees GitHub as a way to get marketshare of developers, and not as it's own entity, it's hard to continue to cheer on them. When Microsoft have to either increase profits/decrease expenses and they choose between Azure and GitHub, I'm pretty sure the effort will either be to decrease the expenses of GitHub, or increase the profits of Azure. None of those two ways are good for the users of GitHub in the long-term.
An integrated payment solution is going to attract a far greater numbers of sponsors than telling everyone to go to sign up for a subscription on external sites.
Integrated authentication, existing credit cards on file, unified billing, giving more visibility to sponsors, allow projects to effectively monetize high traffic project pages with ad-space for sponsors and potential benefits like priority support is going to have a far larger impact for incentivizing funding and sponsorship than linking to a number of different external sites off to the side.
I'm sure this is a welcome and long awaited feature for many devs who would love more funding around their OSS efforts.
> An integrated payment solution is going to attract a far greater numbers of sponsors than telling everyone to go to sign up for a subscription on external sites.
I agree, and I'm not saying GitHub should have just added a redirect to OpenCollective and called it a day.
But they did have the choice to integrate OpenCollective. Basically, the same UI they have now, they could have built on top of OpenCollective, without any losses of features. But, they would have lost a lot of data and other interesting things that can help GitHub/Microsoft develop other features in other services.
And I'm sure it was a conversation on the product team (or whoever came up with it), but eventually got dropped for for some reason.
Why would they limit themselves to the features of integrating multiple external sites when they can build the features, integration, velocity and product direction they want without being beholden to external stake holders with different values and motivations.
GitHub's effectively the home of OSS development, with great UX and design aesthetics, they definitely don't need to delegate for help in building out their own product.
The only stake holders who would benefit by redirecting to external sites, are the external providers themselves as it would end up with a worse UX and fragmented and limited experience, which is exactly what you don't when wanting to attract sponsorship, it should be as easy, seamless and integrated as possible.
Microsoft have two choices with the direction of GitHub:
Use it as a loss-leader to get developer mindshare and get more people to use what they actually get a profit from, Azure and others.
Or, they can use GitHub to build a open platform for the entire ecosystem.
What of these two options are the best for users of the platform? I'm sure one option is better for the shareholders of Microsoft/GitHub, but I'm more interested in the value for the users, many who are open source developers.
Of course, they don't have to collaborate with the rest of the ecosystem. But if they were truly interested in making the open source ecosystem better, without any compromises, they would have built something different than what was launched today.
> The only stake holders who would benefit by redirecting to external sites, are the external providers themselves
Sure, if you think of it as OpenCollective vs GitHub. But in the end, open source developers are the ones who should be benefiting from whatever choice they make (that's my naive hope at least). And the choice they made was to improve short-term mindshare, in front of long-term open source sustainability.
For me, GitHub have become an essential open source infrastructure project. But, the platform itself is nowhere near open, and every new feature they seem to be launching, is closed-source and _aims_ to fracture the existing ecosystems the feature touches.
> Use it as a loss-leader to get developer mindshare
Right, that's why they paid 7.5B to acquire GitHub and are further investing in it to be more appealing to developers and gain even more mind share.
> Or, they can use GitHub to build a open platform for the entire ecosystem.
Is that code for not shipping developer focused features they've released since acquiring GitHub? Most of the features like free private repos and package repositories have been well received.
> What of these two options are the best for users of the platform?
For users, definitely all the features they're taking advantage of now that didn't exist before.
> Sure, if you think of it as OpenCollective vs GitHub.
I'm purely viewing it from the developer's perspective on what would attract more funding/sponsorship, which is by far the more convenient and integrated solution for all reasons already mentioned in my previous comments above.
I view this as a massive potential that could spur on a whole new wave of sustainable OSS development similar to what YouTube/Twitch are doing for content creators. This was never a consideration of GitHub before but with this announcement it's now become a strategic focus which I hope will be continually improved on over time.
Perhaps this is all a ploy to encourage us to get our credit cards on file with Github? They don't have my card details, and I don't intend to change that. I'll look for other means to donate to the open source projects I want to support, but it does not involve giving Microsoft Github my bank account details.
Does Github and Microsoft have a habit of stealing money from people? I’d be more worried about giving my info to some random open source “collective” group that has considerably less experience with compliance and security.
The down votes you have should indicate the general opinion here, but;
Microsoft's takeover of GitHub is generally considered in the open source community as a negative.
