Research Artifact - GitHub Sponsors: Exploring a New Way to Contribute to Open Source

GitHub Sponsors 于 2019 年推出，支持向个人开源软件 (OSS) 开发人员捐款。对 OSS 维护者和开发者的财务支持是维持 OSS 项目的一个主要问题，向个人捐款的能力有望支持开发者、项目和社区的可持续性。在这项工作中，我们对 GitHub 赞助商进行了混合方法研究，包括定量和定性分析，以了解可能接受捐赠的开发人员的特征以及开发人员对个人捐赠的看法。我们发现：(1) 赞助开发者比非赞助开发者更活跃，(2) 接受捐赠的可能性与社区中是否有人捐赠有关，(3) 开发者作为新人赞助为 OSS 做贡献的方式。我们的发现是迈向使用 GitHub 赞助商的数据知情指导的第一步，为未来在财务上维持 OSS 社区的这种新方式的工作开辟了道路。

GitHub Sponsors was launched in 2019 to facilitate direct monetary donations to individual open-source software (OSS) developers. Financial support for OSS maintainers and developers has long been a critical barrier to sustaining OSS projects, and the ability to donate directly to individual developers is poised to enhance the sustainability of developers, their associated projects, and their communities. In this study, we perform a mixed-methods investigation of GitHub Sponsors, integrating both quantitative and qualitative analyses, to understand the characteristics of developers who may receive sponsorships as well as their perceptions of individual donations. We uncover three key findings: (1) Sponsored developers are more active than non-sponsored counterparts; (2) The likelihood of receiving sponsorships is correlated with whether someone in the developer's community has donated; (3) The ways in which new developers contribute to OSS via sponsorships. Our findings represent a first step toward data-informed guidance for leveraging GitHub Sponsors data, paving the way for future work on this emerging model of financially sustaining OSS communities.

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集聚焦于GitHub Sponsors平台，该平台于2019年推出，旨在通过个人捐赠支持开源开发者，以促进项目可持续性。研究采用定量与定性方法，分析了赞助开发者的活跃度、捐赠接受与社区行为的关系，以及开发者作为新赞助者的贡献模式，为开源社区的财务支持机制提供了初步数据指导。