disclaimer: I say this having my own somewhat "competing" site in the oss crowdfunding area, though it is new and frankly unused. I'll give out the link if anyone is interested, but it seems poor form to do so directly in this comment.
I like the gist of gittip: giving hackers a way to write open source code while still making a living. That is ideal to me, and crowdfunding works for oss because oss has a return on investment for everyone.
I just have a hard time seeing how gittip will break an initial interest plateau. Traditional crowdfunding has worked for a few projects because there is an exact "you are getting this output for this input". With gittip it is much less obvious. I can donate an amount each week to a person, but there's nothing attached as to how that should be used for either side. The giver might expect a certain result, but the recipient doesn't know what that is or why they are receiving it.
Not to mention there is the issue where of what if a receiver wants to take a month off? The people who are giving do so because they expect something in return, and either the receiver is tied to that nebulous expectation of production, or they can take a break and risk losing whatever funding they received before and the resulting need to build that up again.
I just don't see how that can scale beyond a small, very interested audience. I feel we need the hard goals which say "if you give me this, I'll give you this". These goals give more concrete deadlines and expectations and probably are more likely to drive results.
But hey, anything in this area is encouraging and it will be interesting to see where gittip goes.
"The people who are giving do so because they expect something in return."
I believe they don't. Gift tips have no strings attached on either side. It's like employment at will, where either party is free to call it off at any time.
"[E]ither the receiver is tied to that nebulous expectation of production, or they can take a break and risk losing whatever funding they received before and the resulting need to build that up again."
I think it's a matter of telling your story openly and transparently. If people see me working productively for a year and then I blog about how I'm burned out and plan to take a break for a month, I would expect my funders to understand and not totally bail on me. I mean, I could set up visits around the country and have a nice vacation and still keep the story rolling. If I'm finding my living on Gittip I have to have a relationship with my anonymous funders and trust them. The Internet lets us have a relationship with the anonymous crowd.
Gittip wants to make it easier for receivers to tell their story. See:
I'm pretty much at the other end of the spectrum. For the time being I would probably discontinue my contribution if one of the developers I am tipping decides to do something I don't approve of (say, join Oracle). However, that's not my ideal long-term situation:
Ideally, I would, over time, decide for myself that I actually put total trust into people I support, that I trust them to do the right thing and continue to do so. To continue to make the right decisions, even if I may not understand their every reasons, even if I am actually opposed to a particular move.
Basically, I want to help „setting them free“. This concept exists for entrepreneurs in the form of „FU money“ but I would like see something like that to happen elsewhere, be it OSS developers, political activists or philosophers, caring mothers or fathers, teachers, artists, or musicians. I think crowd-founding makes possible which I could never achieve from the income I generate alone.
So eventually I'd like to decide (in some cases) to make my commitment irrevocable, if that would be by contract alone or by putting 500 weeks of tips into a safe fund, I don't know but I think independent of whether gittip is going to have a feature like that eventually I think this is an important step into the right direction, namely not expecting anything in return for the absolute trust I give out :-)
(I really like the idea of fully generalized reciprocity, i.e. all give not because they receive something in return but because they know enough people are giving, too. I'm not naive enough to think everybody will take part in such a scheme but I think these OSS developers show how much impact even freeing some of them could make).
(I absolutely agree on your other post, many will be suspecious of and reject no-strings-attached donations, I have no problems with that at all)
I think gittip fills an interesting niche. Rather than supporting a particular project, gittip allows me to support a particular developer.
By contributing to gittip, I am saying I trust that developer to manage their time appropriately. I don't expect a specific amount of work every week; I expect a professional, long-term commitment to the project.
I think the tippers should get 1 vote per dollar or something. Contributors can vote on TODO lists. This lets the developer get feedback on what the community needs. The developer can do whatever he fancies. But the votes will reduce the communication gap between the developers and the donors.
Hey. Quick tip: I knew what gittip was in the first sentence. But what is Work for Pie? There's no mention of that on the blog so I clicked the link. It sounds a lot like github but you can sign in with github? Pretty confused.
Ha! Good point. Wanted to take the emphasis off of us for a bit, but I understand the confusion.
Work for Pie is a community for software developers--and especially for developers who contribute to open source software. Joining gets you two things: a portfolio, and a score. Portfolio puts the emphasis on open source work, and score is based on meaningful participation in dev-centric communities (right now Github, Bitbucket, Stack Overflow, and Hacker News with more coming).
In the future we'll be doing a couple things:
1) Making it easier for developers to connect with like-minded individuals
2) Making it easier for developers to discover great companies without the pressure that comes from working with outside recruiters or the frustration that comes from searching the job boards. We'll be sure to do a Show HN what that stuff is ready.
