Zig is about one piece of software, Like rust (that currently seems to imploding at the moment).
Nixpkgs is about getting people to ‘package and maintain software’, they are not the upstream, they are downstream maintainers, it’s completely different.
So perhaps this argument works for zig…but not for packaging people!.
So history repeats itself, there seems to be no way to get money into the hands of people that devote large amounts of their time to nix ecosystem.
A life of indentured servitude FTW.
What other models work? Idea’s would be good…
If bounties are not the thing, @Pamplemousse what other models have you seen that work?
What is a possible solution… give me your alternatives
There a lot of likes in the post, to say no, so those hitting like, what alternatives do you see?
I’m feeling ashamed for even suggesting that people get paid for their work! welcome to FOSS, free ! , Open! and you’ll work for free, for ever!
FOSS is sometimes about as sustainable as a coal fired power station.
Getting orgs to sponsor full time employees to work on NixOS is the model my previous employer used to suggest (and basically acted as a broker for, well not for NixOS, but other projects). Anecdotally, I’ve seen it work well in other communities, and it actually appears to be how NixOS development (and most F/OSS projects) is largely funded today.
The downsides are that this is more difficult to achieve, and might give specific organizations more influence over development than you’d like (though there is a discussion to be had about whether bounties are any better at preventing that). It also means it’s practically impossible for small actors to contribute financially, let alone steer development according to their interests, outside of donations for infrastructure.
This is what I feel the governance discussions at NixCon were converging towards. Centralised fundraising and spending introduces a different kind of unfairness than people just doing things, but it does allow for some focus on well-known issues.