By: Miguel Raz Guzmán Macedo
Re-posted from: https://miguelraz.github.io/blog/githubsponsors/index.html
Saludos 👋
Hola! Me llamo Raz y este es mi granito de arena para quienes quieren empezar con el software libre (o encontrar fuentes de ingreso en este mundo). Puedes ser mi sponsor en GitHub para que escriba más cosas como esta y contribuya al software libre de Julia/Rust y sus traducciones en español.
with apologies to Holge and Randy and David and Logan and Hector and…
Summary:
You can get money via donations and your GitHub profile. This can take a few hours to setup and be a good side revenue, or an emergency lifeboat. Depending on where you live, your marketing skills, larger community environment and a slew of other factors, this may or may not work for you. This post is an exercise in Your Mileage May Vary from someone who spawned the game of life in Easy Mode (white cis english speaking STEM focused able male), so take what you can and dismiss what doesn't apply.
Make no mistake: living from GitHub sponsorship means charity with extra steps, and with a multinational corporation (ultimately, Microsoft, Github's owner) as your uncaring and all powerful boss. Assume they will use power to control your "wage" to align with their interests and diversify your risks accordingly.
If you live in the Global South and this program can apply for you, please consider getting started NOW. If you live in the Global North, consider sponsoring devs in the Global South with monthly payments – foreign exchange rate makes them life changing. If you are giddy for how to get started, my recommendations for a setup are farther down in this post.
Who what when where why
GitHub sponsors is a program you can sign up for (free) on github.com and receive donations from other people for (mostly) working on open source stuff. If you were already doing open source stuff, you can setup a profile and people can choose to give you one-time or monthly donations (more on that later) at tiers you are free to specify – from 1USD a month to full 666USD Bezos level patronage.
Github sponsors is attractive in comparison to other platforms because, at time of writing, they do not charge a percentage on your sponsorships.
Patreon charges (at time of writing), 5%+, and other (main stream) platforms are not far off.
This is an attractive proposition, but you should investigate before you launch yourself into the "content creator" lifestyle.
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GitHub has yet, to my knowledge, bound itself legally into always respecting this financial agreement. It could start changing it's terms tomorrow, lest you obey some orders from corporate, as was the case recently with Twitch streamer's revenue sharing overnight change with …Amazon. That news was the most recent one off the top of my head, but every subscription/donation based platform can, has, and will unilaterally change your ~~wage split~~donations how they see fit.
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This doesn't apply to every country. At time of writing, 68 regions can qualify for sponsorships of which, sadly, I only count 4 African countries, for a "global" program that has been running for almost 3 years now. Mexico initially wasn't on the beta list (for which there was promo where GitHub would match donations, to my chagrin), but I joined the waitlist and received my email after a while. Note that Iran, Venezuela, Russia and CubaN
So. I think I've had what I would call a "moderately" succesful run with my GitHub sponsors. A lot of people have asked me about tips and tricks, and I'm not the one for
how it works
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how to setup your profile
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countries, bans, availability
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taxes
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Dos
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public presence: famous code, repos, books, talks, online presence (pandemic podcasts, community building)*
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big disclaimers, aka the don'ts:
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don't assume you won't pay taxes.
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uni might clash – grad students/scholarships may not work. dont knmow if amazon wish lists or payments in kind can be setup
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make this yourplan A, at least forever.