# GitHub sponsors pros & cons

## What is GitHub sponsors?

[About GitHub Sponsors](https://docs.github.com/en/sponsors/getting-started-with-github-sponsors/about-github-sponsors)

> GitHub Sponsors allows the developer community to financially support the people and organizations who design, build, and maintain the open source projects they depend on, directly on GitHub.

> You can sponsor anyone with a sponsored developer profile or sponsored organization profile on behalf of your user account or an organization. You can choose from multiple sponsorship tiers, with one-time or monthly payment amounts and benefits that are set by the sponsored account. Your sponsorship will share your account's existing billing date, payment method, and receipt.
>
> GitHub Sponsors does not charge any fees for sponsorships from user accounts, so 100% of these sponsorships go to the sponsored developer or organization.

## Article Analyses

### Article 1: [New GitHub Sponsors Tool Draws Concerns from Open Source Community](https://wptavern.com/new-github-sponsors-tool-draws-concerns-from-open-source-community)

The following extracts were retrieved from Article 1 to present some context into potential risks that may be faced by the team in pursuing the GitHub sponsor path.

> GitHub has an advantage over other competing funding services by having its Sponsorship model embbeded in the GitHub workflow where much of the work actually takes place. However, this also raises concerns about how sponsor expectations may influence a project’s development.

- {+} Funding alternative directly embedded into the place where work is taking place.
- {-} Concerns on the influence on a project's development.

> Sponsorship is a somewhat subjective term and GitHub isn’t defining what it means here in the context of marrying it to a contributor’s workflow. For some, it may mean a no-strings-attached donation. For others, the idea of sponsorship always comes the expectation of a return on an investment.
>
> “’Why haven’t you fixed my issue yet!? I sent you $10! I demand you honor your obligations here. I paid you,’ welcome to small-donation open source 2019,” Hansson said.

- {+} Contributors will feel empowered, being able to truly help the project.
- {-} Users may expect special consideration on their issues or pull requests.

> “I’m sure GitHub had all the right intentions here. And I’m sure this will work out well for a select few developers who will amass enough donations to ignore individual claims to their time. But I think it’s a grave risk to the culture of open source.”

- {-} In the bigger picture, this may present unforeseeable risk to the culture \& philosophy of open source.

> Hansson referenced a recent keynote he delivered at RailsConf 2019 titled “Open source beyond the market,” challenging those whose initial reactions are simply that “donations are a good thing.” Bringing the concept of sponsorship a into the workflow introduces a transactional nature to the work, with unavoidable marketplace expectations that can complicate a project’s development.
>
> “The marketplace norms are hard to escape,” Hansson said in his keynote. “They seep into our unconsciousness. There are plenty of open source users who think themselves less as a recipient of a gift and more like customers with warranty claims, that they’ve done the makers of said open source software a great honor by merely choosing to use their thing.

- {+} A transactional nature in the workflow may incur unvavoidable marketplace expectations.

### Article 2: [FAQ with the GitHub Sponsors team](https://github.blog/2019-06-12-faq-with-the-github-sponsors-team/#how-does-the-waitlist-work)

> “Online communities have always been a huge part of my life—from connecting with others to growing as an individual. I’ve been designing tools and systems for communities on GitHub to be productive, welcoming, and safe. Coming from that perspective, I’m thrilled to work on GitHub Sponsors to financially empower developers in the open source community in their current and future work! I’m excited to see how funding can give maintainers, mentors, organizers, and beyond more equity and access to building communities on GitHub.”

- {+} Financial empowerment of the developers is a crucial aspect in their work motivation. To be clear here, the goal is not profit, it's community and project empowerment.

> I’m building GitHub Sponsors to support the human beings behind open source and to allow users to give back to maintainers and help the open source ecosystem thrive.

- {+} Help the open source ecosystem thrive.

> “Open source is such an exciting phenomenon because it gives anyone with a computer and access to the internet a way to positively affect thousands of lives.
>
> Funding open source means empowering even more people to contribute, grow, and build together. I’m so proud to work on GitHub Sponsors because we have the opportunity to make open source not only more sustainable but also more accessible to people all over the world.”

- {+} Funding open source means empowering even more people to contribute, grow, and build together.

> Q: Can’t people just steal money from the matching fund?
> A: We have a rigorous vetting process for the sponsored developers who receive the match. If you happened to see the application form at github.com/sponsors, you’ll notice we ask a lot of questions that support this process. We’re also introducing more measures—including an extensive identity verification and antifraud program in partnership with Stripe—as we grow the program this summer.

- {+} Extensive identity verification and antifraud ensures the safety of the community funds.

### Article 3: [Looking Back on Two Years of GitHub Sponsors](https://dev.to/azu/looking-back-on-two-years-of-github-sponsors-e0n)

> One thing that has changed since I started as a GitHub Sponsor is that the financial/psychological burden of ongoing maintenance costs has eased.

- {+} Eases not only maintenance costs, but the pressure on concerned faculty members to lobby for funding from the department. There's a lot of phenomenal things we could do with more funding which is difficult to relay to administration.

> GitHub Sponsors has not only reduced my workload, but has also given me more opportunities to work on new things.

- {+} Would allow the community and developers to be more experimental with what we choose to develop.

## Collected pros & cons

| **Pros** | **Cons** |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Funding alternative directly embedded into the place where work is taking place. | Concerns on the influence on a project’s development. |
| Contributors will feel empowered, being able to truly help the project. | Users may expect special consideration on their issues or pull requests. |
| Financial empowerment of the developers is a crucial aspect in their work motivation. | In the bigger picture, this may present unforeseeable risk to the culture & philosophy of open source. |
| Help the open source ecosystem thrive. | A transactional nature in the workflow may incur unvavoidable marketplace expectations. |
| Funding open source means empowering even more people to contribute, grow, and build together. | |
| Extensive identity verification and antifraud ensures the safety of the community funds. | |
| Eases not only maintenance costs, but the pressure on concerned faculty members to lobby for funding from the department. | |
| Would allow the community and developers to be more experimental with what we choose to develop. | |