A very good example on this is Vue.js. While it is very popular, a quick look at the donation amounts on Evan's patreon page gives a good reality check for those who are dreaming of living off donations.
If this was a commercial project, his income would be magnitudes higher.
Yes, $20k a month is comfortable. But is it appropriate given the popularity of Vue and considering how many organizations profit from it?
Now, if you scale this down to a framework that has half or a quarter of that popularity. When do you reach the point where it isn't comfortable at all anymore? And does that still seem appropriate?
Not necessarily. I would expect part of the reason it's one of the most used is because it's non-commercial.
I do agree it's not fair compensation, though.
If it was a commercial project I imagine there would likely need to be other staff involved, and adoption would be lesser. Whether that ends up being more or less money for him in specific in the end (or whether the project/company would survive) is not without question, in my mind.
It will be hard to find evidence for both sides I guess. So it boils down to being kind of a gamble: adoption or fair compensation — you can't have both.
This looks like a race to the bottom to me, which is what the data presented in the article seems to support.
I might suggest for a company to use VueJS since it is open source and donate but I’m never going to suggest that a company bases its product on Telerik components.
on edit: I should have probably asked one the child comments, but this is ok here as well.
That is also part of his compensation.
I'm a developer who's presented at conferences. I don't consider that "another" job, but rather, part of this job. And I don't have any monthly donation income coming in at all.