[jlgaddis]

> ... we have raised over $10,000 towards open source sustainability.

In October, they brought in $7,437.20 from sponsors. They paid out $3,413.20 to open source developers.

40% was to be paid out to developers. I realize there are some "administrative costs" and it takes a while to ramp things up but that seemed like way too little being paid out.

On the other hand, that's $3,413.20 that otherwise might not have went into the pockets of developers so I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about Code Sponsor.

[git-pull]

This isn't directed at the commenter, but the concept above: Can we all come to an agreement that a person running an endeavor be permitted to feed, cloth, and accomodate themselves reasonably?

Specifically, this crab mentality of dashing hopes of someone ending up right side up on a side project or even a nonprofit. Why pick on the little guys who are just trying to get by, especially if they have a noble intention of funding open source projects.

This is something that we really need, and I feel larger organizations that fund open source - not naming names - aren't transparent or egalitarian enough with who and how they fund. So many people do open source and don't see a penny from it. In 2017, if you want to receive any funding for an open source project, you have to be in a certain social circle, very popular, or very fortunate.

There are organizations that horde millions in cash reserves and give six figures to people just for sitting on a board. Then, there are people just trying to bootstrap themselves on a shoestring budget to buy groceries and pay rent to their roommate. It is my sincere hope we are more generous to people just trying to scrape by and not trying to unduly hound them and guilt trip them into not being able to pay their basic living expenses.

$3,413.20 over a period of four months? Thankfully he also had a day job, because we also don't know if he had other developers, or what were his true needs were to be able to sustain his project.

[TAForObvReasons]

> reasonably

If the split happened to be 80%/20% or 90%/10%, then no one would complain even if the author was pocketing $1M/mo. In fact, I and many other people would likely be ecstatic.

However, knowing the actual split, and knowing that the majority of funding didn't actually go to developers, it's a lot more difficult to make the social argument at this time. It necessarily falls back on the practical question of whether it is effective to advertise in the READMEs. Most of the previous sponsors were drawn into the social cause but not necessarily the practical effectiveness of the ads themselves.

Even though it's not a charitable cause, they are trying to make the same appeals. And if a charitable organization was eating away more than 50% of the donations in administrative costs, you would likely be very wary.

[git-pull]

That evades the point and reintroduces the same thought pattern I've criticized in my original post.

> Even though it's not a charitable cause, they are trying to make the same appeals. And if a charitable organization was eating away more than 50% of the donations in administrative costs, you would likely be very wary.

The funding is low, less than a fast food worker. The person running the operation couldn't even pay his own rent to run it out of an apartment.

Before we start slicing up the pie, we need to have the funds reach a point where they can sustain themselves. For instance, basic living expenses in midwestern US. Funds after administrative costs should be the pie.

We have to stop shaking down people who want to help open source when they ask for funding. It's as if whenever someone tries to fund an open source project or create a way to fix this problem funding in open source, they're hounded and dogpiled.

I've seen this sort of entitled, stingy attitude on the part of open source users, that despite using open source software to their benefit, those doing the work behind the scenes are shamed for trying to sustain themselves.

It's this strange double bind: first you want your software working, new features, and that bug fixed, but the one's facilitating that very thing for you can't have the material means to do it without being shook down.

When I see 10k in funding, less than poverty wage in USA, and people talking about it as if it was a prize pool instead of operating expenses, that's the mentality I'd like to see done more thoughtfully.

[cavneb]

You make some great points. I do have one correction though:

> Most of the previous sponsors were drawn into the social cause but not necessarily the practical effectiveness of the ads themselves

This is true for a few of the sponsors, but not the majority. The majority were drawn into Code Sponsor because it can be as effective as Google Ads, while 40% of the marketing funds go back into developers pockets.

Code Sponsor was never presented to sponsors as a charitable organization, nor did we try to present ourselves as such to the community.

Here is the gist that I shared with sponsors to explain how Code Sponsor worked:

https://gist.github.com/cavneb/a86a668063328de2f063ba9c7d078...

[cavneb]

Thank you so much for this! :hugs:

[cavneb]

Hi. This is Eric, the founder of Code Sponsor. I appreciate your concern here. Please understand that for the last four months, I’ve been getting up at 5am and working till 7:30. I then would go to my day job every day and then get back to Code Sponsor in the evenings. I also worked every weekend. It was a huge struggle for me and my family to put in the time.

The reason I had a 40% rate was in hopes that I could make the business sustainable enough to pay me. Not once did I take a distribution.

[nh2]

Thanks for your effort on it. I had high hopes for Code Sponsor.

It's a shame that Github is forcing Code Sponsor to shut down.

I encourage you to wait until Github's time is over, and then to try again.