[HN Gopher] I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
___________________________________________________________________
I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
Author : calebporzio
Score : 1144 points
Date : 2020-06-23 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (calebporzio.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (calebporzio.com)
| omot wrote:
| I honestly think that platforms like Github and Patreon is the
| future of universal basic income. I think as labor becomes
| deprecated due to globalization and automation, more and more
| people are going to quit their jobs and pursue more creative and
| meaningful endeavors.
|
| Obviously in the beginning, power law will take into effect where
| a few people will have enough income to thrive in these
| platforms. I do think that these platforms will eventually have
| more features like pooled donation, say you could donate to a
| collective of creators that you care about, will lead to
| significant portion of the economy to more meaningful work.
| zanny wrote:
| Proprietary rent seekers injecting themselves into paying for
| services so they can creme 5-20% off the top of all the money
| movement.
|
| Its basically the same thing credit cards do, but are more
| egregious because they also try to platform the creators. So
| you integrate them into one proprietary space you wholly
| control and can thus dominate industries by managing the purse.
|
| Its what almost every successful business nowadays does.
| Capture an audience and then shake down whatever they are
| coming to your platform for while holding the market ransom.
| Facebook and Google do this with advertisers, app / game stores
| with their 30% cuts, etc.
| NetBeck wrote:
| It's always great to read of someone making a living from what
| they love and a community supporting each other.
| wongarsu wrote:
| His data clearly shows most "sponsors" only sponsor him to view
| his webcasts. Is it really right to call that a sponsorship, as
| opposed to a subscription? What are the legal implications? (and
| yes, I'm aware that this is how most of patreon works too)
| kemitchell wrote:
| I'm a lawyer, but I can't give legal advice here. See
| https://notlegaladvice.law/.
|
| If you're interested in the issue, however, you might start by
| reading a little about "money transmitter" regulations. An
| early payments platform for open projects shut down at least
| partly on account of it. I suspect the concept of "perks"
| became widespread in part to differentiate fundraising
| platforms from money transmitters.
| muyuu wrote:
| I love his idea, the problem I have is that I hate github. Would
| it work outside of Github?
| wayneftw wrote:
| Gee, it sounds like using the proper channels works way better
| than trying to push trashy ads in an NPM postinstall script.
|
| Hopefully this story will help tone deaf people to make the right
| decision next time.
| gdsdfe wrote:
| wow kudos, I also find it generous that github takes no cut on
| this giving that they offer the service. Some people here are
| comparing with the pay at FAANG, you'll have to factor in the
| satisfaction of seeing your own ideas coming to fruition and the
| fact that you are free to do whatever the hell you want, anytime,
| anywhere. Is that worth the 200k+ difference? maybe, maybe not,
| it's up to you.
| jfengel wrote:
| Props. Well done.
|
| The thing that struck me most was the podcast appearance. I was
| distantly affiliated with the music industry at one point and I
| saw over and over the value of being in the right place at the
| right time. Great bands languish because they just weren't seen.
|
| I don't mean to diminish the work, either the technological or
| the effort of finding sponsors. I just want to caution about
| extrapolating success stories to utopianism. Success is more
| random than we'd like to believe, and there is a risk when
| failure leads to victim blaming.
| StevenRayOrr wrote:
| > Success is more random than we'd like to believe, and there
| is a risk when failure leads to victim blaming.
|
| An excellent sentiment, if less common these days than it
| should be. Reminds me of a quotation from Chapter XXV[0] of
| Machiavelli's _The Prince_ : "Nevertheless, not to extinguish
| our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter
| of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to
| direct the other half, or perhaps a little less."
|
| [0]:
| http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm#link2H...
| koheripbal wrote:
| Over the course of an entire lifetime, the random good vs bad
| luck tend to wash out and people usually end their lives
| financially roughly in line with their capabilities. - my
| personal opinion and experience.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| This seems very wrong.
|
| Looking at life as a massive state machine, I think it's
| clear that some parts of the state machine are much more
| beneficial than others. Luck often pushes people into a bad
| area or good area, and it can be quite difficult to
| transition out of that area of the state machine, for
| better or worse.
|
| Competency and hard work are obviously very important, but
| luck is an enormous factor as well. And luck, along with
| its compounding effects, is not uniformly distributed
| across all individuals.
| rcfox wrote:
| This is one of those things only people who have had way
| more good luck than bad could say.
| thebluehawk wrote:
| I would agree, with the caveat of "all else being equal".
| There is a danger in ignoring vast socioeconomic divides
| that can put people at a disadvantage that can make things
| more difficult for certain demographics.
| cvlasdkv wrote:
| Demonstrably false considering massive wealth inequality
| and poverty. It's incredibly harmful and uneducated to hold
| such a callous opinion. It also goes against the plentiful
| studies showing that socieconomic status (SES) is more
| significant predictor of success than almost any other
| attribute.
|
| Simple scenarios:
|
| - immigrants/refugees moving to a different country
|
| - getting visas in what is largely a lottery system
|
| - injury luck with respect to athleticism
|
| - access to equipment and instruments with respect to
| musical talent
|
| - slavery and generational poverty
|
| The idea that _capability_ is anywhere close to as
| important as luck fails so many simple tests (let alone
| empirical studies) that your statement offends me a little
| bit.
| troebr wrote:
| Back when I applied for an H1B visa, the chances that I'd
| be outright rejected was 30%. The next few years I
| believe it climbed to 60%. Just the fact that I found a
| company willing to apply to my visa involved a lot of
| luck. Even me being on the US before the H1B involved a
| lot of luck. Then luck to get the visa. So much of my
| career was based on luck. Sure, I seized some
| opportunities when they flew by, but it's not like I was
| steering super hard to make them happen. Some people will
| make success happen because they're super smart and
| relentless, but for a lot of people like me, I believe
| there's an incredible amount of luck involved.
|
| It kind of grinds my gears when some people give lessons
| on how to be successful and don't acknowledge that luck
| was a part of it.
| Bjartr wrote:
| What is it about luck that ensures it averages out over the
| time-span of a human lifetime? Seems a little
| anthropocentric of a viewpoint to me.
| icebraining wrote:
| Well, "luck" is a phenomenon of perception, not reality.
| Since it's people who perceive, being anthropocentric
| makes sense. On the other hand, that also makes it
| subjective, hence describing it may reveal more about the
| describer than the effect.
| gbacon wrote:
| "Luck is probability taken personally." - Chip Denman
|
| I'm amazed at how many comments piled up insisting that
| luck is a major or possibly the most significant factor.
| Even if true, what a self-defeating outlook. Every
| accusation is a confession.
| wins32767 wrote:
| Perhaps consider that some people are talking about luck
| as a way of reasoning about how we should organize
| society (if luck is a factor that may imply stronger
| safety nets) while others (like you, I'd gather) are
| talking about how to approach one's own life? That's how
| I've been reasoning about the discussion and it helps
| clarify things.
| wins32767 wrote:
| Cohorts that graduate into a recession earn less over the
| course of their lifetimes than cohorts that graduate into
| normal times. It can take a decade or more to catch back up
| to their earning potential, meanwhile those who graduated a
| year earlier or later able to earn compounding interest on
| their additional income.
|
| I find it hard to believe that birth year is strongly
| correlated with capabilities.
| cheriot wrote:
| That's seriously out of touch with the data. Play around
| with the animation tool at the bottom of this article: http
| s://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-y...
|
| The article it was created for is at https://www.nytimes.co
| m/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Our capabilities are also luck: genetics, access to
| education and compounding that the rich will enjoy more
| often. The homeless person from a broken home trying to
| stay alive is less capable of writing distributed software.
| On average. Yes there will be rags to riches stories that
| make great reads, and set the standard of the "insert
| country" dream.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Yeah; I have been trying to find ways to support my open source
| work and educational work over the past year, and I finally
| struck YouTube algorithm gold with a couple videos last
| month... but trying to replicate that success is hard.
|
| Sometimes I can spend days or more polishing a blog post or
| video and making it really good--and it falls flat.
|
| Other times I'll write up a post in an hour or so and it front
| pages on HN, gets traction on Reddit, etc.
|
| It seems more random than anything, though the fact that I've
| put in lots of hours on other content means I'm not starting
| from zero here.
|
| For GitHub sponsors, I didn't get any real traction until I
| explicitly started asking people to be a sponsor. I don't even
| have 'rewards' or anything... maybe that would help, maybe not.
| But it's still hard to get people to commit money to my cause,
| and I think the same skills are required for this that would be
| useful in nonprofits and charities soliciting donations.
| dfee wrote:
| So just checked out one of your videos, and you seem to have
| a good process.
|
| I recently bought a mic and a nice webcam (March) to do
| recordings and live streams, but got hung up on recording
| processing, etc.
|
| Don't know if it makes sense for you to do a meta video on
| that, or just share your thoughts on the OBS software and
| post processing, or if that'd be something worth reaching out
| to you on.
|
| Like you, I'm very engaged in OSS, so I'm happy you're seeing
| success!
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I wrote about it a bit earlier this year:
| https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/how-i-livestream-
| obs-...
|
| But I'm considering doing a little more in the realm of
| 'how its made' type videos, because you can do most of the
| things 'professional' video producers do on a budget,
| depending on how many nice things you want to do in a
| video.
| syndacks wrote:
| Hey there -- I came across your blog a year or so ago via the
| Rpi Drupal stack. Cool stuff.
|
| I didn't realize you had such a large YouTube presence. I'm
| curious how you got started. You seem to be quite interested
| in Ansible so I imagine you just started there and it grew
| organically?
|
| FWIW -- I'm looking to start making YouTube videos on full-
| stack web development. I used to be a high school teacher
| before teaching myself programming well enough to do it
| professionally so I think I'd be pretty good at this
| topic/market (entry-mid level). I'm just not sure exactly
| where to start, how to make myself standout compared to
| others doing the same thing, etc.
|
| Maybe you've written a blog post on this topic before you
| could direct me to? Is entry level full-stack web dev too
| broad? Thanks in advance, keep up the good work!
| geerlingguy wrote:
| There is a lot to it--sometimes it's just luck.
|
| I started live streaming one project pre-COVID. Then when
| lockdowns started, I used the experience I gained there to
| do my Ansible 101 series, and it kind of snowballed a bit
| from there.
|
| I also have a media production and communications
| background (from college / post-college days), which helps
| a lot, because even if the tech changes, the techniques
| don't.
|
| I started out doing video with a mini VHS camera that I put
| into an old Performa Mac through a TV capture card and I
| forget what NLE I used at that time. Then I jumped to
| MiniDV with some nice Canon SD equipment and got some good
| audio gear and worked from a G3/G4 with Final Cut Express
| for a while, before I stopped doing much video work for a
| decade.
|
| Skip forward a few years and now the whole world's 1080p
| minimum/4K often, and lighting and technique is way more
| important--but knowing the basics from back in the day
| means I can still make decent quality video with the
| equipment I have available.
| HugoDaniel wrote:
| yeah this is ripe for survivorship bias
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
| xiphias2 wrote:
| While what you write is true, quite often lead engineers of big
| open source projects quit working on the project because they
| get frustrated of all the people demanding features from them.
|
| As patreon got more successful over time and youtubers make
| part of their content payed, I would be surprised if many open
| source engineers without other revenue didn't adopt more of the
| sponsorware business model.