After all, Microsoft's behaviour indicates a generally opposing ideology.
With regards privacy, Microsoft is up there with the worst of them (a la Facebook) with their telemetry, at the very least.
Beyond that, Microsoft has a ( perhaps rightly so) capitalist agenda which doesn't fit with open source.
In case you missed the mass exodus from GitHub on the announcement of their takeover, those that value the freedoms of Libre generally are not in favour of a Microsoft GitHub.
Giving GitHub your bank details can be reasonably synonymised with giving Microsoft your bank details and giving them a cut of the money you intended to give to a developer.
At this point, all the additions to GitHub that Microsoft are making, demonstrate how disconnected they are from that community.
Alternatives such as open collective are quite well regarded in this community and their ideology aligns like Microsoft's never will.
Worse comes to worse, you can ask a developer for a PayPal, Bitcoin or plain old bank details and just send money straight you them.
I'm not saying there are not those for whom this will be of value, but GitHub as-was is no more and ideally if some neutral party willing to host an open source, libre alternative were to show themselves, or would be more desirable than a Microsoft GitHub, for this community.
To present my anecdotal example; I don't run Windows, I don't have an Xbox, I don't have my bank details in GitHub; Microsoft is up in the top-list of companies that don't (willingly) get my bank details.
> Obviously, I'm a bit biased, as I run a project for creating transparent open source infrastructure. But I do think this is a important issue, and I'm getting more and more scared GitHub is out to make open source development more ivory tower-like.
This point is brought many times. Why use GitHub if we can host git repositories anywhere? (A: GitHub providers discovery). Why use GitHub PRs if we have mailing lists? (A: GitHub has better UX).
The same is with their Sponsors program, registering billing method and clicking on a button is all that's needed. No separate sites with different UI.
For the record I'm also not happy with the centralized structure of it (it reminds me of early Google), but I get why it's getting popular.
> This point is brought many times. Why use GitHub if we can host git repositories anywhere? (A: GitHub providers discovery). Why use GitHub PRs if we have mailing lists? (A: GitHub has better UX).
Using Github as a git repo hoster is okayish in the sense that it does not lock your code in. Using Github as a central management tool is problematic, but still manageable.
But this introduces money into the game, and it's dangerous. Github will be the gatekeeper for money flows. It's the same for Patreon, but Patreon has less incentives to lock the whole Open Source ecosystem into their products (Github: hosting, code, issues, PRs, pages with CNAMEs!, package registry and now financial transactions).
My bet is that due to the current state of the ecosystem, people will jump on it and forget that Microsoft is behind all of this. We need organisations which are forced to be open and collective to handle Open Source, not privately owned corporate.
I love the UX of GitHub and don't get me wrong, I use and depend on GitHub for my day-to-day work and also my own hobbies.
I do understand that people like it as well. It's so easy to get started and it just works, most of the time.
But it just doesn't sit well with me, that we as open source developers, are depending on a platform that is closed-source for so much. I think I could see past that, if GitHub in itself was sustainable.
But with the new owner who sees GitHub as a way to get marketshare of developers, and not as it's own entity, it's hard to continue to cheer on them. When Microsoft have to either increase profits/decrease expenses and they choose between Azure and GitHub, I'm pretty sure the effort will either be to decrease the expenses of GitHub, or increase the profits of Azure. None of those two ways are good for the users of GitHub in the long-term.
(I made this comment in another Github related post, but to repeat:)
If you view Github as just a Git (and occasionally static site) hosting service, then there's not lock-in whatsover; you can always move to somewhere like Gitlab or host your own. But the point is: Github isn't just a Git website anymore; it creates a community around it. Right now the reason why people aren't easily moving out of Github is because by moving to somewhere else, they have to risk getting less views, less recognition, and less pull requests for their libraries. Also, if you were a Sponsor in Github and earning $30000 a month and then had disagreements with Github's policies and want to get out, you now have to risk shaving off all your sponsors to switch to a different service like Liberapay. Maybe some of your passionate existing patrons will go towards the extra effort to switch alongside you, but the reality is: most won't.
