I was thinking this too, and also thinking about who even gets paid. Like say I start an open source project and work on it for a few years, build a reputation and user base, and the registry is paying me.
I decide to step down, and nominate a trusted contributor as the new maintainer. Do I deserve to still get part of those payments? If so, what percentage do I get, and what does the new maintainer get?
I recently actually did take over maintenance for a Rust crate that was unmaintained and archived (but still widely used). The two (former) maintainers are still active, working on a related piece of software. Would I then deserve to get a cut of payments? Should the original maintainers still get something? Sure, I'm putting in lots of time and work now, but in total I've spent less than 1% of the time they have.
I guess you could adopt what I'd think of as the employment-based method. Whoever is actively maintaining gets payments, and that's it. That feels unsatisfying somehow, though. Ultimately every project would have to decide how to divide the payments, and that feels hard to do equitably in many cases. That's going to create resentment and hurt feelings.
Not saying that invalidates the idea, but it does make it harder on people in practice.
The active maintainer(s) get paid for doing ongoing work, the same as any other job. That creates incentive to be the maintainer of a project. If the maintainer(s) isn't/aren't active, then there should be incentive for someone else to take over. Same as any other job.
Just have npm pay the owner of the package. Let the owner handle the money distribution. It doesn't have to be hippie BS all the way down to be better than what we have. You people sometimes.
I decide to step down, and nominate a trusted contributor as the new maintainer. Do I deserve to still get part of those payments? If so, what percentage do I get, and what does the new maintainer get?
I recently actually did take over maintenance for a Rust crate that was unmaintained and archived (but still widely used). The two (former) maintainers are still active, working on a related piece of software. Would I then deserve to get a cut of payments? Should the original maintainers still get something? Sure, I'm putting in lots of time and work now, but in total I've spent less than 1% of the time they have.
I guess you could adopt what I'd think of as the employment-based method. Whoever is actively maintaining gets payments, and that's it. That feels unsatisfying somehow, though. Ultimately every project would have to decide how to divide the payments, and that feels hard to do equitably in many cases. That's going to create resentment and hurt feelings.
Not saying that invalidates the idea, but it does make it harder on people in practice.