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| _Success is more random than we 'd like to believe_
|
| Perhaps, but I think a lot of people tend to say that, then
| conclude that they should just wait around for luck (not saying
| you're doing this, though).
|
| Another approach is to do everything you can (podcast
| appearances, for example!) to increase your "luck surface
| area".
| mavsman wrote:
| There's a saying: "Pray like it all depends on God. Work like
| it all depends on you." Adapt that to your belief system.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Work and prayer are not enough. While one's nose is to the
| grindstone, beavering away at whatever task, someone
| slightly wiser will notice some shortcut worth a year of
| diligent labor and prayer. The leisure time _that_ shortcut
| buys will enable the identification of other valuable
| knowledge... It may be better yet to join such ingenuity
| with the labor you 're talking about.
| gbacon wrote:
| But ingenuity is part of work. Granted, knowing when to
| take a step back from brute force is a skill that must be
| developed and one at which some seem to have stronger
| natural aptitude than others.
| jlbnjmn wrote:
| Yeah exactly this.
|
| Luck is arguably the most important variable, so optimize for
| it. It's less like buying lottery tickets and more like
| betting on horses but with outsized returns.
|
| If you bet on one horse, in one race, you'll probably lose
| and blame luck. But if you keep on betting, you're going to
| get lucky.
|
| 5% chance of success on a given attempt just means try 50
| times. Which is also why it's important to test ideas fast
| and cheap, killing bad ideas quickly.
|
| Practically speaking, who you know, who knows you, where you
| are, and when seem to be the external factors, and the number
| of distinct attempts seems to be the internal factor.
|
| Do you have any other insights to add?
| cvlasdkv wrote:
| > Perhaps, but I think a lot of people tend to say that, then
| conclude that they should just wait around for luck (not
| saying you're doing this, though).
|
| I'm curious as to why you think that? It could be cultural
| differences but I have never seen that behaviour except from
| those that are already depressed and have given up.
|
| IMO the simplest analogy for success is poker. You make the
| best decisions you can given the information you have. You
| adjust as new information is revealed. Ultimately, success or
| failure is less relevant than the process.
| gbacon wrote:
| Yet the same faces seem to show up over and over at the
| final table because some are better than others at
| executing the process, maintaining control of emotions,
| bankroll management, and so on.
| bluedino wrote:
| Comparing $90k as a W2 employee doesn't really compare to making
| $112k as a LLC or contractor. Taxes, health insurance,
| retirement...
|
| On the other hand, his amounts are going up, so I'm interested to
| see how high they will go, and what it will consistently level
| out at.
| encoderer wrote:
| You're right. The 112k as his own small business is far, far
| better. What he's built has real durable value and new people
| will continue to pay for old content.
| viklove wrote:
| Comparing _working_ as a W2 employee doesn 't really compare to
| _working_ as a contractor. Getting to choose your own hours,
| the direction of your project, who you get to work with, etc.
| is far more valuable to me than a bit more money.
| cpitman wrote:
| The article is the one that compared the two, saying that he
| now makes "more". It is completely correct that you cannot
| directly compare W2+Benefits to Contractor Revenue. The rule
| of thumb is to add 50% to a W2 salary to include health
| insurance and other benefits.
|
| So he is nearly there, but not yet.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| I worked as a contractor in 1099 for years. It was exactly
| the same as W2, except I had to pay estimated taxes 4 times a
| year. I didn't get to choose hours, direction, who to work
| with.
|
| I think you're confusing it with personal projects.
| balls187 wrote:
| > I didn't get to choose hours, direction, who to work
| with.
|
| There is nuance in that statement. The IRS has a test for
| whether a person is an employee or a contractor.
|
| https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/understanding-employee-vs-
| contr...
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| If you set the entity up correctly and work with a decent
| accountant, your $112k turns into more like $40k taxable, and
| if you are married, that $40k drops to $20k @ 10% + $20k @ 12%
| or ~ $4500 in taxes.
| avgDev wrote:
| This. In US there are many benefits of owning a business.
| Cars are an expense, home office is an expense, etc. When you
| work for someone else you don't have this flexibility but
| your risk is lower and you are not worried about finding
| clients.
| balls187 wrote:
| Its difficult to deduct cars as an expense--that is one of
| many expenses that the IRS will scrutinize.
|
| The broader point still remains, for a business (a 1099 is
| considered a sole-proprietorship) generally net income is
| taxed, and as a W2, your taxes are witheld per pay period.
| komali2 wrote:
| This is news to me so I'm just saying, if you wrote about
| this in more detail, I'd read the shit out of it.
| bklyn11201 wrote:
| I think what he's generally saying: aggressively deduct
| expenses used to support your business. This would include
| rent, home office, computers, phones to conduct business,
| business meetings, travel, health insurance, retirement,
| etc. Then the member and spouse would draw low salaries
| putting you in low income bracket and thus low taxation.
| The 2017 TCJA further reduced taxation for business owners
| via the Qualified Business Income (QBI 20%) deduction.
| jldugger wrote:
| I suspect a large part of it is a SEP IRA which lets you
| pack away like 57k in a tax advantaged account. Business
| deductions are almost like icing on the cake vs that.
| redisman wrote:
| Deductions sound good to people who haven't actually run
| a business or thought very hard about it. You have to be
| purchasing stuff to deduct. As a software engineer why
| not just not buy stuff since all you really need is a
| computer. Then you keep 100% of that money rather than
| 10%.
|
| Some outliers are home office and utilities and things
| like that.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > draw low salaries
|
| The IRS has rules (typically unenforced) regarding this.
| You are supposed to draw a salary that matches your job
| in your local area. So if you are based in Tinyton,
| Flyover State, you could probably get away with paying
| yourself $30k/yr, but in NYC (where I'm based), my
| accountant told me $70/hr is basically as low as I can
| safely go. So I do $70/hr and then $14/hr in my
| retirement account.
|
| The $70 turns into ~$78 after all the employer taxes add
| into it, and I take home only $52 after employee side of
| taxes are taken out of it.
| komali2 wrote:
| > safely
|
| What's the risk - audit? And if so, what's the risk from
| the audit? A fine for tax fraud? Jail time?
| distances wrote:
| In lots of countries you definitely can't deduct rent,
| non-business travel, health insurance, or retirement. And
| home office only if you have a dedicated room for it.
|
| I'm freelancing currently myself, and available
| deductions are honestly miniscule and well-defined.
| bluekite2000 wrote:
| What do you mean set up correctly? And how does 112K turn
| into 40K taxable?
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I'm not an accountant or tax lawyer, so this isn't advise,
| only my back of the envelope calculation, not even using
| things like the 172 deduction, or business expenses, but my
| estimate was actually way off almost double.
|
| Gross Income: $112k
|
| - SEP IRA 25%: -$28k
|
| - Owner Health Insurance: -$15k
|
| - 199-A Deduction (20%): -$12k
|
| Total business income for taxes: $47k
|
| - Married Filing Jointly Deduction: -$24k
|
| - Total taxable income: $23k
|
| Tax on $23k (10% of first $20k, 12% of next $3k): $2360
| bluekite2000 wrote:
| Do you use a service for bookkeeping?
| mNovak wrote:
| With S-corps you do have to actually pay yourself wages,
| thus incurring some FICA taxes. Rule of thumb I believe
| is 50% of net income, up to ~$100k. Given that, you can
| then also contribute (and deduct) as the company up to
| 25% of salary towards 401k
|
| Another gem many people don't know about is "Increasing
| Research Activities", for certain industries this
| essentially translates to 5-10% of your total payroll
| becoming a _credit_. That 's huge.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Many expenses related to the operation of the business
| become tax deductible. At minimum, that usually includes
| internet access, hardware/software upgrades, and
| potentially some % of your living space dedicated to the
| business. If you do it properly (usually via
| documentation), you can often include miles driven to
| meetings, professional travel, meals with customers,
| prospects, and contractors, and a ton of other things.
|
| And still none of that considers things like Simplified
| Employee Pension Plan (SEP), health insurance, home
| maintenance, etc, etc.
|
| The list can go on and on depending on the type of your
| business, jurisdiction, and supporting documentation.
|
| * Talk to someone about your local tax rules before taking
| action.
| hanniabu wrote:
| What in the world....mind sharing tips or any links where I
| can learn more about this?
| andrewzah wrote:
| Get a good accountant. They are seriously worth it.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| This advice is invaluable.
|
| I only pay my accountant around $2000 to handle a bunch
| of housekeeping at the end of the year that I'm to lazy
| to do during, and to file my taxes. For years I did my
| own taxes using Turbo Tax Self Employed and Turbo Tax
| Business Editions, but in 2016 I decided to outsource all
| of that headache, the first year, my taxes were half of
| what they were the year before with similar income. Then
| after the TCJA in 2017, my taxes were only 1/5th what
| they had been before the accountant, with close to double
| the raw income.
|
| The biggest changes from doing it myself: I got an
| accountant; I incorporated (s-corp) instead of doing
| self-employment income; I draw W2 income now (using
| Gusto); I set up a SEP-IRA and put 20% of my W2 earnings
| as an automatic debit from my business account (in
| Vanguard); TCJA chops off 20% of my distributions on my
| K1; and I'll state again, I hired an accountant.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Any advice on how to hire a good accountant vs one that
| just talk so they can charge a lot?
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I actually don't. I lucked into mine, he's the brother of
| a business partner.
|
| Almost every accountant out there will be better than an
| H&R Block or Turbo Tax.
| propogandist wrote:
| tax laws change routinely, so you'd be best off consulting
| an accountant
|
| somewhat relevant reading on what can be done if you're
| well versed with tax laws: https://scottestill.com/buy-new-
| used-car-2018-get-100-tax-de...
|
| Surprisingly, this dealer has an entire page dedicated to
| it this, and why you should buy one of their SUVs:
| https://www.landroverhuntvalley.com/business-tax-
| advantage.h...
| aj7 wrote:
| Aha. And now you understand why we don't have universal
| healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, and so much cash in the
| hands of the wealthy that interest rates are near zero.
| mullen wrote:
| I would like to point out that Universal Healthcare would
| be funded by a separate tax and probably would not come out
| of Income Taxes.
| caymanjim wrote:
| This is sorta already how it is in the US. While we
| obviously don't have universal healthcare, or a national
| pension, we do have Medicare/Medicaid and Social
| Security. These are separate than income tax. On your pay
| stub, it's the FICA ("Federal Insurance Contributions
| Act") deduction. There is also a smaller separate
| supplemental Medicare-specific tax. Federal income tax is
| a separate deduction.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I believe this is how the UK does it as well. You pay
| income tax, then you pay your NHS fee.
| aphexairlines wrote:
| the NHS is mostly funded from general taxation
|
| https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-
| nutshell/how-...
| mattlondon wrote:
| We pay a "national insurance" tax in addition to income
| tax, but this is mainly to cover the state pension from
| what I understand and maternity allowance etc.
|
| As I understand it, NHS comes from general taxation.
|
| Obviously there is no actual "fee" to use the NHS at the
| point of use - it is all free apart from prescriptions
| which are the same price regardless of what you get (and
| you might get it for free anyway depending on your
| circumstances)
| balls187 wrote:
| The US Government is projected to make 3.8T for 2021.
|
| Isn't that enough to fund the programs you are speaking of?
|
| https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-
| ta...
| [deleted]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Kudos!
|
| I've been doing OSS for twenty years, and never made a dime.
|
| _Qualifier: Never wanted to. It 's always been a labor of love._
|
| Even when I have done a bit of commercial work (outside of what I
| did as a 9-5), I open-source that work, as well.
|
| I like doing OSS. I take pride in my craft, and like having it
| out there.
| Hedja wrote:
| Since people are showing interest in GitHub Sponsors, I just
| wanted to mention: The types of services listed in the article
| likely falls under VAT in specific regions which can be a pain to
| calculate. That's one of the reasons I'm sticking with Patreon;
| they handle tax and chargebacks so the fee isn't a big deal.
| GitHub Sponsors explicitly says the tax is all on you. They don't
| mention chargebacks in their docs so it's hard to say, if they're
| processing the payment on their end, I'd guess they handle it.
|
| https://help.github.com/en/github/supporting-the-open-source...
| brightball wrote:
| This feels like a good place to mention the https://bytepack.io/
| service that Jose Valim created. It's goal is to help with this
| type of thing.
| andrew_ wrote:
| I have a few NPM packages that get millions of downloads per
| week. I collect about $5.50 US per month from Patreon and exactly
| $0 US from Github sponsors. I still consider that $5.50 a win.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| these tend to come off like humble brags a bit considering
| working on the right thing at the right time is a big factor
| programmarchy wrote:
| Yes, picking the right thing to work on at the right time is
| crucial; it takes insight and creativity, not just luck. He
| also had the determination to follow through on his idea.
| sbarre wrote:
| How so? They took the time to share their story and itemize and
| outline the whole approach for anyone to read.
|
| Of course it's anecdotal and YMMV but to dismiss all the hard
| work and clear demand (people are paying) for the work by
| saying timing is a "big factor"? That seems unfair.
|
| Of course timing matters in all things, but all the timing in
| the world won't help if you don't put in the work, or build
| something that people want.
|
| Before someone points out an exception to the above, of course
| there are exceptions and people who get luckier than most, but
| this doesn't come across that way to me at all, and sharing the
| journey and the learnings is not something they had to do.
| [deleted]
| tryptophan wrote:
| Believing that everything is just luck is a great way to make
| sure you never encounter any.