There were lots of promises and hopes for the patron economy (or I would extend this to call it a "distributed economy"), where people can directly give money as reward for their work while avoiding the traditional hierarchical structure of corporations. However, because of the nature of the current society we live in, the ideal version of this economy would never come to fruition. Think of examples such as Patreon, Youtube, and recently Github; they're an enabler for diverse communities, rich subcultures, and innovative ideas, but the users still have to live under the guise of huge capitalistic forces. It seems that the distributed economy still has to live under the current technocratic system (where huge tech corporations have much higher leverage than small companies or non-profit organizations). To see this relationship between users and corporations as either symbiotic or exploitative is up to your choice, but I think the status-quo will stay for quite some time.
I'm not saying "open development" is not important but your message reads like its dismissive of people with different goals.
I'm a developer, I might create some tool for my needs and share it with others. I've got other income sources so there's no need for me to charge money for it. I just put it on GitHub as the easiest thing I can do to allow others benefit from it.
In some sense I would be open source developer. I don't care about "open development" though, I don't spend time pondering about software philosophy and its place in the world.
If there's a will to donate some money to me so I can justify spending some more time on the tool to make it more accessible in any way then I want the simplest way for both sides to facilitate the transaction.
Same goes for me being on the other side. I see a library I'd like to use, I believe author(s) made a good job, I'd like the library to be maintained, I want to pay for that with as little traction as possible. I don't care if the author created the library because he believes in "free software" or was simply bored and again, GitHub was the most convenient channel to share.
The same way I don't care what philosophy lies beneath music producer's work and what tools do we use while I'm paying him for his tutorials as long as it works for both of us.
That's fine and all. I'm not really involved in that side of things (consuming/producing open source libraries) and I think that side of open source is working fine, albeit it could be better (like most things).
What I'm mainly thinking about, is the running infrastructure. The live servers that are serving requests and providing a service to open source developers.
Some of these services are just nice to have.
Others are services we 100% depend on to get anything done nowadays.
The npm Inc registry is a good example. Imagine that the registry disappears tomorrow. Probably most JS developers would struggle until a alternative becomes clear and most people migrate there.
But just having the risk of having for-profit companies run these pieces of critical open source infrastructure, is a big risk for me as a open source developer.
This open source infrastructure is what I'm scared about, because we basically have no good solutions yet, for running open source infrastructure.
I understand that and that's why I haven't said there's anything wrong with your opinion or that I disagree.
Yes, we'd all love to have our tools (repository, package hosting, CIs, ...) both satisfying our needs and be free of whims of for-profit companies.
Some of us simply don't care that much as long as what we have now works and I just wanted to append that to the conversation.
That's why I only said that your messagereads like... and not assumed you really believe the service is bad in overall just because it's bad within scope of one aspect that's close to your heart. :)
All the recent additions to Github are superficially very nice and convenient features (Actions, package registry, Sponsors, Dependabot).
But they represent a very significant change in mindset.
Github is turning from a neutral code hosting platform with a myriad of equally empowered third party integrations into the direction of a "all in one" dev tool and platform.
I understand the internal pressures to do this: increased popularity, added value proposition for customers, more revenue.
But: all the built-in tools will have an inherent advantage over third party solutions.
This also inevitably leads to increased lock-in and homogenization.
I was very critical of the Microsoft acquisition for similar reasons, and considering the monumental role Github represents for open source today, I am very sceptical of the way things are going.
We might very well regret centralizing everything open source around Github in a few years.
The problem here is not so much about open vs closed-source. GitHub is a large centralized social network controlled by corporation, and we should never expect a corporation to behave ethically because ethics too often contradict with commercial interests. There is so much possibility for abuse, they do censorship and there are ways in which they can discriminate against certain projects and licenses and promote others. Even if Microsoft or previous owners have not done anything bad with GitHub yet, it does not mean it is acceptable to give so much control and influence over the open-source community to a single commercial company.
Exactly. Always been like that and probably will always be like that.
But still, we as open source developers, use and basically at this point, need to have GitHub still up and running. But they are at the whims of profit. GitHub is today a critical piece of open source infrastructure most of us rely on.
Microsoft say they care about open source developers and now they are running the biggest platform for open source developers. They have the chance to turn GitHub into something that is not a profit-hungry monster, but they don't seem to want to go that route.
Because Microsoft is a profit-hungry monster and their "adoption" of open source was the only way they could stay alive longer. It never had to do with doing what is good for humanity.
I would really like to say that Microsoft is currently infiltrating the OSS world and pursuing their strategy, which they have successfully implemented dozens of times. Does anyone remember EEE[0]? If this is the case here, it would be the greatest successful coup in the history of the Internet.
