[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":407},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-20768365":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":28,"sentiment":29,"stance_mix":30,"scored_comments":35,"aspects":36,"strip":45,"post_text":46,"what":47,"said":85,"maker_in_thread":223,"shape":235,"grid":239,"attempts":371,"same_week":372,"maker_shows":32,"maker_hidden":399,"reader_version":400,"card":401},"20768365","Scarf","Platform to help open-source developers monetize their work","title","Show HN: Scarf – Platform to help open-source developers monetize their work","https:\u002F\u002Fscarf.sh","scarf.sh","aviaviavi",1566483774,2019,167,58,244,2195,12,"notable","web_saas","open source monetization platform","web_app",[24,25,26,27],"open source monetization","package telemetry","open source payments","package distribution","roasted",-0.396,{"positive":31,"neutral":32,"mixed":33,"critical":34},3,7,1,14,25,{"idea":37,"docs":39,"privacy":41,"design":42,"pricing":44},{"positive":33,"critical":38},6,{"positive":33,"critical":40},0,{"positive":40,"critical":31},{"positive":40,"critical":43},5,{"positive":40,"critical":40},[43,40,40,31,43,33,31,40,33,40,33,40,40,40,40,31,40,33,40,40,40,31,33,40,40,40,33,40,33,33,33,33,43,33,31,33,40,40,31,33],null,{"problem":48,"audience":56,"pricing":66,"motivation":75,"time_to_build":46,"stack":82,"openness":83,"stage":84,"team_size":83},{"value":49,"source":50,"evidence":51},"Open-source developers are not compensated consistently for their work.","commenter",[52],{"id":53,"by":54,"text":55},"20770435","greggirwin","I replied to a few comments, and will post my own now. For those questioning the FOSS-ness of Scarf. Start with Wikipedia, then read a few more things for background. Scarf…",{"value":57,"source":58,"evidence":59},"Open-source developers and companies that depend on their packages.","maker",[60,63],{"id":61,"by":11,"text":62},"20778946","Scarf also aims to help developers sell open source software to enterprises. The idea of leveraging telemetry by default in exchange for payments specifically targets companies,…",{"id":64,"by":11,"text":65},"20769348","From a developer view, you now don't have to give away your usage data just because you give away your software for free. You have more leverage to ask companies and commercial…",{"value":67,"source":58,"evidence":68},"Free packages send metrics to Scarf; paid packages send none. Scarf takes fees only to cover Stripe currently.",[69,72],{"id":70,"by":11,"text":71},"20769288","Yup, that's the current model! But Scarf can support much more flexibility, so ultimately the developer will have a variety of options. A package could be fully free, and payment…",{"id":73,"by":11,"text":74},"20771091","This is useful feedback, thank you. There's definitely still a lack of documentation, and I'm working to improve that. Currently, Scarf takes fees only to cover the Stripe fees,…",{"value":76,"source":58,"evidence":77},"Give developers a way to get paid for open-source work without friction.",[78,79],{"id":53,"by":54,"text":55},{"id":80,"by":11,"text":81},"20771700","I understand where you're coming from. I think saying it's evil and holding privacy for ransom is inaccurate though. The goal of this is to give individual developers leverage to…",[],"unknown","prototype",{"praise":86,"objections":97,"requests":149,"questions":177,"alternatives":190},[87],{"value":88,"source":50,"evidence":89},"Support for the goal of compensating open-source developers.",[90,94],{"id":91,"by":92,"text":93},"20770715","garysahota93","This is awesome. I love open source projects and the developers behind them all. This is really cool and I'm installing now!",{"id":95,"by":54,"text":96},"20770313","Ignore Scarf's success for a moment, and focus on it's goal. Do you think FOSS developers should be compensated for their work? If so, how do we make that happen?",[98,113,123,131,142],{"value":99,"source":50,"evidence":100},"Telemetry in packages is a privacy concern and could be spyware.",[101,105,109],{"id":102,"by":103,"text":104},"20769294","weego","So from a developer point of view the more popular your package is financially the less insight into its use you get? And a user point of view is that my usage data is now a…",{"id":106,"by":107,"text":108},"20771603","bogwog","This is a terrible idea. I like the idea of paying money to not be spied on--I wish more companies adopted that model--but turning your opensource project into spyware and…",{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},"20773262","mmgutz","This reminds of the internet explorer toolbars which counted installs, collected other stats and phoned that home. Those companies put wrappers around installs. Scarf also…",{"value":114,"source":50,"evidence":115},"Monetizing via install or usage conflicts with open-source principles.",[116,120],{"id":117,"by":118,"text":119},"20769130","itsmefaz","I like the idea of Scarf allot. This solves a very good problem of getting analytics on features that get released. And these insights would certainly help improve the software.