| danr4 wrote:
| oooh good one. saving it for future use.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I don't know how you got that impression. The author is clearly
| humble. But bragging? I don't agree at all.
| cj wrote:
| It sounds like in his case, the biggest factors were:
|
| 1) Writing some software people need
|
| 2) Being very entrepreneurial / thinking of and trying
| different tactics to get people to sponsor him
|
| There'a a bit of luck in the equation, but not a lot.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Google should hire people like this.
|
| Wouldn't it be awesome if developer talent was judged on the
| impact of one's open source projects / contributions versus
| leetcode competency?
|
| Yeah, I know - it'll never happen.
| gutnor wrote:
| Ignoring the fact that the majority of the source code is not
| open sourced and that "impact" biggest variable is going to be
| chance.
|
| Impact of one open source project measure slightly more than
| developer talent. It is a combination of a lot of skills,
| development skill just one among other like marketing, business
| sense, ability to make video, ... Extreme example would be
| Zuckerberg: is he the best developer in the world and wouldn't
| you waste a bit his potential if you hired him as a PHP dev?
|
| And in any case, impact is always going to be a star system.
| You are going to have a tiny percentage of developers (like a
| few thousands in the world) that have impact and all the other
| that have 0. You are back to square one at trying to find a way
| to differentiate between a loser that can code and another
| loser that cannot.
| drummer wrote:
| >Now, people watching the screencasts will naturally encounter
| these "private" screencasts and if they like the free ones, they
| will sponsor me (at $14/mo.) to get access.
|
| Why are we calling this 'sponsoring'? It just factually is
| selling a product to people for a specific amount.
| Sponsoring/donating is more like people giving money for
| something that would otherwise be free. Otherwise Microsoft could
| also require a 500 usd 'sponsorship or donation' for a Surface
| Go. And requiring it monthly is just plain subscription service
| payment.
| codingdave wrote:
| It is collecting money with an expectation of additional
| content in the future. So it isn't just a purchase. A
| subscription is closer, but sponsor adds the implication that
| your sponsorship is what allows the content creator to keep
| doing it.
|
| Also, one of the dictionary definitions for sponsor is:
| "provide funds for (a project or activity or the person
| carrying it out)."
|
| So it seems accurate enough of a term to me.
| btkramer9 wrote:
| I think sponsoring invokes a feeling of supporting an
| individual person, or small group. It says this product in of
| itself may not be worth $X/mo but the feeling of the buyer
| enabling a creator to continue their passion is what compels
| the buyer to pay.
| jlbnjmn wrote:
| That was my reaction as well.
|
| He's selling courses using a freemium model.
|
| The software is the inbound content.
| elchin wrote:
| How much would this person make if working at a big tech company?
| NickBusey wrote:
| I hit $500/yr on Patreon this week for my open source work! :)
|
| Nice work, I should think about having paid only videos as well,
| I believe I can do that pretty easily on Patreon. Good tips in
| here.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Anybody have opinions/reasoning on Patreon vs Github Sponsors
| when it comes to open source work?
| eXpl0it3r wrote:
| The biggest difference would be that GitHub Sponsors has no
| fees [1], so everything people put in will go to the
| developer. Where Patreon can take 5-12% depending on the plan
| [2].
|
| Additionally, GitHub is just so much closer to the actual
| open source work and more easily discoverable for users of
| your product.
|
| As a supporter, I'll pick GitHub over Patreon anytime.
|
| [1] https://help.github.com/en/github/supporting-the-open-
| source... [2] https://www.patreon.com/product/pricing
| ehsankia wrote:
| That's what I was surprised the most about. 0% cut and they
| also mentioned a 5k match? What? How is that even viable
| for Microsoft?
|
| That seems superior to basically every single platform out
| there. It's an instant win for GitHub Sponsors.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Lol I didn't notice there wasn't a 'k' in there and was really
| impressed for a moment.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I'm still impressed. It makes me happy to see that people are
| getting a bit of money for the value they bring us.
| jlbnjmn wrote:
| Congratulations! That's great! How long have you been doing the
| open source work and what industry does it serve?
| NickBusey wrote:
| Thanks! Years now, though the project that has gained
| traction lately is HomelabOS. https://homelabos.com/
|
| Not really serving industry, self-hosters and home-labbers.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| I for myself, coming from a privileged situation wonder if
| 500$/yr would be worth it for me.
|
| Do calling it "work" it is too little. Won't pay the time spent
| on a job.
|
| At the same time it is an amount of money, causing
| responsibility. Giving the feeling that one has to return
| something for it ...
|
| So how does at affect your fun-level?
| devmunchies wrote:
| I have my own little company and I feel like since its
| profitable (7 figures/year) I'm able to take my time and
| perfect parts of the project (like SQL indexing, UI/UX, new
| features). The money allows me to have the freedom to have
| fun. I've built internal libraries where I could have just
| used an open source version, but its mine and I enjoy it.
|
| I had started another company before that I spent over a year
| on and I made $0. Not fun.
| NickBusey wrote:
| I don't have the feeling that I have to give something in
| return. It's a voluntary donation, people can donate, or not.
| They can cancel at any time. I don't feel any pressure to
| 'deliver' anything. They're paying because they want to
| reward the value I have provided, and likely will continue to
| provide. If I stop providing it, I assume people will slowly
| cancel their donations, which is how things should work.
|
| If anything the fun-level has gone way up because a community
| has formed around one of my projects, which has been great.
| smeeth wrote:
| Step 1: create a repo with 4K stars...
| ghsthrw wrote:
| Did a quick Google, looks like that comes to $2800. A small
| investment for 100k a year.
|
| https://gimhub.com/shop/buy-github-stars/
| FlorianRappl wrote:
| Or have several k Twitter followers ...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, yes. Isn't it great to know that if you happen to create
| a repo with 4k stars it is possible to get something out of it
| besides random people hate?
| kemitchell wrote:
| The more individual developer stories I look into on Sponsors or
| Patreon or wherever, the more I see a recurring pattern. The vast
| majority of developers don't make any significant money. The
| outliers that do use the platform as a general-purpose payment
| processor. They take donations, but they also sell things. The
| line between isn't terribly clear.
|
| The platforms help style all the payments as "donations" or
| "sponsorships" or "patronage". That avoids harshing the project
| vibe with overtly commercial overtones that turn off the
| financially immature and preternaturally entitled. But in
| reality, they're often really payments for products, services,
| access, and so on. Some people do simply donate, usually small
| dollars, and don't receive or care about "perks". Others buy the
| perks on offer specifically, as a simple exchange. Somewhere in
| between, people and companies may be inspired by donation-like
| feelings, but use the benefits to get their payments approved and
| expensed.
|
| It's hard to draw any broad conclusion from outliers. But it all
| points to there being strange value in muddying the concept of
| paying developers with a lot of ambiguity, on both the buy side
| and the sell side. It's like one of those statues that looks like
| one thing from one angle, and something completely different from
| another.
| hinkley wrote:
| In class and race struggles it's not uncommon to see someone
| worry aloud about token individuals who are "allowed" to
| succeed out of proportion to their peers. It gives the rabble
| hope, which keeps them sedate. But the success rate barely
| exceeds attrition at the top of the pyramid.
|
| I don't think I personally will ever know if this is just an
| accident of the system (being happily exploited), planned, or a
| little bit from column A and a little bit from column B.
|
| Enough notable success stories satisfies the Availability
| heuristic in your brain, but that often tricks you into
| thinking things are quite different than they actually are.
| kemitchell wrote:
| I agree there's a lottery-like dynamic in open software
| funding. The winner-outliers are well known, broadly
| remarked, and frequently advertised. The long, long tail of
| financial busts gets downplayed, though we all know it's
| there.
|
| Same for startups, by the by.
|
| I don't think it's necessary to personalize the rules, odds,
| and constraints that reinforce these outcomes. We could find
| individuals who see how it works and like it. But I haven't
| seen evidence to show they add up to any kind of conscious
| conspiracy. I'm more concerned about the smaller players who
| _aren 't_ winning and haven't seen how the game is skewed.
| gbacon wrote:
| We see power-law distributions everywhere, notably the 80-20
| Pareto rule. They are the rule with uniform distributions
| being the rare exceptions. The claim of a hidden puppeteer
| running this gigantic con that occasionally allows success
| and precisely mixes column A with column B such that the
| rabble attack one another only and never the mastermind
| pulling the strings is truly extraordinary.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution
| dangus wrote:
| What I'm confused about is how the Sponsorware is operationalized
| for people on the paid tier.
|
| How do you only release to people on your sponsor list?
| stevens32 wrote:
| It's inspiring to see that oss can provide a comparable income to
| the more traditional software engineering career path. It looks
| like some salesmanship is required, I wonder if there's some
| service out there that takes care of that aspect to help oss
| projects to find sponsors?
| adamzapasnik wrote:
| I'm not sure what is more impressive, the thought of 100k in 5
| months from sponsorship or that the author ported a solution to
| another environment and got 100k sponsorship out of it?
|
| Wow, Good job!
|
| Not really understanding the comparison to SV salaries. This
| opens up many doors for the author, something that money wouldn't
| be able to do.
| vmception wrote:
| > Here's how Sponsorware works:
|
| > Create a cool piece of software
|
| > Make it exclusive to people who sponsor you until you reach a
| certain number of sponsors
|
| > Then open source the project to the world
|
| This is how ICOs worked, for the teams that actually delivered
| anything. Without any other monetization path they resorted to
| taking presales of tokens shoehorned in convulated ways into
| products that didn't need them, but frequently involved open
| source code for a community. This resulted in many misaligned
| interests for people that eseentially were sponsors.
|
| It's nice to see the same sentiment reflected in other parts of
| the tech industry in a way that more people respect and can
| relate to.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| Or Kickstarter or any other kind of fundraising effort I guess.
| It's a pretty cool adaptation of a fairly established practice.
| alexellisuk wrote:
| This is a success story for GitHub sponsors and I hope it will
| eventually become the norm and not a unicorn example. We are
| nowhere near this level with OpenFaaS and with a high level of
| churn.
|
| I also have a slight concern about the author's sales tax
| liability in territories such as the US and the EU. Economic
| nexus is real, take a look at paddle.com if you want to know
| more. GitHub doesn't collect sales tax - so you shouldn't be
| selling any taxable benefits FWIW.
|
| My strategy so far has to turn the program into a weekly Insiders
| Update on the OSS projects I maintain along with regular feature
| length content on the industry and software.
|
| There's around 130-140 individuals, I'd like to see that get to
| double the number. As for companies that use OpenFaaS in
| production, they do not pay any form of sponsorship or support.
|
| https://github.com/sponsors/alexellis
| Ndymium wrote:
| Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland.
| The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here.
|
| We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to
| gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have
| to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to
| individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities.
|
| So this means that if you see a donation/sponsorship button on a
| software project where the money goes to a Finnish person, it is
| illegal (unless they have obtained a permit, which is highly
| unlikely). If you see a patreon/sponsorship with rewards, it's a
| grey area. The only clearly legal way is by selling actual
| things, and of course then you quickly need to set up a business.
|
| I host a free project myself and I've had to set up a business
| (sole proprietorship) and sell things in order to get money for
| server costs. Even though people have been interested in
| donating, I can't do that legally.
| gardaani wrote:
| In Finland, a new law was made to allow small-scale money
| collection up to EUR 10000, but it has also other restrictions,
| so it may not help you:
| https://intermin.fi/en/police/fundraising
| Ndymium wrote:
| Cool I didn't know that. It does say that it's not for
| business purposes or accumulating "wealth" of a person but
| it's nice to learn.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| How common are bootstrapped (i.e. non-wealthy, non VC-funded)
| entrepreneurs in Finland?
| brundolf wrote:
| From what I can tell this has nothing to do with that.
| Anything that could be considered commerce or an exchange for
| goods (even abstract goods) falls outside of it. This only
| applies to _donations_ ; it's just that the internet has
| created this in-between category where "donations" are made
| to someone working on a product that can't really be "sold"
| in the traditional way, and the law doesn't have a proper
| carve-out for those cases.
| spurdoman77 wrote:
| Common. It is a capitalist, moderately wealthy country.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Sell licenses. People can buy a licensed version of your
| project. It's exactly the same as the free version, but it
| comes with a different licence.txt (which allows the purchaser
| to say that they supported you).
|
| If you're not allowed to sell copyright licenses in Finland,
| then your whole software business is screwed.
