This is very cool, but my initial reaction was "this is amazing" to a misunderstood model of what this is.
This is: Create a pool of btc, distribute to those who commit to current round.
What I thought this is: Anyone can tip on individual commits that they find useful or of exceptionally high quality, akin to Reddit Gold for code. This way, not all commits are treated equally and great commits can be compensated. To further the reddit gold analogy, this can tip for premium features (i.e. tip some btc or usd for a month of free github premium) or just straight out money.
I realize there's gittip, but this is on the level of commits, not developers.
Sure, except that tippers (users) are not likely to be in position to judge the quality of a commit, nor really want to wade through hundreds of commits to decide which ones might be worth spending money on, and for the most part, just want to support the development of the project rather than micro-manage it. It's a nice ideal us developers can dream of, but the model implemented BitHub is just easier to use.
To use a restaurant analogy, a shared tip jar that gets split evenly at the end of the night results in much fairer distribution (and includes the chef and cashier as well) as opposed to personalized tips which get unfairly / unevenly distributed between waiters. Most people tip because of the full service, from ambiance to service and cooking, not just the front-man performance.
And you can still always ways to tip individuals developers (or waitresses) personally if you so wish.
Perhaps this would create an incentive for contributors to better explain the significance of their changes in their commit messages. Whether or not this would be a positive effect is up for debate.
I think Open Source would benefit from having both models.
Your model/the gittip model is good.
So many times, there are only a small handful of people who care about a bug being fixed or a capability added -- but that small handful are both willing and able to tip generously for work that meets their specific need! We've all been there. Either as an individual, an agency, or a software company, we've been in a place, dependent on a relatively lower-profile project where we'd cheerfully tip in the $50-$300 range. That's probably good for everyone. There are a few ways of doing this, but what you've described -- 'tip for this specific commit' -- is how easy we all wish it was. I wish it was a feature of github.
But their model is good, too.
Some open-source projects are relied upon by thousands, tens of thousands, or more people, and they want to know that everything, small and large, is being done to keep the software stable. As others have commented in this thread, this would be a way to pump up the ecosystem for popular, highly-depended-upon open-source software projects.
Sure, adding features like this might induce gaming. But if I understand their model, this may just mean that those reviewing pull requests may just need to take an additional factor into account -- whether or not the commits involved are substantive, or if they're too 'gamed'. It seems like it might be a self-licking ice cream cone, because larger-scale gaming (attempts to earn Real Money through mostly-frivolous PRs) could be caught by review, whereas minor cleanups for docs or comments in the commits of a PR that includes more substantive work might be, as other commenters have mentioned, perhaps just a few percentage points of 'wastage'.
I don't think we really know if it's feasible or not, but I applaud these efforts tremendously.
I also wonder if a hybrid system could work -- perhaps as a feature to be added to the 'tip for all commits' approach. Allow tipping for individuals, but a certain percentage (50%? 25%? something?) could go into the general pool for all accepted commits.
Comments
This is very cool, but my initial reaction was "this is amazing" to a misunderstood model of what this is.
This is: Create a pool of btc, distribute to those who commit to current round.
What I thought this is: Anyone can tip on individual commits that they find useful or of exceptionally high quality, akin to Reddit Gold for code. This way, not all commits are treated equally and great commits can be compensated. To further the reddit gold analogy, this can tip for premium features (i.e. tip some btc or usd for a month of free github premium) or just straight out money.
I realize there's gittip, but this is on the level of commits, not developers.
Sure, except that tippers (users) are not likely to be in position to judge the quality of a commit, nor really want to wade through hundreds of commits to decide which ones might be worth spending money on, and for the most part, just want to support the development of the project rather than micro-manage it. It's a nice ideal us developers can dream of, but the model implemented BitHub is just easier to use.
To use a restaurant analogy, a shared tip jar that gets split evenly at the end of the night results in much fairer distribution (and includes the chef and cashier as well) as opposed to personalized tips which get unfairly / unevenly distributed between waiters. Most people tip because of the full service, from ambiance to service and cooking, not just the front-man performance.
And you can still always ways to tip individuals developers (or waitresses) personally if you so wish.
Perhaps this would create an incentive for contributors to better explain the significance of their changes in their commit messages. Whether or not this would be a positive effect is up for debate.
I think Open Source would benefit from having both models.
Your model/the gittip model is good.
So many times, there are only a small handful of people who care about a bug being fixed or a capability added -- but that small handful are both willing and able to tip generously for work that meets their specific need! We've all been there. Either as an individual, an agency, or a software company, we've been in a place, dependent on a relatively lower-profile project where we'd cheerfully tip in the $50-$300 range. That's probably good for everyone. There are a few ways of doing this, but what you've described -- 'tip for this specific commit' -- is how easy we all wish it was. I wish it was a feature of github.
But their model is good, too.
Some open-source projects are relied upon by thousands, tens of thousands, or more people, and they want to know that everything, small and large, is being done to keep the software stable. As others have commented in this thread, this would be a way to pump up the ecosystem for popular, highly-depended-upon open-source software projects.
Sure, adding features like this might induce gaming. But if I understand their model, this may just mean that those reviewing pull requests may just need to take an additional factor into account -- whether or not the commits involved are substantive, or if they're too 'gamed'. It seems like it might be a self-licking ice cream cone, because larger-scale gaming (attempts to earn Real Money through mostly-frivolous PRs) could be caught by review, whereas minor cleanups for docs or comments in the commits of a PR that includes more substantive work might be, as other commenters have mentioned, perhaps just a few percentage points of 'wastage'.
I don't think we really know if it's feasible or not, but I applaud these efforts tremendously.
I also wonder if a hybrid system could work -- perhaps as a feature to be added to the 'tip for all commits' approach. Allow tipping for individuals, but a certain percentage (50%? 25%? something?) could go into the general pool for all accepted commits.