…",{"id":121,"by":118,"text":122},"20769401","Yes. It ceases to be open-source and ends up becoming software as a service.",{"value":124,"source":50,"evidence":125},"Forks can remove the telemetry or payment layer.",[126,130],{"id":127,"by":128,"text":129},"20769891","vortico","If the software is open-source, it will just get forked in a branch that removes usage metric uploading. If you want to make money with software, just release proprietary…",{"id":106,"by":107,"text":108},{"value":132,"source":50,"evidence":133},"Site requires JavaScript and shows nothing without it.",[134,138],{"id":135,"by":136,"text":137},"20769350","danieldk","Just wanted to mention that the site does not show anything at all with 1st-party JavaScript or 3rd-party JavaScript (stripe) disabled. It would be nice if there was some…",{"id":139,"by":140,"text":141},"20771204","mattl","Please consider making it work without JavaScript, or at the very least label your JavaScript files so it will work with LibreJS.",{"value":143,"source":50,"evidence":144},"Pricing model and fees are unclear on the site.",[145],{"id":146,"by":147,"text":148},"20770579","human20190310","I like the idea; if someone wants to make some money off of customers who are more willing to pay than to make efforts to avoid paying, it's nice to have an easy way to do that.…",[150,158,166,170],{"value":151,"source":50,"evidence":152},"Make the site work without JavaScript or use first-party scripts.",[153,157],{"id":154,"by":155,"text":156},"20770162","misterdoubt","Make it first-party, then. At least for your landing page. I don't expect to have to load third-party scripting from a commerce website just to be able to see something other…",{"id":139,"by":140,"text":141},{"value":159,"source":50,"evidence":160},"Clearer documentation of money flow and fees.",[161,162],{"id":146,"by":147,"text":148},{"id":163,"by":164,"text":165},"20771857","tssva","What would also be great is to create a link to your terms of service so they can be reviewed before creating an account.",{"value":167,"source":50,"evidence":168},"Link to terms of service before sign-up.",[169],{"id":163,"by":164,"text":165},{"value":171,"source":50,"evidence":172},"Show popular packages on the front page.",[173],{"id":174,"by":175,"text":176},"20769132","xgulfie","Some site feedback: It would be cool to see popular packages on the front page. Otherwise it looks like there are zero. Also, searching then searching again messes with back…",[178,186],{"value":179,"source":50,"evidence":180},"What data is captured and how is abuse by malicious package authors handled?",[181,185],{"id":182,"by":183,"text":184},"20770245","undoware","I haven't tried this yet, but poking around the site, I'm wondering what mitigations you have for potential abuse? I'm concerned specifically about transparency to the end user…",{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},{"value":187,"source":50,"evidence":188},"Is the telemetry sending command arguments or secrets?",[189],{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},[191,198,205,212,219],{"value":192,"source":50,"evidence":193},"Tidelift",[194],{"id":195,"by":196,"text":197},"20771071","jaboutboul","I understand where this is coming from, and it's definitely from a good place, but honestly I think the solution is a bit naive. Developers are not going to be able to sustain…",{"value":199,"source":50,"evidence":200},"Patreon and consulting",[201],{"id":202,"by":203,"text":204},"20777197","cheez","I think Patreon-esque approaches + consulting is doing a decent job.",{"value":206,"source":50,"evidence":207},"Bitcoin addresses in README",[208],{"id":209,"by":210,"text":211},"20772989","fragmede","A customer who wants to get money to a FOSS developer, is hard enough for developers to manage. (One success of the Apple store is that it makes getting paid easy and is easily…",{"value":213,"source":50,"evidence":214},"GitHub package registry",[215],{"id":216,"by":217,"text":218},"20769251","andrewpierno","nice work! I have a similar project https:\u002F\u002Fligit.dev we took the approach of letting the developer do everything as they usually would except for the license. How are you guys…",{"value":220,"source":50,"evidence":221},"ligit",[222],{"id":216,"by":217,"text":218},{"comments":224,"answered":38,"key":225},20,[226,229,232],{"id":227,"text":228},"20771211","Very