GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

[birk]

Hey HN,

Birk from Polar here. We're building a platform for open source developers offering better funding & community tools. We're building it open source too: https://github.com/polarsource/polar

Here to answer any questions you might have. You can read more about this on our own Polar page for Polar: https://polar.sh/polarsource/posts/github-supports-polar-in-...

[myaccountonhn]

Hey! More funding options for open source is incredible.

Have you thought about opening up the platform to more than just Github? Having Github be the sole source for all open source projects is not very healthy for the ecosystem. There are other platforms like Codeberg and Sourcehut.

[Tmpod]

First of all, congratulations on building another option for OSS funding!

Now onto the questions:

How does Polar compare to other open-centric platforms, such as OpenCollective?

The latter has some great transparency features, are you planning on implementing anything like that?

Thank you!

[vault]

Cool to see it's open source! I don't have time right now to go through the codebase, so hope you don't mind if I ask you instead. What are you using "Act on your behalf" GitHub permission for?

[wahnfrieden]

Often I want to fund a PR in someone else’s project. Please don’t only make tools available to repo owners. Let us crowd fund work without the maintainers taking the lead. Sometimes the maintainers don’t have time or will to coordinate that, even if they will take the effort to click the merge button on PRs.

[okhuman]

Woah impressive - thanks for building this platform, I see the possibilities of it.

In terms of fees its polar.sh at 5% + stripe connect at x (us region)? What's roughly the stripe fee expected?

[ChrisArchitect]

One week from community suggestions to production? Pretty good!

[cowfish]

Are you planning to add support for non-Western countries?

[mholt]

Congrats on this milestone!

Love to see more ways to keep open source sustainable. Thanks for the work you do. Hopefully Polar is very successful!

[hobofan]

Previous discussion when they launched 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36722702

[birk]

Just to help highlight some big updates since:

- Posts & newsletter support to build direct relationship with your community

- Subscriptions to offer sustainable & recurring funding

- Built-in subscription benefits: Premium posts, Discord invites, Automate sponsor logos in README/site/docs, access to private GitHub repo(s)

- Rewards: Split issue funding with contributors

- Merchant of record & handling VAT for the above

- Public API

We've also lowered our pricing to 5%.

[SushiHippie]

(kind of offtopic)

I see these tutorial videos where it zooms in out to the cursor relatively often and I find them really dizzying/distracting, am I alone with that or what do others think about this?

[codelobe]

It IS distracting, and a waste of time vs Jump-cut-to-results.

In the right hands the zooming effect could reduce disorientation due to "Doorway Effect", but in the wrong hands zooming animations may induce motion sickness in some people.

We need to start creating guidelines for 3D and/or animated UI/DOCs now, the "tyranny of the default" will make reactionary efforts ineffective after the fact.

[LanternLight83]

I concur that the style doesn't appeal to me, but I figure it's ne of those marketing things like over-the-top thumbnails that no one likes but statistically works. FWIW, the XFCE desktop lets you zoom in on your cursor with integer scaling and /i love it/, legit use that as a magnifying glass (even to show people things) all the time-- but it /feels/ very different. The thing is okay, it's the style that feels patronizing.

[awesomekling]

That's great! We've been using Polar for funding GitHub issues in the SerenityOS & Ladybird projects for a couple months now, and it always makes me super happy when I see someone collect a reward!

Also, as someone who has navigated the "how to pay taxes as a crowd-funded OSS developer" swamp myself, I'm super happy to see Polar take on the task of becoming a Merchant of Record and abstracting away much of the complexity for all developers. :)

[birk]

So proud to have SerenityOS & Ladybird onboard Polar. You're such an inspiration and the community is incredible with talented & kind developers uniting to build something many deem impossible to begin with. Thanks for showing that those are the ambitions we should pursue.

[MapleWalnut]

I like that polar supports funding specific issues or pull requests. Seems like a nice way to help fund a project while also helping prioritize issues you care about.

[birk]

Thank you! Important callout: We designed issue funding for maintainers & contributors vs. bounty hunters. We don't believe in traditional bounties. More on this here: https://polar.sh/polarsource/posts/introducing-rewards

[hipadev23]

Polar is Onlyfans for devs?

[INTPenis]

With less feet pics.

[omoikane]

There were many negative news about another funding platform that basically took the money and ran away[1]. I am curious how Polar would be able to avoid that fate.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=BountySource

[KomoD]

I'm curious what the main differences are compared to all the other platforms

[prophesi]

Jumped to the comment section for this as well. Any open source devs successfully fund their projects through similar services that can give input on polar.sh and its competitors?

[pointlessone]

One downside is that they operate only in a few countries. Wealthy countries, too. So like GitHub sponsors it’s available in countries that need it least.

[rasso]

How can I create a polar account for a GitHub org instead of only a single user?

[hwbunny]

Still too many jumps to funnel money to the devs. Github needs to be shaken up.

[Alifatisk]

Congratulations!

[birk]

Thank you! :)