| koheripbal wrote:
| I don't even see the point. If there's no enforcement of this
| law, why even bother with the illusion of legality? Just
| accept donations - and likely no one will ever bother coming
| after you.
| Ndymium wrote:
| It's true that at my scale it would likely never be
| noticed. Personally I just don't like the risk even if
| small. But when looking at OP's case, that would absolutely
| be noticed by the tax authorities and they'd have to
| explain the nature of the income.
| chrisandchips wrote:
| Well, if they reach the 100k mark like the article's
| author, the risk of a tax audit may start to keep them up
| at night
| amelius wrote:
| Well, GGP said that accepting donations costs money. So
| perhaps selling licenses is more profitable?
|
| Also, if you receive more than a few hundred dollars,
| perhaps the Finnish IRS will start noticing.
| LoathsLights wrote:
| We call that the WinRAR model.
| karambir wrote:
| The exact same thing is for India. Individuals can't get non-
| profit status. So you have to sell something. A software dev
| friend tried donate button with cta "Get exclusive support" for
| few months. But international audience didn't quite get it.
|
| I have seen some gamers in India asking for donations and
| giving direct account details(UPI[1] details), but I am very
| cautious against this. I am just waiting(selfishly) for Income
| Tax dept to serve notice to someone and get this clarified via
| court case.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I wonder; if you had a list of donors, then you could be
| selling the privilege of getting your name on the list.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I'm actually curious if some type of phrasing-related
| arbitrage is possible. Like: Like my work?
| DONATE * all donations automatically receive
| (whatever)
| driverdan wrote:
| Accepting sponsorships like this is not non-profit. You still
| have to report it as income and pay taxes on it.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Can you not do a "pay what you want" product? Here is this
| software which is open source. You can pay me what you want to
| for it- here's the link.
|
| The software (Or service in your case?) is the product.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I think you're thinking in the right direction. One could do
| some dual licensing, with a (slightly) different license. Eg
| BSD by default, and sponsors get the MIT license.
|
| Seems like there would be a clear value exchange here.
| Ndymium wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer so I don't know. I wouldn't risk it myself.
|
| Currently our air carrier Finnair is under investigation
| because they offered a climate compensation payment for
| flights. They say the payment went towards biofuel and other
| compensation methods but it's being investigated if it was
| considered a donation.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/17392-finnair-
| discards...
| spurdoman77 wrote:
| You can create that and I think in 99% percent of cases you
| can also collect github donations without problems in
| Finland. If it were to go in court I think it could be easily
| explained as non-donation because there is work performed.
|
| Also OPs explanation is not so straightforward, the money
| collection act is being contested all the time and many
| succeed in collecting money here.
| Ndymium wrote:
| Can you link sources to contesting it? I'm interested in
| learning what kind of things are approved.
| spurdoman77 wrote:
| Basically you state that it isnt donation but payment for
| gig. Which would apply to github "donations" as well,
| they arent donations but payment for the open source
| work.
|
| Finnish peoples problem isnt the laws, but the fact that
| they are total pussies when it comes _intrepreting_ the
| law.
| Ndymium wrote:
| Sure if you set up your sponsor tiers like "$5/mo: x
| minutes of bugfixing for you" then it would be just
| sales. I think if you just accept money and say "thanks"
| in return with a vague promise of working on open source,
| that's a pretty grey area and I'd rather not have to
| explain it to the authorities in the first place. :P
| clan wrote:
| That is a very interesting interpretation of the law.
|
| Another would be to regard such a construct as income. Report
| your income. Pay your taxes and be happy.
|
| It only becomes "gray" areas when people think it is possible
| to have non-taxed revenue streams.
| icebraining wrote:
| > It only becomes "gray" areas when people think it is
| possible to have non-taxed revenue streams.
|
| This may be true in some countries, but it's definitively not
| an universal truth. Some business models are not allowed even
| if you pay taxes on the income. This is what the user is
| describing, and reading the (English translation) of the text
| of the Act, I'd be worried too.
| qazpot wrote:
| > We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states
| that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in
| return), you have to get a permit
|
| That's what socialist policies gets you, permits from the state
| to do anything
| claudiawerner wrote:
| >That's what socialist policies gets you, permits from the
| state to do anything
|
| Donation regulation is not a 'socialist' policy, and at a
| stretch, you could only say it's simply a policy which
| happens to be implemented in a capitalist social democratic
| country, in this case Finland.
| rocgf wrote:
| It's really incredible how much the hatred for 'socialism'
| goes in certain circles.
| qazpot wrote:
| I am not hating on socialism. It has it's merits like
| providing healthcare if properly implemented but having
| excessive permits and licence is one of the facets of
| socialism. Socialism is not the perfect system.
| elygre wrote:
| The original comment read as if you blamed socialism.
|
| If you did, you got rightly called out. If you didn't,
| then I don't understand what you meant.
| WC3w6pXxgGd wrote:
| How is blaming socialism a bad thing? Has humanity
| learned nothing from the failure of socialism throughout
| the 19th and 20th centuries?
| Bjartr wrote:
| Would you mind describing why permitting & licensing are
| so linked with socialist policies?
| maest wrote:
| To be fair, all systems can be (and are) criticised.
| jonfw wrote:
| I agree. Given this truth, complaining that people
| complain about your system of choice seems pretty silly
| k33n wrote:
| Even more incredible are the lengths certain types of folks
| will go to defend these policies even when faced with very
| real examples of the negative consequences of ceding
| liberty in return for the state to "take care of you".
| Kaze404 wrote:
| Don't worry, people do the same thing to defend the
| capitalist dystopia we currently live in.
| Bjartr wrote:
| It's almost like different people have different ideas of
| what are acceptable negatives to trade-off for various
| positive benefits.
| [deleted]
| hkai wrote:
| "For each donated dollar, I will create and send you 100 random
| bytes that you can use in your cryptographic applications."
|
| $7 = 700 random bytes
|
| $15 = 1500 random bytes + 500 bytes free!
|
| $99 = lifetime* subscription for 25k random bytes per year
|
| * your lifetime or my lifetime, whichever terminates earlier
| jeremysalwen wrote:
| I'd buy the $99 option and use it as the trigger for my dead
| mans switch :).
| duxup wrote:
| Do you have any collectible limited edition bytes?
| lstamour wrote:
| Those would be the special one-of-a-kind bytes that we log
| to ensure no two people get the same bytes twice. Bonus:
| the logs are numbered, so we can validate those bytes.
| Downside: we'll have to ask for a monthly donation to cover
| storing the bytes and bandwidth ;-)
| [deleted]
| gumby wrote:
| But do you warrant that they are actually random?
|
| Truth in advertising and all that.
| smnplk wrote:
| I'll take a nibble just for taste.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I'll sell you a pixel for $10
| xigency wrote:
| What if donors are actually purchasing a spot on the
| contributions page? It would be like purchasing a classified ad
| in the paper or a normal internet ad. Their name or specific
| message would be displayed on the 'donations' page for a set
| duration. You might have to put some clarifying language on the
| page as well.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Write to your member of parliament and explain why you think
| it's terrible you can't just add these sort of extra earnings
| to your tax assessment at the end of the year. It's certainly
| possible in the UK to operate in this way but also more tax
| efficient once you get past say PS40000 to run a limited
| company.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > Even though people have been interested in donating, I can't
| do that legally.
|
| What you can do is to "sell" something in lieu of donations:
|
| E.g. - To support me please buy this wallpaper image file of my
| project logo. Or one-day email support etc.
|
| You can always add a note that Finland laws prevent you from
| accepting donation, and this is the only way you can accept
| money from patrons, and even provide a link to the law in
| question.
|
| (Note that depending on the laws in your country you may have
| to register as a freelancer / small business and pay taxes. In
| most countries this will be free or near free, and you probably
| won't get enough money to reach the threshold aftwer which you
| have to pay taxes).
| Ndymium wrote:
| Sure and this is kind of what I do. I have a sole
| proprietorship and sell stickers and in the future some minor
| features on the site. Of course it has the overhead of
| setting up the business and all the accounting/tax stuff
| (unless you use a service for that which takes ~5 % of your
| revenue).
| virgilp wrote:
| But can't you sell your digital artwork without setting up
| business? Seems better than stickers (also, no shipping!).
|
| [*] Digital artwork = project logo in png format, free to
| use however they please. You can license the publicly-
| available logo with any minimally-restrictive license (e.g.
| CC-BY); this should still count that "you gave them
| additional rights, in exchange for payment".
| notwhereyouare wrote:
| tax reporting most likely
| virgilp wrote:
| I mean, yes you need to report revenues, but... do you
| need a company for that? Do e.g. all Finnish
| photographers on Shutterstock have a company, in order to
| receive payments?
| Erlich_Bachman wrote:
| Yes, if you sell things (or electronic things), in any
| meaningful amount (no one will care for 200$ per year
| though), you have to set up a company or a sole
| proprietorship. It is like this in most western
| countries. The activity that you are doing in that case
| is called business, and of course you need to have a
| company or a similar business structure (like sole
| proprietorship) to do business.
|
| Whether all people do it or not is another question, but
| that is what is required by the law.
| parliament32 wrote:
| >It is like this in most western countries.
|
| No it isn't... In Canada, you can happily accept money
| from people and just stick it in the "other income" box
| on your tax return, where it'll get income-taxed
| appropriately.
|
| If you're trying to do business deductions or want to pay
| business taxes instead, yes you need a business. If
| you're trying to set up a physical location, yes you need
| a business license from your city. But if you don't care
| about the pennies and your work is digital there's
| absolutely no requirement.
| stefanfisk wrote:
| "It is like this in most western countries" can still
| apply even if Canada is an exception.
| lstamour wrote:
| Generally speaking the same is true of "gifts", though.
| You don't have to report a gift as income if it's
| reasonable, but drawing that line is where things get...
| complicated. Then you have to call in specialists like
| tax lawyers, etc.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I think the confusion in this thread is that (in most of
| Western Europe) you automatically become a business (or
| even company) by the sole act of doing "business"
| (enterprise with the purpose of earning money), and once
| you cross some (small) threshold you have to register in
| some capacity. That can be a ~$20 bureaucratic act,
| compared to the ~$500 act of setting up a proper company.
| But of course at that point it varies wildly by country.
| maxwelljoslyn wrote:
| Thank you for explaining this. As an American, I was
| unaware.
| vajrabum wrote:
| You can take donations but AFAIK business licenses are
| required in every state in the US whether you provide
| product, service or something online. If you take
| donations then by law you have to declare that as income.
| neltnerb wrote:
| IANAL, but I have done this a few times. I'm pretty sure
| you do not need a company to make money as a self-
| employed person in the USA. Not in terms of federal taxes
| anyway.
|
| What you might need a company for is to pay sales taxes
| you charge for physical goods, or get insurance
| appropriate for your line of work. That's likely to be
| state-by-state. You just get the convenience of an EIN by
| registering and some additional legal protections by
| being a distinct entity (i.e. I could sell the company or
| assign IP to it or hire employees).
|
| I have certainly gotten contractor income to me
| personally that I just had to account for. In the USA for
| small businesses you'd have to send the same
| documentation, so it doesn't even save paperwork. As a
| sole proprietorship I get the same tax documents from my
| clients as I would if I were operating directly under my
| name.
|
| Edit: Also, if this were true in the USA, it implies that
| all those Uber drivers each have a sole-proprietorship
| set up. I'm pretty sure that companies can hire
| contractors as individuals without them becoming
| businesses.
| virgilp wrote:
| It's different here - for revenue from intellectual
| property rights in particular you do not need to be a
| business (you do need accounting & to submit an annual
| declaration to the revenue service; but you can do that
| as a regular person, there's no need to register a
| business).
| shkkmo wrote:
| > It is like this in most western countries.
|
| This is not the case in the USA. There is no general
| federal legal requirement to register a business or
| obtain a business license in order to sell things.
| However, there are specific industries for which business
| licenses are required (at any of the federal, state and
| local levels) and forming an LLC might help personal
| assets if you are sued.
| MKinley wrote:
| Could you share a link to your project? I'm curious what it
| is.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Is it illegal if you sell an item/service/upgrade for a
| clearly absurd price?
|
| The obvious workaround here is to paywall some tiny feature
| with choose-your-own-price, or perhaps offer something akin
| to Reddit Gold. I presume the law already thought of that?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Lots of brands sell things with prices only justifiable
| by the branding and associated prestige.
|
| The authors tactic of paywalling things behind a
| "donation" seems legally much more dubious.
