zlacker

While evaluting OSS project, key indicator is community activity. Github stars is a weak community activity indicator. Firstly, as shown in the article it can be gamed. Also, Stars is very low threshold action so does not indicate whether the person who starred the project will actually use it.

I think 2 great community activity indicators are - Github issues and of slack/discord/discourse comments. One key thing with github issues in my opinions is that, If the github issues are mostly by the core team, it is not a great sign. You want a large mix of issues from customers or users and not from the team. This is a good indicator if the project is solving real problem or not. Stars is very low threshold action. Same goes with the slack comments, it should have both volume and freshness.

>>debars+(OP)
I think checking if people donates to a project is a better indicator to the value of the project than the stars. I never paid attention to stars.

>>jmclnx+E
But there are OSS projects that are VC backed. They don't take donations.

>>debars+a1
That's already a very different deal then, no need to gauge repository health, you know there's a good chance of work suddenly ceasing.

>>jmclnx+E
Donating to yourself would be pretty cheap...

>>boxed+fb
Maybe not as cheap as you may think. I think github takes a small cut plus you may need to declare the donation as Income on your taxes.

Also if you get "smart" and donate on multiple cards, I would think it is a trivial task for github to determine is is a scam. The CC address would match you Address for the funds your receive.

Probably way too much work for this :)

>>debars+(OP)
Pretty sure those who game their repo are motivated by investment into associated startup. I think you are right that community activity is a high fiedlity indicator and a smart investor in OSS startups should definitely not only lurk in the community but if possible actually have resources to kick the project tires as well.

In a very strange way (but reflective of the economic regime) a startup that fakes stars vs a straight-arrow startup that doesn't is demonstrating a key element for success in business, which seems to require a significant element of bullshiting, and outright deceiving. The mantra has been that "grow grow grow" is the only guideline for success. Inflating your stars is just rookie hour practice for bigger better growth b.s. down the line.

>>jmclnx+Dd
They don't take a fee from what I read about it.

> https://docs.github.com/en/sponsors/sponsoring-open-source-c...

> GitHub Sponsors does not charge any fees for sponsorships from personal accounts, so 100% of these sponsorships go to the sponsored developer or organization. The 10% fee for sponsorships from organizations is waived during the beta. For more information, see "About billing for GitHub Sponsors."

>>asmor+C2
You have a point. I have often seen OSS projects being funded on the basis of github stars with no revenue whereas all the parameters show that the project health is not that great.

>>jmclnx+E
I don't you can externally measure how much money is being donated for an OSS project can you?

>>Kelami+Dk
GitHub sponsors has been out of beta for a long time, they take 10% of the donations if the code is under an organization which is very common for OSS projects. Of course one of the ways to get around it is to sponsor the lead developer, which is sometimes available as an option. Or just sponsor the developer some other way which doesn't go through Microsoft such as Liberapay or Opencollective.