GitRoyalty

GitRoyalty

A new solution to Open Source sustainability using git

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GitRoyalty doesn't rely on complex licenses, support promises, issue bounties, or donations to pay open source developers. Instead it uses the power of git to add a paywall to open source projects, putting money in contributors' pockets for the first time.
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Launch tags:Open Source•Software Engineering•Developer Tools
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What do you think? …

~spencer~
oh woah, this is a really interesting project! At first, not gonna lie, was a little heistant thinking about all my favorite OSS projects moving over to a paywall, but seeing some of the example prices makes me realize I can still afford to use them while also supporting the developers. Super excited to see how this progresses & see the adoption rate. Good job, and good luck! :^)
Saoud Rizwan
GitRoyalty
Maker
@stuffbyspencer I'm so glad you feel that way! Something else to consider is processing fees - GitRoyalty charges all your subscriptions as a single transaction. So the more repositories you subscribe to the less fees have to be paid per repository, putting more money in contributors' pockets. This makes low prices more sensible since most developers use hundreds of open source projects.
~spencer~
@sdrzn right, that makes total sense! Plenty of OSS projects have thousands of users. If just half of them paid less than a dollar a month, that could really be a decent income to continue supporting the project!
Dima Grossman
Kinda misses the point of open-source IMO. Would prefer to use something like buymecoffee, patreon or opencollective.
Saoud Rizwan
GitRoyalty
Maker
Hey @dima_grossman! GitRoyalty upholds the very principles that open source is built on. Anyone anywhere in the world can inspect and contribute to your project, and your licensing can remain permissive. The only difference with GitRoyalty is that consumers are met with a paywall when they want to use your project in their own, usually profitable, product. GitRoyalty hopes to create an ecosystem where consumers are incentivized to pay developers, and developers can sustain the continued improvement and maintenance of their open source projects. Donation services like Patreon and Open Collective have come up short for the majority of open source contributors in this regard. Usually only popular repository owners are the ones people donate to, when the reality is that there are hundreds or thousands of other developers that contribute to the code you use. GitRoyalty ensures each and every contributor gets paid, not just the famous user facing ones.
Mike Signorella
If you have to pay to get access to the source code then it's not open source... This makes no sense.
Saoud Rizwan
GitRoyalty
Maker
@mike_signorella1 Hey Mike, after configuring a project with GitRoyalty, the source code will still be available on GitHub for anyone to inspect and download. The only file that is hidden behind a paywall is a metadata file (e.g. package.json or a build script) that makes it hard to use the project in a production environment without. This ensures that if someone wants to use an open source project in their own, usually profitable, project, then they'll need to pay as little as $0.50 a month, distributed amongst every developer based on their contributions. I think this way of doing things makes total sense, as compared to the current state of open source where overworked maintainers get paid nil for doing the same (or arguably more) work engineers would otherwise earn extremely high salaries for. When money is involved, more developers will likely want to contribute, taking the burden off of project owners, and ensuring a project doesn't get outdated or abandoned in the future.
Vishwanath B S
IMHO I don't think this model works out for truly open source projects. This defeats the entire purpose of open source.
Saoud Rizwan
GitRoyalty
Maker
@vishwanath_b_s Hey Vishwanath, I don't think it defeats the purpose at all! I wrote a piece in the docs that I think answers your concerns: https://gitroyalty.com/docs/welc... GitRoyalty upholds the basic principles of open source–your code remains public on github for anyone to inspect and contribute to, and licensing can remain permissive. I think we as a community have to understand that the purpose of open source should involve giving back to the open source developers that keep our apps running, instead of only taking from them.
Nate Osterfeld
@vishwanath_b_s @sdrzn No where in the "basic principles of open source" does it involve paywalls. Your slanted definition of open source makes it seem like the projects are just there so we can look at the pretty code. If you remove the package.json and the ability to use the project, then it is not open source, no matter how much you want it to be. And I'm sure you're aware of this, but you can already host your code inside of a public repo without expressing explicit rights to it. You can also omit whichever important files you prefer. TLDR: I'd rather not see Github turn into the app store
Jacob Hobbie
This is a great idea! It's definitely not a solution for every project, but giving the option to developers is always good, especially in a modern development environment that doesn't always fairly compensate the developers of certain open source projects that more then millions use across the planet. Thank you for this!
Saoud Rizwan
GitRoyalty
Maker
@hobbiejacob Thank you Jacob!
Ilias Bhallil
OMG, nice!
Nate Osterfeld
So is this to say I would no longer be able to even install OSS projects through NPM/Yarn? Because if so, this completely KILLS the entire software development space as we know it. Guaranteed your typical broke college student isn't going to have the funds to pay 50 bucks a month just to play around with some frameworks and learn via side projects. I can hardly afford to host my site as it is. This is why the Freemium model is already so popular. It allows platform/product adoption by making the bar to entry low enough for people to get in and try it out. While also not letting bigger corporations/enterprises take advantage of something too good to be true. Not everything has to be Open Source. And if your goal is to run a profitable business, there are many different routes to take in order to do so. But the second everything starts having little taxes and fees associated with it is the second you lose A LOT of people. I guess the market would hopefully figure itself out, but this is not open source. You can already put your code onto Github without a license, letting people inspect the code without granting explicit rights. Perhaps, if anything, an alternate model would at least be a "collective paywall" where a goal is either met or the manifest file is revoked. That way the people who *really* need it aka the ones who are truly profiting and thus *able* to pay for it, can. Maybe even generate estimated quotes based on installs for how much a project should be worth too? Idk exactly, but I'm 100% sure this would hurt the community while providing mostly minimal benefit. I can see why you would want it to succeed, though... $$$ TLDR: I'd rather not see Github turned into the app store
Saoud Rizwan
GitRoyalty
Maker
@osterfeldnate Hey Nate, thanks for such a heartfelt response. I use open source packages just as much as the next guy so I get where you're coming from. I think GitRoyalty could pave the way for a *new* path for software development, since it would certainly take a lot to kill it! "your typical broke college student" represents a fairly small demographic of open source consumers, compared to all the businesses that use open source pervasively to power their usually profitable ventures. Furthermore, all GitRoyalty subscriptions come with a 2 week free trial, giving you plenty of time to play around with a framework before deciding if you want to use it in your project. As to your point about Freemium - that model doesn't work for most open source projects, it's only applicable to a small percentage of project types. Your idea for a collective paywall where a goal is met or the manifest file is revoked is interesting, but honestly seems a bit evil and infeasible. If a developer were to put in the effort of creating an open source project in the first place and getting it popular enough for people to care about it, it's unlikely they'll just break the entire project if a single goal isn't met.
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