| Ndymium wrote:
| It wouldn't be a donation, it would be a premium account
| that has access to extra features. I just don't want
| those features to make the free users feel second class.
| zucker42 wrote:
| What is the ostensible purpose behind that law? Seems like
| something you could get changed (with considerable effort)
| considering there appear to be no strong interests who benefit
| from it.
| rverghese wrote:
| People pretending to be charities and scamming donations. The
| idea would be that all legitimate charities are registered
| and have a permit. If they don't, it's likely a scam.
| Ndymium wrote:
| I think it's originally to prevent scammers. Like if someone
| was collecting money door-to-door and then said that people
| willingly donated to them (which would be true). I think it's
| just to add oversight into those kind of situations and to
| prevent scam money collection campaigns.
| brundolf wrote:
| That's a strange law. I assume it serves some purpose (or must
| have served one when it was introduced, at least). What's the
| argument for it?
| claudeganon wrote:
| The US has a lot of charity scams and dubious NPOs collecting
| cash. There's news about fraudulent GoFundMe's pretty
| regularly, for example.
|
| Finland is probably too far the opposite direction, but the
| whole sector could use a lot more scrutiny over here.
| wnevets wrote:
| It seems like a lot of charities in the US are just a way
| for the wealthy to avoid paying taxes or for the founders
| to become wealthy
| claudeganon wrote:
| Yes, it's not uncommon to have do-nothing NPOs that
| associate themselves with a noble cause and then spend
| most of their funds on one or two people's salaries and
| perks. This is why apps like Guidestar and Charity
| Navigator were invented.
|
| The IRS doesn't seem to give these orgs much scrutiny
| unless they're egregiously bad or become a big news
| story.
| wnevets wrote:
| The IRS has been co-opted by the very wealthy. The IRS
| spends way more resources auditing the very poor than the
| very wealthy
| ct520 wrote:
| In the states non-profit means a company that is not for
| profit. It doesn't mean you can't pay yourself a wage that is
| inline for the duties and title you have.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| There is an exchange here. Software is being provided in
| exchange for a discretionary payment.
| jcwayne wrote:
| IANAL (anywhere), but when you sponsor someone you're listed as
| a sponsor. I'd say that social credit has some intrinsic value.
| yason wrote:
| Interestingly, while you can't be donated money in Finland
| people can certainly and rather freely give gifts to another
| person. It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person
| remain under 4000EUR for any consecutive three years.
|
| Surely gettings lots of monetary gifts from foreign friends
| would probably not hold during a tax audit (they'd accuse you
| of trying to evade taxes unless you could provide a plausible
| reason why all these people would be sending you gifts) but
| it's an interesting counter-example nevertheless.
| tylerhou wrote:
| (Not saying one country is better than the other but) in the
| US, there are no taxes on gifts until you gift more than $11
| million in your life. If you go above $15,000 in any calendar
| year, you do have to notify the government, though.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person remain
| under 4000EUR for any consecutive three years.
|
| Not something to be impressed by; gifts are tax free in the
| US under $15,000 per one year.
| jsnell wrote:
| The restriction isn't on receiving donations. It's on
| soliciting donations from the public.
| zenhack wrote:
| Yeah, we have an active person in the Sandstorm community from
| Finland who maintains Wekan[1]. I didn't previously know the
| specifics, but he's had to tell a lot of people "sorry, I can't
| accept donations" too.
|
| It's so much easier in the US. If you're an individual it's
| going to be taxable income, but there's no up-front paperwork
| to do (for that matter, you don't have to "set up" a sole
| proprietorship here either -- that's just what the tax code
| calls "some rando doing business by themself"). I've done
| contract work for years, have a bit of my income coming in
| through GitHub sponsors now.
|
| Now, if we could only get health care covered for folks who
| don't have an employer...
|
| ---
|
| > I host a free project myself and I've had to set up a
| business (sole proprietorship) and sell things in order to get
| money for server costs.
|
| What's your side project? Speaking of Sandstorm, I'm wondering
| if it might be relevant; dealing with the problem of developers
| needing to monetize things in order to cover hosting costs was
| one of the motivations for the project:
|
| https://sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-re...
|
| [1]: https://github.com/wekan/wekan/
| Ndymium wrote:
| My side project is a programming statistics service:
| https://codestats.net/
|
| It's mainly for fun and I want to keep it free, but of course
| I wouldn't mind if there was some money coming in to pay for
| the costs and motivate to work on it more. Currently I'm
| selling stickers and in the future I will implement some kind
| of paid accounts which will have some minor features that
| free accounts don't have - the dilemma is to keep it balanced
| so that free users don't feel second class.
| granos wrote:
| If you haven't done so already, you REALLY should look into
| setting up an LLC for contract work in the US. Legally
| separating your business assets from your personal assets is
| very important. It doesn't cost a ton -- varies by state and
| whether you involve a lawyer or not. It will make your taxes
| a bit more complicated, but consider that the cost of
| insurance against somebody trying to sue you and take your
| house.
| zrail wrote:
| Literally just buying an insurance policy is significantly
| less complicated and roughly the same cost, IME.
| Professional liability, errors and omissions, etc. cost me
| ~$1k a year when I was doing consulting for $1mm in
| coverage. My LLC taxed as an S-corp cost more than that
| just in tax prep services.
|
| A single member LLC provides some benefits but those
| benefits often require a lawyer to invoke (i.e. you're
| getting sued, gotta file things and work the legal system).
| If you have insurance you just tell the insurance company
| and they hire the lawyers.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Perhaps the US is different, but here in the UK, I reckon
| that 95% of software developers will never go to court in
| their lifetime, and the remaining ones that do will
| settle for small amounts (ie. Refunding the customer the
| cost of the contract). Multi-million pound judgements
| against individuals are pretty much unheard of...
| stefanfisk wrote:
| As a freelancer in Sweden I can't even imagine how big I
| would have to fuck up for a customer to sue me for
| anything beyond what they had already paid me.
| whatshisface wrote:
| In the US lawsuits typically open with the closest thing
| a lawyer can imagine to infinity dollars of damages, and
| then you have to have your lawyer work it down.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| Imagine you are paid $100 to build a website to sell some
| new widget to be delivered on November 1st just in time
| for the holiday season. The company also spends $1000 on
| a one-day internet marketing campaign that's around the
| launch.
|
| Then there's a technical issue at launch and orders are
| being rejected left and right.
|
| They could be out basically the whole value of the
| marketing campaign which is 10x your salary. You might
| owe them compensation for that, unless of course you got
| paid through an LLC and only have the $100 in your
| account.
| ska wrote:
| E&O insurance is in absolutely no way a replacement for
| incorporation. In most cases if you need the former, you
| need the latter also, but there are many uninsurable
| cases where you want the protection of an LLC anyway.
| zrail wrote:
| I guess never really analyzed it in depth and just had
| both. What does E&O miss that a single member LLC
| protects against (and vice versa)?
| zenhack wrote:
| I seem to be in the most expensive state in the country for
| that. That's rent & food for a month.
|
| But it's a one-time fee, so you're probably still right in
| general, but for the moment I'm mostly coasting on savings
| & sponsorships, focusing on the stuff I care about while I
| have the breathing room. I might consider being a bit more
| organized if/when I ramp up business again and am
| considering looking for new clients.
| adwww wrote:
| > It's so much easier in the US. If you're an individual it's
| going to be taxable income, but there's no up-front paperwork
| to do
|
| In the UK it's even simpler if you are recieving less than
| PS1,000 a year in donations or similar. HMRC have basically
| decided taxing people's side hustles would costs more than it
| returned. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-
| property-...
| suifbwish wrote:
| This is exactly the kind of problems cryptocurrency was made to
| address. I would just say each donation comes with a postcard
| so you are giving them something in return. If my government
| ever tries to do something like this, I will leave it up to
| them to figure out that I'm collecting donations.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| That sounds like a very quick way to get a tax evasion
| charge...
| bunje wrote:
| You can accept a gift. It's also possible for someone to give a
| grant. But I'm not sure how they would work out in case of open
| source. I know that people write books using a grant.
| Ndymium wrote:
| The thing about gifts is that the person wishing to give one
| needs to ask proactively how to do it and then you can give
| e.g. your bank account details to that person only. You
| cannot put your bank account or instructions how to ask
| publicly available. Years ago we asked about this from the
| authorities when I was in a non-profit and this was the
| answer.
| msoad wrote:
| $100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as
| an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working
| on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building
| CRUD for a boring ad company.
| jakebellacera wrote:
| Given that he lives somewhere around Buffalo, NY, the cost of
| living is about twice as much[1] to maintain his standard of
| living in SV, so I would say he's doing pretty well, _and_ he
| gets to do what he loves!
|
| 1: https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-
| calculator/compare...
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| > _$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV
| as an engineer_
|
| Oh, well then fuck this idiot, right? What a dumbass loser -
| doesn't even realize they can be a s i l i c o n v a l l e y e
| n g i n e e r and make a lot of money.
|
| Jesus it's so exhausting reading the knee-jerk "SV engineers
| make more money" reaction to everything. You know what this
| person has that 99.999% of all SV engineers will never have?
| Complete freedom. You know what else this person has that 99%
| of all SV engineers will never have? The option not to have
| live in San Francisco, a dismal place that very few people want
| to actually be in anymore.
| komali2 wrote:
| > The option not to have live in San Francisco, a dismal
| place that very few people want to actually be in anymore.
|
| Dismal? Lol I love it here. People are moving out of cities
| all over the country because of coronavirus, sure, but only
| because most of the perks of city living are non-existent
| right now. I know a couple people moving and they're not
| going far, because of the nearby available amenities, that
| being excellent cycling and motorcycling roads, great
| mountain biking trails, climbing rocks, whatever water sports
| you could want...
|
| Never quite got the hate. It's good weather and a great
| region.
| brabel wrote:
| It's a great city in a beautiful location... but if you
| come from another developed country or a part of the US
| where homelessness is very uncommon, it's extremely
| shocking to see people camping on the streets pretty much
| all over the city, it feels like you're in a shanty town
| and it feels unsafe.
| komali2 wrote:
| I could see that if you came from somewhere where
| homelessness is uncommon, but something that shocked me
| on a recent roadtrip was how _common_ homelessness is
| now. It seemed EVERY town we stopped in, except for the
| extremely remote or tiny, had camps or at the very least
| people looking worse-for-the-wear at street corners with
| a sign. I expect the painkiller epidemic combined with
| covid is not doing great things to this country.
| RyanGoosling wrote:
| Smell the streets at 3am
| komali2 wrote:
| Er, yea, it's a city lol. If you want to live in the
| woods, you can do that and still be a 30 minute drive
| from the city here.
| monokh wrote:
| I'm not sure it's accurate to say that doing open source
| gives you "complete freedom". In some way, you are
| responsible to your contributors / users and they are kind of
| paying your bills.
| msoad wrote:
| wow! did you read the rest of my comment?
| 420codebro wrote:
| Well said.
|
| The endless masturbating to "VC comp" on this site is a
| dumbass meme that needs to die a proper death.
|
| Why would I move to that ghetto called San Francisco? I'll
| continue clocking my $250K in a non expensive city, with my 5
| minute commute, and tons of disposable income. I also have
| the plus side of my government not being tolerant to people
| openly shitting on my streets.
| briffle wrote:
| I could also make much more money in SV. I like working from
| home in a smallish (150k) town in the northwest. I hate
| traffic. I hate commutes. I hate $5000/month apartments :)
| Axsuul wrote:
| His first sentence was just setting the context and not meant
| to be pejorative.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| I actually really want to live in San Francisco, but I don't
| want to and am not smart enough to work for a FAANG-type
| company. It's one of the few American cities where you can be
| a first-class citizen without owning a car and comfortably
| bike/walk everywhere year-round. SF has a really fascinating
| history and cool culture. I wish it was possible to work in
| academia there without already being wealthy.
| nagyf wrote:
| "am not smart enough to work for a FAANG-type company"
|
| Have you tried to apply for a job? Don't underestimate
| yourself. I had the same thoughts about myself, then I
| tried an interview just for fun. Now I'm working for a
| FAANG company, moved to Canada, and having the best year of
| my life.