Thanks for asking! Feedback is welcome and encouraged cliff (at) workforpie.com
That's another issue I see with the project. Since these are recurring donations, you can never really count on them. I suppose you can't "count" on keeping a job either, but if you are expecting $60,000 a year to keep your lifestyle up and someone drops out donating for whatever reason, you are in trouble. You can't depend on it the way you would job or an up-front donation.
I'm sounding too critical. I really do like what is being attempted here, there just are hard barriers.
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|13 years ago|reply
I like the gist of gittip: giving hackers a way to write open source code while still making a living. That is ideal to me, and crowdfunding works for oss because oss has a return on investment for everyone.
I just have a hard time seeing how gittip will break an initial interest plateau. Traditional crowdfunding has worked for a few projects because there is an exact "you are getting this output for this input". With gittip it is much less obvious. I can donate an amount each week to a person, but there's nothing attached as to how that should be used for either side. The giver might expect a certain result, but the recipient doesn't know what that is or why they are receiving it.
Not to mention there is the issue where of what if a receiver wants to take a month off? The people who are giving do so because they expect something in return, and either the receiver is tied to that nebulous expectation of production, or they can take a break and risk losing whatever funding they received before and the resulting need to build that up again.
I just don't see how that can scale beyond a small, very interested audience. I feel we need the hard goals which say "if you give me this, I'll give you this". These goals give more concrete deadlines and expectations and probably are more likely to drive results.
But hey, anything in this area is encouraging and it will be interesting to see where gittip goes.
[+] [-] whit537|13 years ago|reply
I believe they don't. Gift tips have no strings attached on either side. It's like employment at will, where either party is free to call it off at any time.
"[E]ither the receiver is tied to that nebulous expectation of production, or they can take a break and risk losing whatever funding they received before and the resulting need to build that up again."
I think it's a matter of telling your story openly and transparently. If people see me working productively for a year and then I blog about how I'm burned out and plan to take a break for a month, I would expect my funders to understand and not totally bail on me. I mean, I could set up visits around the country and have a nice vacation and still keep the story rolling. If I'm finding my living on Gittip I have to have a relationship with my anonymous funders and trust them. The Internet lets us have a relationship with the anonymous crowd.
Gittip wants to make it easier for receivers to tell their story. See:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/133
This is really WFP's thread, but I'm interested in seeing your site.
[+] [-] kaiwetzel|13 years ago|reply
Ideally, I would, over time, decide for myself that I actually put total trust into people I support, that I trust them to do the right thing and continue to do so. To continue to make the right decisions, even if I may not understand their every reasons, even if I am actually opposed to a particular move.
Basically, I want to help „setting them free“. This concept exists for entrepreneurs in the form of „FU money“ but I would like see something like that to happen elsewhere, be it OSS developers, political activists or philosophers, caring mothers or fathers, teachers, artists, or musicians. I think crowd-founding makes possible which I could never achieve from the income I generate alone.
So eventually I'd like to decide (in some cases) to make my commitment irrevocable, if that would be by contract alone or by putting 500 weeks of tips into a safe fund, I don't know but I think independent of whether gittip is going to have a feature like that eventually I think this is an important step into the right direction, namely not expecting anything in return for the absolute trust I give out :-)
(I really like the idea of fully generalized reciprocity, i.e. all give not because they receive something in return but because they know enough people are giving, too. I'm not naive enough to think everybody will take part in such a scheme but I think these OSS developers show how much impact even freeing some of them could make).
(I absolutely agree on your other post, many will be suspecious of and reject no-strings-attached donations, I have no problems with that at all)
[+] [-] japhyr|13 years ago|reply
By contributing to gittip, I am saying I trust that developer to manage their time appropriately. I don't expect a specific amount of work every week; I expect a professional, long-term commitment to the project.
[+] [-] SudarshanP|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgbrgb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cliftonmckinney|13 years ago|reply
Work for Pie is a community for software developers--and especially for developers who contribute to open source software. Joining gets you two things: a portfolio, and a score. Portfolio puts the emphasis on open source work, and score is based on meaningful participation in dev-centric communities (right now Github, Bitbucket, Stack Overflow, and Hacker News with more coming).
In the future we'll be doing a couple things:
1) Making it easier for developers to connect with like-minded individuals
2) Making it easier for developers to discover great companies without the pressure that comes from working with outside recruiters or the frustration that comes from searching the job boards. We'll be sure to do a Show HN what that stuff is ready.
Thanks for asking! Feedback is welcome and encouraged cliff (at) workforpie.com
[+] [-] dinkumthinkum|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|13 years ago|reply
I'm sounding too critical. I really do like what is being attempted here, there just are hard barriers.