Wrote the same in another comment.. it's kinda brilliant but sad to watch at the same time. Microsoft's Github guys are geniuses if this is a part of a long-running EEE strategy. And people fall for it, because they have no principles and values, on which they decide what's good or damaging for Open Source.
Get developers locked in to a centralized ecosystem like GitHub, spread the marketing far and wide you use tools based on centralized platforms, encourage developers to utilize frameworks and programming languages that have poor support for open source platforms, etc.
> they decide to build their own closed-source platform
How does it matter that the donation platform is closed-source? Open market principles still apply. People will (and should) use it as long as it's easy, efficient, cheap to donate to whoever you wish to donate. If the platform misuses their dominance, people will figure out and alternatives will emerge/thrive. Until then, why complicate things? Donation is not like a lock-in into some closed source technology.
Again, I'm biased but here comes my biased thoughts anyways:
> How does it matter that the donation platform is closed-source?
Yes, I do think it does matter. Actually, I think that every open source service we open source developers depend on, should be open source and run in the open as much as possible.
It's great if a for-profit company can survive being 100% transparent and with all code open source. So far, that's been very difficult to achieve, especially with the expectations from VC funding and high-growth startups.
So instead, we need a different model for open source infrastructure, where the users are more involved in the funding of the platform. With that, users should feel they know what the money goes to and where it comes from. To solve that, the platform needs transparency.
So yes, I'd argue that a core open source platform for open source developers, indeed needs to be open source and transparent.
> So instead, we need a different model for open source infrastructure, where the users are more involved in the funding of the platform. With that, users should feel they know what the money goes to and where it comes from. To solve that, the platform needs transparency.
I am myself a proponent of open source, but I don’t think it is reasonable to expect that this is going to happen.
Who contributes to open source?
To my knowledge, open source contributors can be divided into the following groups:
- People volunteering their own time.
- Companies open sourcing software they themselves developed, bought the rights to or got the rights to through aquiring another company.
- Companies contributing their bug fixes and feature additions to existing open source software. (Sometimes overlaps with previous group, sometimes not.)
- Non-profit organizations.
- People employed by educational institutions.
- Governmental institutions.
And the motivations that these groups have for contributing to open source vary wildly. Both from group to group but also within each of the groups as well.
Some of the possible motivations include:
- Believing in the ideals of the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
- Wanting to share cool stuff.
- Wanting to help others learn.
- Wanting to empower your fellow developers.
- Wanting to be empowered and in control of the software you run. Wanting freedom. Wanting to be able to run your software for any purpose and wanting to be able to modify your software in any way. Wanting to be able to run the software that you use today, tomorrow. Wanting to be in control of your data.
- Wanting to learn from others.
- Wanting to offer consulting other other paid services for people using your open source software, software that you contribute to, or software that you are skilled at using, modifying or integrating.
- Wanting the improvements that others outside of your company could bring to your software by you open sourcing it.
- Wanting to use existing, battle-tested open source software where you can instead of duplicating work and wasting hours while putting you at a competitive disadvantage compared to other businesses that make use of open source instead of needlessly reinventing the wheel.
- Wanting recognition from your peers.
And a million other motivations probably exist as well, but the ones I mentioned are the most obvious ones I can think of.
Given the list above, I think you will agree that a lot of the people involved in open source have no reason or motivation to reject the ongoing centralization.
Only if Microsoft does something with GitHub that has visibly negative effects on the specific motivations that someone has for contributing to open source will that person or group of people object.
My point is: Open source as a whole is moving in a direction counter to the one desired by some, such as yourself. For others it might not yet. And for yet others it might never. It all depends on why the person or the group of people is in open source in the first place.
I love that more people are figuring out ways to pay open source developers, but doing it via a closed-source platform they developed on their own, they are effectively saying they don't care about "open development", they just want to be the one-stop for everything open source as to not lose mind-share of developers.
I'd be wary of joining this program and I urge people to get involved with something like OpenCollective instead, which is a open project you can actually contribute to. It also helps that OpenCollective's success is based on it's members success. "GitHub Sponsors" isn't as well aligned with you as a developer, as OpenCollective et al.
Obviously, I'm a bit biased, as I run a project for creating transparent open source infrastructure. But I do think this is a important issue, and I'm getting more and more scared GitHub is out to make open source development more ivory tower-like.