| BrandonM wrote:
| I've lived in many US cities, including SF, and your
| characterization rings hollow for me. Unless you're
| focusing exclusively on climate, SF without a car isn't all
| that much better than dozens of other cities. Notably,
| unless you live near a BART stop, most transit commutes are
| going to involve some bus, switching to a separate system,
| 30+ minutes daily commute, $12+ round trip, etc. Or paying
| for rideshares. Dozens of cities in the US have the
| equivalent or better, without all the other associated
| baggage of SF. Here are a few examples I've lived or spent
| significant time in:
|
| - Chicago, IL: The L reaches a lot more neighborhoods, is a
| single integrated transit system. - Columbus, OH: Great
| bike lanes and dedicated paths, bus system that covers the
| entire city. - New York, NY: By far the most walkable city
| in the US. - Philadelphia, PA: Decent subway system, good
| connection to NJ and NY via NJ Transit. Very walkable core
| and neighborhoods. - Washington, DC: Far superior version
| of BART with a lot more coverage.
|
| Unless I've just happened across a half dozen of the best
| cities in the US, SF isn't all that remarkable.
| FpUser wrote:
| I've worked on my own from home for the last 20 years. Would
| not trade it for any full time employee position. And thought
| of being in FAANG makes me shudder
| dsr_ wrote:
| ... this way he doesn't need to live in SV. Or California. Or
| the USA.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| yeah, but this engineer doesn't have to live in SV.
|
| I am sure the HN crowd is probably aware of compensation at
| tech companies in general, especially in SV>
| diehunde wrote:
| Also, I don't think he would like to spend a year solving
| LeetCode problems in order to pass those SV interviews.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Not everyone lives in California! :)
|
| Even at FAANGS, the salary for the _same role_ at the _same
| level_ can be significantly lower outside of California ... not
| just a couple of percent, but I 've heard reports of 60%
| difference between e.g. San Francisco and London for just
| someone moving offices.
| buf wrote:
| I make $400k a year on a side project. I can do no work on it
| at all and still make $400k this year because the money is
| residual. It took 5 years to get to this point. The first 18
| months, I made $0.
|
| I could sell this side project for $1M easily.
|
| I could grow it if I want to and make $500k next year.
|
| I could write a blog and grow my personal brand on how I made
| this side project.
|
| There are lots of opportunities this side project has opened up
| that working at my SV eng job can't provide.
| andrewlouis93 wrote:
| Would you mind sharing your side project? That's awesome.
| kelvin0 wrote:
| Any pro tips on growing your customer base? Did you do all
| the 'selling' yourself? Did you hire someone to help you with
| that?
|
| I am in the same situation as you in your first 18 months.
| Got a product, need to get eyeballs and customers!
| mraza007 wrote:
| If you don't mind can I ask whats your side project
| praveenperera wrote:
| I'm assuming its this: http://www.castingcall.club
| mraza007 wrote:
| Looks very cool and its catered towards a very specific
| niche. How do you do your market research
| nogabebop23 wrote:
| Happy for you & thanks for sharing, not sure what the purpose
| or point is though... Side projects are great in terms of
| opportunities but although all you mention is the money
| that's generally the least common benefit they have.
| LockAndLol wrote:
| Had you read the article, you would've know he was making ~90k
| in 2018.
| mraza007 wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. Plus open source work is so fulfilling and
| love the feeling when people praise your work
| naavis wrote:
| You also don't need to live in the expensive SV area.
| jjuel wrote:
| Median home cost in Nebraska $168,900. Median home cost in
| California $552,800.
|
| Yeah I think 100k a year would go a little farther in one of
| these places than the other...
| 6AA4FD wrote:
| Don't forget that California is a big state and a lot of it
| is not very populated or popular. A house in the bay or LA
| will probably run you a lot more than that.
| nogabebop23 wrote:
| The difference is even more pronounced. A very nice house
| in Nebraska is well under 300K but out of reach of almost
| all in most of California. Why you would live in either
| Nebraska or California though is up for debate...
| LeonM wrote:
| This.
|
| In most parts of the world, $100k/year allows you to live
| very comfortably indeed.
| negrit wrote:
| Yes but the author is American So he'll always have to pay
| US taxes even if he moves out of the US.(I'm aware about
| tax treaties but in most cases they still have to pay the
| difference)
| blocked_again wrote:
| Is GitHub sponsors considered as Salary though? Might
| have some tax breaks if that is not the case.
| zenhack wrote:
| It may depend on what country you're in, but in the US if
| you're just some rando, "donations" are still taxable
| income. The form GitHub sends you for filling purposes is
| the same one used for contractors.
| naavis wrote:
| Most places inside the US allow you to live a comfy life
| with 100k/year too. No need to be in Silicon Valley.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Yes but being American he will be double taxed living
| outside of the US.
| nogabebop23 wrote:
| this is not true.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| It is true depending on the country he lives in. As he's
| a US citizen, even if he lives overseas he needs to fill
| in a W-9 form to get the money from GitHub.
| pkaye wrote:
| You can exclude the first $107.6k/year from US taxes.
|
| https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
| taxpayers/fore...
| s3krit wrote:
| You only need to pay tax back to the US on your earnings
| > $100k/year
| philliphaydon wrote:
| If the earnings are made outside of the US then he
| doesn't pay tax on less than 100k. The earnings are in
| the US so he would need to pay, he still has to fill in a
| W9 form as he's a US citizen.
| randoramax wrote:
| He can spend $300/month in many parts of Europe, get good
| healthcare. Even with paying some taxes to support the US
| billionaires, he'll live a very good life. In SV for that
| money he'd have to climb over zombies to go get the
| groceries
| kortilla wrote:
| > Even with paying some taxes to support the US
| billionaires
|
| Medicare and social security alone account for nearly
| half of the US fed govt spend.
|
| Taxes do not support billionaires. The lack of them does.
| isoskeles wrote:
| But you can get groceries delivered here. Problem solved.
| :/
| have_faith wrote:
| Am I reading right that average rent is somewhere around
| $2500 (roughly PS2000)?
| lozaning wrote:
| That would be on the expensive side of renting a room, and
| on the very cheap side for a place to yourself.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| That sounds low, but I guess it includes areas well outside
| of San Francisco? All the apartments in SF and nearby seem
| to start around the high $3000s
| adventured wrote:
| You'll see wild swings in these numbers depending on how
| specific you're being about the type of place being rented
| and even between services doing the reporting.
|
| Here's a March 2019 article from CBS bay area (based on
| data from the rental site Zumper):
|
| "Median 1-Bedroom Rent In San Francisco Soars To Nearly
| $3,700 A Month"
|
| "Elsewhere in the Bay Area, San Jose's median rent for a
| one-bedroom was $2,540 (5th highest in the country), while
| in Oakland it was $2,320 (9th highest)."
|
| https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/03/05/median-1-bedro
| o...
| mcv wrote:
| Yeah, not having to live in SV is going to save you a lot of
| money. Github sponsors don't care where you live; they just
| care about what you made.
| [deleted]
| pretendscholar wrote:
| Also maybe more leisurely in terms of pace.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I made significantly more than this working in SV. IMO it's
| totally fair to say $100k is "not even close" for certain roles
| in certain companies.
|
| But then I moved. I'm here to tell you, the Bay Area has a
| quality of life problem that far exceeds the cost of living
| difference.
|
| After moving, my monthly _mortgage_ payment is almost $1k less
| than the rent I was paying for a not-so-nice house in San Jose.
| When I run the numbers on my current house (considering only
| the property and not the HOA), trying to find something
| comparable around San Jose, I come up with around $10 million
| at a minimum. When you consider the HOA I live in - we have 20
| miles of maintained trails and an HOA park almost every mile -
| the quality of the schools, the quality and cost of
| restaurants... the list goes on... this quality of life
| literally can't be purchased in the Bay Area for a software
| engineers salary, no matter what they do. And here is the
| thing: after moving I could take an 80% pay cut over my Bay
| Area salary and maintain this quality of living changing
| _nothing_ about my spending habits.
|
| But money aside, I'm actually happy after moving. In the Bay
| Area I binged, ate, drank, and smoked every night. I put on
| weight, my mental and physical health was deteriorating. I was
| depressed. I felt like every time I left the house someone was
| trying to trick me out of my money. I saw societal decay at
| every corner, homelessness, unmaintained property, crumbling
| infrastructure. I felt it was the least progressive place I've
| ever lived and it made me feel guilty that I could afford to
| stay slightly above the decay. The Bay Area is a place that
| required significant effort for me to be happy and that wasn't
| possible when investing significant effort into maintaining my
| high salary job.
|
| My advice to folks living in the Bay Area: take stock of why
| you are there. If the answer is a paycheck, I find it very hard
| to believe it's worth it after my experience.
| msoad wrote:
| Where are you living? very interesting!
| gkoberger wrote:
| First, I think you're overestimating how much you can make as
| an engineer in SV. It's more, but it's not fair to say $100k is
| "not even close".
|
| Second, there's more to life than working at, say,
| Facebook/Netflix/etc for money. The pure happiness of working
| on something you care about is worth a lot of money to some
| people.
|
| Third, if this person ever wants to get a real job, the $100k
| won't go away, and they'll easily add $50k to their starting
| offer for running a prolific open source project.
|
| Lastly, look at that graph. It's going up. Zero to $100k is
| really good for 6 months, and in another 6 months it'll
| potentially double. Most startups don't get to $100k this
| quick. More people will use this as time goes on, they can
| start new projects, they can do high-end freelancing for
| companies using it, etc.
| Veelox wrote:
| I would estimate Sr. or better is possible for someone who is
| able to independently run a OSS project. Going off
| https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-
| Engi... that comes out to ~$350k/yr going up one more level
| gets you ~$500k/yr
|
| I will let you decide if 3.5x - 5x is "not even close".
| olalonde wrote:
| > I would estimate Sr. or better is possible for someone
| who is able to independently run a OSS project.
|
| I don't believe that's a correct assumption. It's been a
| while but: https://techcrunch.com/2008/01/01/zed-shaw-puts-
| the-smack-do...
| ivalm wrote:
| This was very sad to read...
| axegon_ wrote:
| Those numbers are real, no doubt about it but even if you
| potentially have the skills and knowledge to compete for
| those positions, your odds of getting such a job are still
| incredibly slim. If you are young, immensely talented(for
| the lack of a better word), and in a location near the job
| offering, then yes, there's a chance. But even giants such
| as FAANGs will have their doubts when you're 30+ and on the
| other side of the planet, even if your profile fits the
| needs of a senior engineer better than the youngsters next
| door, because they are well aware that at this point in
| your life, your priorities are increasingly becoming
| children and elder family members and it is incredibly
| likely for you to pack your bag and leave the moment
| something goes wrong with your family on the other side of
| the planet. And with such salaries, you'd be perfectly
| capable of doing that in 6 months, just when their
| investment is starting to pay off. Strictly speaking, you
| are looking at a very small subset of a subset that was
| tiny to begin with. For most people that doesn't happen
| even in dreams.
| ttymck wrote:
| To be fair, it will be just as hard to make a compelling,
| valuable OSS project if you don't possess the same skills
| and talents that FAANG hires for.
| haditab wrote:
| From experience I would say running the OSS project is
| definitely harder, but the type of person who is capable
| of making a successful OSS project is not the type of
| person who can chain themselves to a chair for 3 months
| and practice interview questions. Studying for FAANG
| interviews is arduous and extremely non-rewarding. It is
| like the extreme opposite of an OSS project, where you
| put in the same hours and have exactly nothing to show
| for it.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| Unless you're doing interesting things at google for that
| 300-500k, 100k to work on OSS problems seems immeasurably
| better to me especially because they don't have to live in
| the bay area.
|
| 100k in pretty much anywhere but the east or west coast may
| as well be 300k.
| Nightshaxx wrote:
| That's exactly what the commenter's point was.
| komali2 wrote:
| If we're talking raw numbers, that doesn't compute well.
|
| My last rent in Houston for an actual cool place to live
| (downtown Westheimer area) was a solid 1.3k, or 15k a
| year. So after taxes rough estimate 70k - 15k = 55k into
| your savings account, before expenses etc.
|
| I have the best apartment I've ever had in my life
| practically on top of 16th mission station right now for
| 2.1k. I'm not making 300k but if I was, let's see: 210k -
| 25k = 185k into savings each year, not including
| expenses. That's 3x the amount of money for investment,
| savings, playtime in places where the money goes the same
| distance no matter where your permanent address is.
|
| State and city income tax aren't going to eliminate that
| 3x difference. Brunch costing 50$ vs 20$ isn't going to
| make up that difference.
|
| We can talk about quality of life as well but that'll be
| a much, much longer comment from me, and feels like a
| pointless conversation (city folk gonna city).
