I, and a lot of other people, cannot get accounting at where I work to cut a check for that kind of sponsorship. I can get accounting to cut checks for things that matter. Typically if someone asks what's the difference between paid and free, and you answer, it supports Active Directory, you're most of the way there if you can show a business need for the product. But just a straight-up donation? It's a hard sell.
It's only a hard sell if you have to run it by accounting. But this is the kind of thing that I would have happily just expensed. It's a known vendor, and if I'm dropping $20/month on some vague software expense, nobody will care.
Note also that the product lets people "choose from multiple sponsorship tiers, with monthly payment amounts and benefits that are set by the sponsored developer." That opens up much bigger pots of money. E.g., a premium support tier is totally justifiable for software that I'm building key code on. That could be $25-100/month, no problem.
And there's a reason conferences sell sponsorships: lots of businesses see it as good marketing to support things that are visible and important to a community. For example, I could totally justify a big-dollar project sponsorship ($1k-5k/year) as a recruiting expense if I want to hire people who already know something important to our work.
> It's a known vendor, and if I'm dropping $20/month on some vague software expense, nobody will care.
If you said the money is going to GitHub, and it's actually going through GitHub, that's lying.
I think it will probably show up differently on credit card statements anyway, so people won't be tempted to do this behind the backs of the accounting department.
Could you imagine getting audited and your boss finding out you donated $xxxx dollars in donated patronage to others? I would not want to be the one in that room...
As with any expense, you should have a good business reason for it. But I think there's a strong business case for businesses supporting open source software that's key to that business.
Either way, it's $20 on some vague software expense. Nobody will care. Worst case, the boss somehow says, "What's this $20 charge" and I explain why I though there was a good business reason for us to support that project.
You're thinking in terms of this first announcement (large sponsorships). I'm thinking about the next step in the process, which is more like Patreon.
GitHub will know two very interesting data points: the relationship graph between projects and dependencies and the sponsorship level of those dependencies. Combine that with Issue and PR activity, and it could therefore identify which highly-depended-upon projects need funds the most and nudge accordingly.
"Did you know that you and 2,500 other codebases depend on $lib.js? Why not pledge $25 to support its development?" That sort of thing.
I, and a lot of other people, cannot get accounting at where I work to cut a check for that kind of sponsorship. I can get accounting to cut checks for things that matter. Typically if someone asks what's the difference between paid and free, and you answer, it supports Active Directory, you're most of the way there if you can show a business need for the product. But just a straight-up donation? It's a hard sell.