well stated :). Scarf is still very early on and not remotely perfect. But I hope that people will give it a try, we can iterate and iterate and see if we can get more…",{"id":230,"text":231},"20773053","That's a good point about this not helping people who aren't near the US financial system, for now. I'm planning a feature for developers to be able to connect a crypto wallet…",{"id":233,"text":234},"20772054","Noted, I'll certainly be updating the copy\u002Fdocumentation substantially. Thank you!",{"commenters":236,"max_depth":43,"maker_replies":224,"first_comment_mins":237,"lifespan_hours":238},31,57,27,[240,242,244,246,248,252,254,258,261,263,265,267,268,271,273,274,277,279,281,284,286,288,291,293,295,296,298,300,302,304,306,310,311,313,315,318,321,324,326,328,330,332,335,336,337,339,342,345,348,350,353,356,359,360,361,363,368,370],[53,40,43,241,54,40],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea",[227,40,40,243,11,33],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[209,40,40,245,210,40],"other\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[230,40,40,247,11,33],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[249,33,31,250,251,40],"20771944","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs","andrewstuart",[233,33,40,253,11,33],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[255,33,43,256,257,40],"20775363","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fdocs","Lutger",[102,259,33,260,103,40],2,"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fprivacy",[64,259,40,262,11,33],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fprivacy",[146,31,31,264,147,40],"project\u002Fmixed\u002Fdocs",[73,31,40,266,11,33],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[163,31,31,250,164,40],[195,269,33,270,196,40],4,"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[61,269,40,272,11,33],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[117,43,33,270,118,40],[275,43,40,276,175,40],"20769159","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[121,43,40,278,118,40],"commenter\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[280,43,40,276,54,40],"20770283",[282,43,40,245,283,40],"20776264","type0",[285,43,40,272,11,33],"20769425",[287,43,40,276,54,40],"20770249",[289,43,40,290,54,40],"20770185","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[174,38,31,292,175,40],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign",[294,38,40,243,11,33],"20769218",[182,32,33,270,183,40],[297,32,33,270,155,40],"20770453",[299,32,40,266,11,33],"20773231",[301,32,40,266,11,33],"20771180",[216,303,40,276,217,40],8,[305,303,40,243,11,33],"20769471",[307,308,31,247,309,40],"20769162",9,"philips",[70,308,40,266,11,33],[127,312,33,270,128,40],10,[314,312,40,272,11,33],"20769977",[316,312,40,276,317,40],"20770064","starbugs",[319,312,40,290,320,40],"20770690","gnulinux",[322,312,40,276,323,40],"20773194","dboreham",[325,312,40,272,11,33],"20778971",[110,327,33,260,111,40],11,[329,327,40,262,11,33],"20773301",[135,18,33,331,136,40],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fdesign",[333,18,40,334,11,33],"20769436","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign",[154,18,33,331,155,40],[139,18,33,331,140,40],[338,18,40,243,11,33],"20780093",[340,18,33,331,341,40],"20773895","foresto",[91,343,43,344,92,40],13,"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fnone",[346,34,33,331,347,40],"20769151","flixic",[349,34,40,334,11,33],"20769230",[351,34,31,292,352,40],"20769357","lost_name",[354,34,31,292,355,40],"20769280","realPubkey",[357,358,33,270,203,40],"20769059",15,[95,358,40,290,54,40],[202,358,40,290,203,40],[362,358,40,272,11,33],"20778983",[364,365,31,366,367,40],"20772261",16,"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","madradavid",[106,369,33,260,107,40],17,[80,369,40,262,11,33],[],[373,378,383,387,391,395],{"id":374,"name":375,"points":376,"category":377},"20774322","monolith",640,"dev_tools",{"id":379,"name":380,"points":381,"category":382},"20813557","fkMigration.jl",375,"languages",{"id":384,"name":385,"points":386,"category":377},"20817627","I created Postwoman",280,{"id":388,"name":389,"points":390,"category":20},"20798003","Wobaka",275,{"id":392,"name":393,"points":394,"category":377},"20800157","portray",233,{"id":396,"name":397,"points":398,"category":20},"20790129","Sourcery",230,false,"v2",{"id":402,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":399,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":28,"s":403,"top":18,"kw":404,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":40,"strip":405,"url":9,"mix":406,"praise":88,"objection":99,"sub":21},20768365,-0.4,[24,25,26,27],"5003513010100003010003100010111151310031",[31,32,33,34],1794036580083]