| Grimm1 wrote:
| I see the time spent making that 300k at a fang as 40-60
| hour a week opportunity cost on better work with the
| caveat that if you are doing work you consider personally
| interesting then good for you. I think ultimately we have
| very different priorities from each other though and view
| money differently as well.
| komali2 wrote:
| Well that's fair, though a different discussion. I would
| argue you could probably find a project at Google that
| promotes your values, who knows though.
|
| In any case, my numbers hold up for bay area startup
| salaries as well - if they didn't, I wouldn't live here
| lol.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| I'm currently working on founding a search engine that is
| in direct opposition of Google's values, or potentially
| lack thereof, so I think that might be a hard sell for
| them ;)
|
| And the numbers don't really work out for founders for
| the first couple years in terms of any salary so I think
| again we view money differently. I'm not really disputing
| that your numbers work for being an employee but they
| don't really hold out for people working to start their
| own thing, at least in the short term. As I'm sure the OP
| is aware there's intangible benefits that don't take the
| form of a retirement account associated with running your
| own thing.
|
| Edit: I'll also say we may be at a point where we're
| starting to talk passed each other, your math checks out
| for sure I just don't value the benefits associated as
| much.
| komali2 wrote:
| That's really cool, care to link? I'm slowly extricating
| myself from Google and Facebook.
|
| I think we don't disagree for reasons other than raw
| money about why working somewhere other than FAANG would
| be good. Probably reasons similar to why I don't work at
| FAANG ;P
| michaelmior wrote:
| > Third, if this person ever wants to get a real job, the
| $100k won't go away,
|
| It's true the $100k doesn't immediately disappear, but it
| seems safe to assume that taking on a full time job would
| leave a lot less time to do OSS work and would probably
| result in a non-trivial loss of sponsorship.
| blocked_again wrote:
| Why do you feel the necessity to compare with Silicon Valley
| Salary? $100k is an amazing amount of money in pretty much
| everywhere else on Earth.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| What is average pay for a software developer in SV with 10
| years experience?
| negrit wrote:
| You can easily get a comfy job with $350k
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| "easily"?
| negrit wrote:
| Yes it's a numbers game. Apply for as much job as
| possible and ask for a minimum of $200k base. With a
| little bit of back and forth you can settle for $180k and
| then get a lot of equity.
| lexs wrote:
| indeed.com puts the average software engineer with 10 years
| experience in silicon valley at $141k [0] I think you have
| a very skewed view of "easily"
|
| [0] https://www.indeed.com/career/software-
| engineer/salaries/Sil...
| Grimm1 wrote:
| That sounds like base salary. Most compensation in SV
| comes in the form of stock.
|
| A senior at google makes 170kish in salary and another
| 130-150k in stock.
| ska wrote:
| This is true, but a senior at google is nothing like the
| median senior in the valley.
|
| This is the problem with level.fyi; it's good information
| but too many people point at it and say "look how much
| software engineers make in the valley". This isn't even
| close to representative.
|
| It's a bit like looking at biglaw salaries in NYC and
| saying "look how much lawyers make".
| adventured wrote:
| > indeed.com puts the average software engineer in
| silicon valley at $112k with a $5k bonus per year
|
| That figure or the number you edited it to at $141k, is
| on the low side. The median software developer in the US
| is at ~$110,000. The top 10% bracket starts at around
| $165,000.
|
| Emphasis that $110k figure is median, average is higher.
| The _average_ software developer in SV with 10 years of
| experience is going to be a lot closer to $200k or over.
| ska wrote:
| Mean salary isn't a very useful number if the
| distribution isn't close to normal; Without all the data
| it's hard to be sure - but that plausibly seems to be the
| case for SV salaries. Certainly matches my personal
| networks experience (sample biased as that may be).
|
| Where did you get that 110k figure, by the way? That
| sounds very high for me for a median across all US
| software. Maybe California specific?
| ORioN63 wrote:
| I haven't checked the data and I'm not sure why you're
| being downvoted since you don't seem to be breaking any
| of HN code of conduct.
|
| That said, isn't median a better measure in this context,
| though? There can be a set of salaries that skews the
| average by a significant amounts, but most receive ~110k$
| the_jeremy wrote:
| https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/San-
| Franci... (the top graph does not appear to let you filter by
| YoE, but you can look at what everyone has put.
| bluebit wrote:
| At his current revenue growth rate, he will likely surpass
| $200k in the next 12 months with very little additional effort.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| If I'd take $100K and move back to my country, I'd have the
| lifestyle 99% of devs in SV could only dream of. It wouldn't
| even come to my mind that I would want to work for FAANG.
| TomMarius wrote:
| $100k gives you a really nice lifestyle anywhere in Europe.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Before or after taxes?
| imhoguy wrote:
| You can't compare US taxes to EU taxes. Paying these
| (taxes and social contibutions) you also get something in
| exchange: free public medical care, free education, state
| pension, various safety nets. Although quality and amount
| depends on country.
| thibaut_barrere wrote:
| After taxes even (source: I work from a rural part of
| France. Some years I've earned less, most years a lot
| more).
| ttymck wrote:
| So then how much is $100k before taxes?
| cosmodisk wrote:
| $100K before taxes would leave about half of it in most
| countries in Europe.
|
| Just for the context,that's what I could afford back home
| in the capital: https://m.aruodas.lt/namu-nuoma-vilniuje-
| antakalnyje-bistryc...
| [deleted]
| znpy wrote:
| after taxes
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| In Denmark after taxes you would probably have about
| 329,000+ dkk, which yes, that is a pretty good half a
| middle class couple. So you can take care of half a
| family on that reasonably, not astoundingly great, but
| quite reasonable.
|
| on edit: actually looking at wages in Denmark I see I am
| somehow doing a lot better than I thought, which is
| pretty much amazing to me considering how badly I thought
| I was doing. Since I am making about that amount after
| taxes. hmm.
| kungtotte wrote:
| Eh, I live in Sweden and I make around that much _before_
| taxes and me and my wife could manage with just my
| paycheck if we really had to. That 's with a mortgage on
| a house, two cars, and a four year old kid.
|
| I doubt the cost of living in Denmark is that much higher
| than Sweden, so I'd say you're living beyond your means
| if you can't make it work on 329K DKK _after_ tax...
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Denmark is more expensive but ultimately it'd depend on
| the area and so on.
| Shalle135 wrote:
| Have you been to copenhagen? If u'd head out to eat you
| won't find anything for less than 500 SEK/pp unless u
| want fast food. Drinks are cheap though :)
| kungtotte wrote:
| No, I've never been to Denmark at all. That sounds really
| expensive. Not even Stockholm is that expensive (I live
| 60 KM south of Stockholm).
|
| If you go out to eat there at a normal place, it'll be
| more like 300-400 SEK (~280 DKK) per person including 1-2
| alcoholic beverages.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Except major cities like London, Paris, Dublin where it is
| somewhere around 'table stakes'.
| maccard wrote:
| I've lived and worked in two of those cities (and one
| other almost as expensive european city) for much less
| than $100k/year. It's a pretty comfortable lifestyle from
| about $50k upwards.
| dbancajas wrote:
| can you share what are the taxes for 100K/year? And then
| the basic costs like housing and groceries? what about
| vacations?
| maccard wrote:
| https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php - take
| home on $100k in England is about PS55,000 ($68k) and
| london living costs are https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
| living/in/London.
|
| https://ie.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php Says take
| home on $100k in ireland is ballpark EUR55,000 ($62k),
| and living costs are here - https://www.numbeo.com/cost-
| of-living/in/Dublin -
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Sure, if you are happy living like a student. If you want
| to own a place in a reasonable part of town? If you want
| to be able to have a child? If you don't want to have to
| rely on two incomes to pay the mortgage? I didn't say it
| wasn't possible to live on that, only that that kind of
| salary was table stakes in those cities i.e. it's
| adequate but hardly living like a king.
|
| Personally I can think of a plenty of other places I'd
| rather live in where you could truly live well on that
| kind of money.
|
| Source: I live in the first of those on a similar salary.
| maccard wrote:
| There's a world of a difference between living like a
| student and owning property in a reasonable part of
| Dublin/London. a EUR45,000 salary (which is roughly $50k)
| is definitely a comfortable, non student lifestyle. It's
| not going to buy you a decent house in Dublin, but it's a
| comfortable lifestyle, and more than adequate.
| labelbias wrote:
| EUR45,000 does sound a bit low. I lived on EUR40,000
| (after taxes, rent was only 8-10% of the yearly income)
| in Croatia and lived like a king (travelling,
| restaurants, buying stuff without worrying about the
| price, massive amounts of good quality food).
|
| Moving to any other major European city would require me
| to at least double the income to maintain my standards.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| At current exchange rates, $100k is about PS80k or
| EUR88k.
|
| In the UK that pre-tax income would put you well in the
| 95th percentile.
|
| Post-tax the 97th percentile.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| $100K before taxes is decent salary in London. It's not a
| lot a lot but that's what a senior developer would make
| in most companies (excluding financial sector+ some
| extremely funded shops). Would you stop worrying about
| money? No,of course not.But you could afford to live in
| decent area,drive normal car,have some nice holidays in
| pretty places + put some aside for rainy day.Of
| course,this is London,so no matter what kind of money you
| make, there's always someone making x10 times that. But
| isn't that's the case anywhere?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Does this include having a family?
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Doable but it won't be something amazing. $100K would
| translate to about PS4600/monthly (after tax). Housing:
| PS2000-2500(2-3 bed, decent area) Food: PS600-800(normal
| food) Transport: PS500-PS700(public transport for both +1
| car/)
| [deleted]
| sweeneyrod wrote:
| PS80k income puts you in the top 2% of the UK. Something
| that 98% of people (lower in London but not vastly lower)
| manage without can hardly be called "table stakes".
| cambalache wrote:
| Yes HN is weird like that. Every time salaries are
| discussed people jump out with comments like : " 100k
| yearly after tax? That would merely serve you to live in
| a rented room and eating just ramen every-day".Then you
| go check and that kind of income is like top 3% , so
| either they are bullshitting or capitalist societies are
| in a dramatic state.
| non-entity wrote:
| > Yes HN is weird like that. Every time salaries are
| discussed people jump out with comments like : " 100k
| yearly after tax? That would merely serve you to live in
| a rented room and eating just ramen every-day"
|
| This one isnt really HN alone. Mostly just extremely
| privileged developers without much perspective.
| shafyy wrote:
| You must be kidding. $100k a year is more than enough to
| not think about money (for one person) in all European
| cities, including London. Except if you suck at personal
| finance and spend all your money for unnecessary things.
| buzzy_hacker wrote:
| So is it enough to not think about it or not enough so
| that you must think about it to not spend unnecessarily
| Orou wrote:
| It's enough that you don't have to worry about your
| ability to save money. It doesn't mean you never have to
| think about money at all.
|
| When I moved to London I was surprised how low salaries
| were, even after factoring in social services like the
| NHS. 100K USD (80,000GBP) is a very good salary there.
| toyg wrote:
| If you have more than a single child of school age, PS90k
| in London is not that much. Two kids at a private school
| in Northern England will run you PS30k, I imagine in
| London it will be a tad more.
| [deleted]
| shafyy wrote:
| I explitliy mentioned: for one person. Of course, if you
| want to raise a family with private schols and a big
| house in the middle of London, that won't work. But let's
| not twist my words here.
| toyg wrote:
| _> I explitliy mentioned: for one person._
|
| 1950 called, they want their mononuclear family
| stereotypes back.
| petercooper wrote:
| Sure, you wouldn't send them to private school on that
| income. But it's far from a necessity; <10% of kids are
| privately educated.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Never mind private schools, housing costs go through the
| roof if you want them to have their own room or, god
| forbid, a garden. Not to mention nursery fees if you both
| need to work to cover the mortgage and bills.
| znpy wrote:
| > $100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV
| as an engineer.
|
| $100k iS sTiLl NoT eVeN cLoSe To HoW mUcH yOu CaN mAkE iN sV aS
| aN eNgInEeR
|
| jokes aside, you can do even more money with less taxes in the
| united arab emirates.
|
| So, when are you moving?
| msoad wrote:
| these are such a bizarre responses. Did you read the
| following sentence you're quoting?
| peruvian wrote:
| Your first sentence and its tone were unnecessary and
| pretty much rendered the rest of the comment pointless. Why
| even include the comparison?
| msoad wrote:
| because it shows how much money you leave on the table to
| go pick up so much happiness on the other side of the
| money table :)
| _curious_ wrote:
| Nice, awesome achievement!
| jglauche wrote:
| Any advise for a developer with disabilities who failed hard
| getting most of her projects out of 1-10 users phase if any?
| oxAAAFFB wrote:
| The payment scheme of the future will be something where a
| digital product is created and then kept locked up until it's
| unlocked by Kickstarter style fundraising. Each individual person
| gets something they want (the digital product) in exchange for
| their money, just like before. But under this model, everything
| might be open source by default, the product only costs society
| what it is worth (unlike current digital products like movies and
| songs) and the convoluted nightmare of drm and each-tv-network-
| has-their-own-subscription-service can finally die.
| llIIllIIllIIl wrote:
| Congratulations!
| [deleted]
| PopeDotNinja wrote:
| Good work :). That's awesome.
| mschuetz wrote:
| Nice! I'm also already at 2$/month.
| iandanforth wrote:
| I'm not sure I fully understand the sponsorware model. Hopefully
| someone will educate me.
|
| If my costs for writing a piece of software are initially X, I'd
| hope to make at least X back before I open source it. (Ignore
| loss-leaders for now)
|
| If I'm counting number of sponsors, do I calculate them as if
| they will stick around for a year? 100% retention seems unlikely.
| Do I only open source after I've had Y sponsors for Z time such
| that sum(Y.donations) * Z == X?
|
| Then after I open source it I have ongoing costs. His experience
| seems to imply that educational content (paid) then _also_ pays
| for ongoing maintenance costs. Is that correct?
|
| What if I later decide to stop supporting a project? Is there any
| mechanism to stop a stream of income from a group of sponsors, or
| will I have to assume they will "naturally" stop sponsoring when
| I kill new education content and updates to the project? This
| seems problematic as inertia will cause some people to keep
| paying despite not getting further value, which will cause some
| of them to be angry and demand "refunds."
|
| What if my project really takes off? What would be a possible
| path to scale from say 1-5 paid collaborators?
| j7ake wrote:
| Congrats! Inspiring to see that you can make a living on your own
| without coding within a corporate structure.
| blueterminal wrote:
| This is a really exciting project, can't wait to try it out. I
| love Laravel. Amazing job.
| jcelerier wrote:
| since there's no such thing as a small advice - I'd appreciate a
| review of my sponsor page :-)
| https://github.com/sponsors/jcelerier
| LeonM wrote:
| Hi Jean,
|
| I'm trying not to make this sound as a generic LinkedIn
| business advice, but get a better profile picture. Maybe a
| picture of you in front of one of the art pieces. Something
| that gives me an impression of who you are and what kind of art
| you collaborate in.
|
| It may sound stupid, but first impressions do really matter,
| even on Github. A dark, blurry picture of you drinking beer
| does not give a good impression.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > It may sound stupid,
|
| it definitely does not haha, I put a better pic. Thanks !
| LeonM wrote:
| Perfect! This gives a _much_ better impression on who you
| are (in a professional environment)
| bnt wrote:
| This. Oh my god this. I can't believe people put up a TikTok-
| value photo on a professional site and wonder why they aren't
| getting 6 figure offers - no matter how technical they are.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > I can't believe people put up a TikTok-value photo on a
| professional site
|
| That's interesting - for the longest time, for me Github
| wasn't anything related to the professional world, just a
| website to put the hobby OSS projects or uni group projects
| on. Things have obviously changed - it's nice to get a
| reality check regarding it.
| YorickPeterse wrote:
| I'll join in as well! Please roast my profile here:
| https://github.com/sponsors/YorickPeterse
| spotlmnop wrote:
| Happy for you. Real talent deserves recognition. Thank you for
| everything you do. Keep up the good work.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| The sponsorware idea was something we also want to do;
|
| - add sponsors as collaborators in the project
|
| - give sponsors access to all versions from the get-go
|
| - set a $ limit, when reached, will trigger full open-sourcing of
| the project
|
| - have public sponsor income page where people can follow the
| progress
| truell20 wrote:
| anyone tried running ads on their open source repos?
| gumby wrote:
| This is great, for a couple of reasons. One is that it works! I'm
| delighted for you.
|
| Second is that I haven't heard of livewire because I work in a
| different area. This suggests that more folks will be able to do
| the same (admittedly livewire is in a popular space -- which
| makes meeting this threshold harder, so congrats again)
| sytelus wrote:
| I hate sponsorware concept OP is proposing. It seems to work for
| him but it's opposite to the spirit of open source. His idea is
| that keep code secret until you find N sponsors. Further, he will
| hide important tutorials if you are not sponsor. I would hate to
| use this kind of open source project.
|
| Here is more viable freelancing:
|
| - create framework/library that everyone needs
|
| - for feature requests/bug fixes, prioritize sponsors
|
| - do office hours for sponsors
|
| - invite sponsors/allow them to vote for future road map
|
| - offer consulting credit to sponsors
| purpleidea wrote:
| Nice idea, but most people want open source for free, and never
| contribute back, and so we only get code that big companies
| want, and not individual driven things that often have better
| ethics behind them, instead of the companies ulterior motive.
| sequoia wrote:
| > Here is more viable freelancing
|
| Implying his approach is not viable is weird, given that what
| he's doing is demonstrably working (at least at the moment).
| He's making free software and then selling subscriptions to
| training content, which is where he seems to be making
| something like 80% of his revenue. It's like Railscast,
| Laracast, Egghead.io (originally just angular tutorials!) etc.
|
| The main difference to railscast, egghead.io etc. is that he's
| using Github as a payment processor & to manage subscriptions.
| sushid wrote:
| That sounds more like straight up working to me. This way he's
| building features he's interested in and allowing some people
| to get a sneak peek, if you will.
|
| I'm not sure how sponsorware is the opposite to the spirit of
| open source but your proposal would essentially allow someone
| to buy out the product roadmap which seems worse.
| Shorel wrote:
| You are free to hate and free not to use such a product.
|
| The truth is that many developers have taken the high road, and
| done the right thing, and they have been unable to make a
| living out of their open source efforts.
|
| I hate that the ecosystem is so weak the OP has to resort to
| this model, but I have nothing but sympathy for the OP.
| drummer wrote:
| These are great ideas thanks.
| kemitchell wrote:
| There is no singular "spirit of open source". Ask a hundred
| developers, get a hundred answers.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| Do you have an example of that actually working for someone?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I have an example of my npm install logs being spammed by
| someone trying.
| tylerhou wrote:
| > - for feature requests/bug fixes, prioritize sponsors
|
| Isn't this equivalent to "keep code secret until someone
| sponsors you?" Except in his case, the work is done before
| you're sponsored, and in yours, the work is done after?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| No. Not at all.
|
| Because there is always a infinite amount of work to do.
|
| Usually you do the most rewarding work.
|
| With no money involved, then it is usually the most fun part.
|
| And with money, it is what other people want. That can be the
| same, but does not need to.
| muyuu wrote:
| His idea has better incentives. He doesn't have to insert
| himself or make consulting necessary, he has an incentive to
| make the running costs as low as possible, and the manuals as
| good as possible. Among other things.
| pselbert wrote:
| What you're proposing requires him to sell his time instead of
| his work (which was already a portion of his time). It is
| impossible to scale that type of consulting work to multiple
| clients because you'll always be limited by your available
| time.
|
| The spirit of open source isn't so sacred. In most cases it is
| hundreds or thousands of businesses benefiting financially from
| the work you've done.
| calebporzio wrote:
| This exactly
| calebporzio wrote:
| I started the journey out (sorta) this way. It's a hard
| life.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Practically it is closed-source and then once financial targets
| get satisfied (sponsors, sale, maintenance contracts) one open-
| sources it. Thus is how a lot of enterprise software gets
| opened.
|
| If it is trully open-source from start then anyone can freely
| dostribute the copy outside of the elite group.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| Wow, that's a huge inspiration.
|
| I've been sitting on GitHub sponsorship setup for htmx, but this
| motivates me to get that done. It would be amazing to work on a
| passion project and get paid for it.
| stevekemp wrote:
| I have a bunch of projects which seem to be popular, and a lot
| of followers. Income received via sponsorship? EUR0.
|
| I think a lot depends on luck, and the kind of repositories you
| manage/create. Some projects are obviously more commercially
| useful than others, and those are the easier ones to receive
| income from.
|
| https://github.com/skx/
| cure wrote:
| Thank you for xen-tools and xen-shell :)
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| yeah, like most technical stuff it seems like a lottery
| ticket, but if it's a lottery ticket that costs almost $0
| it's worth at least setting it up...
| soheil wrote:
| For those wondering here is the repo in question and it has 4.5k
| stars https://github.com/livewire/livewire
| zucker42 wrote:
| Did Github just undergo a design update? The buttons are
| flatter and it looks more like Gitlab to me now.
| peterkos wrote:
| Yep, unfortunatley.
|
| I left feedback the moment it entered "feature preview", left
| feedback on all the accessibility it lacked (mainly reducing
| contrast everywhere), and well, looks like they just rolled
| it out anyways.
|
| Really wish they would take things like people being able to
| see their product without difficulty seriously.
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| Yes
| caniszczyk wrote:
| Sigh, GitHub is still promoting the "open source gig economy"
|
| https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
|
| It's been about 2 years of GitHub sponsors and they haven't
| shared any data on how well people are doing.
| ppod wrote:
| Off-topic question: Is Livewire comparable with RShiny, and is
| there anything that would let me do what Livewire does in python?
| hirundo wrote:
| "All of this works because I spent years and years honing my
| craft and producing software that is truly useful. I've poured
| everything I have into that work, and there are no shortcuts
| there."
|
| This reminds me of Steve Martin's, "You Can Be a Millionaire ...
| and Never Pay Taxes":
|
| "You say, 'Steve, how can I be a millionaire and never pay
| taxes?'"
|
| "OK first," he explains, "get a million dollars."
| FpUser wrote:
| Congratulations. Nicely done.
|
| Also you've mentioned github sponsors. Did not know about that
| program. It is severely restricted by small list of countries.
| Seems unfair as so many people contribute through github but
| looks like large chunk is unable to apply for this type of
| sponsorship because of location. Frankly I am quite disappointed
| with such policy.
| xgenecloud wrote:
| That's phenomenal! Hitting $100k in 5 months.
|
| Here is OP's repo - https://github.com/livewire/livewire
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| "Sponsorware" - it feel like open sourced shareware
| rglover wrote:
| Congratulations :)
|
| This is really inspiring and motivating for doing OSS work.
| tomerico wrote:
| If Github sponsors proves to be a viable and scalable solution
| for OSS developers, this could spike a huge boost in quantity and
| quality of OSS.
|
| We've seen a similar effect with YouTube - by providing a
| monetization path for creators, it attracts talent, and allows
| them to finance a lifestyle around it. And it's a self-
| accelerating cycle - the growth in quality and quantity increases
| demand for the content which increases the quality and quantity.
| zepearl wrote:
| I absolutely never heard anything about "Github sponsors" until
| now, which is actually what I always wished that somebody would
| create... .
|
| I thought as well (and still keep thinking) that if I'll ever
| manage to create something successful which generates $, then
| I'll share a part of the revenue with the (open-source) parts
| that my <whatever: app/website/etc...> uses/needs.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The IRS website sometimes uses exact dollar amounts of reported
| tax information as identity verification. Author _probably_
| should replace screenshots of tax forms with rough figures.
| saos wrote:
| That was a nice reading experience
| rsweeney21 wrote:
| Sponsoring the official screencasts/educational content for an
| open source project is a great idea. I run a company[1] that
| provides a service targeted at software engineers and I'd pay
| several hundred to several thousand a month to have a 30 second
| promo at the start of a video, depending on the size of the
| project.
|
| Is there a website out there where I can find content I can
| sponsor?
|
| Also, keep in mind that when you are self employed you need to
| make 20-30% more than your salary as an employee if you want the
| same take home pay. That covers the extra self-employment tax you
| have to pay, health insurance, business insurance, etc. If you
| charge by the hour, you might find this article on how to
| calculate an hourly rate helpful:
| https://help.facetdev.com/docs/how-do-i-calculate-my-hourly-...
|
| [1] Shameless plug: www.facetdev.com
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| The next thing he could do was make a book out of his various
| projects and get some passive income. This is a really great and
| uplifting story!
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