The second most important way to support Bitcoin Core contributors is to donate to support their work.
The first most important way to support Bitcoin Core contributors is to review and test their work so it has a better chance of getting merged. This part is so much harder.
More than that. I have it first hand that at least some core contributors aren't happy about donations because of the impact that has on the incentives. Learned a lot from a discussion I had while trying to give β¬50 worth of sats to a dev, and he was reluctant to take it. Many implications one doesn't normally think about
I'm curious reluctant because of creating unrealistic expectations or some other issue?
Several. So, offering a donation for certain project
1) allocates work towards that project, independent of its merit
2) may lead to sloppy evaluation before merge, if those responsible for merging also recipients
3) may lead to quarrel between supporters and detractors of a merge, if supporters are financially motivated
4) if several people work on a project for which a donation is outstanding, there may be quarrel about the relative amount of work each participant did, and hence how to split the donation
5) in general, leads to additional motivation structure among developers, and the existing one is already messy enough
6) best way to deal with is a long term, project agnostic commitment so a dev gets one or several years off to concentrate on building. Bu
(Oops, that post button was right under my middle finger π€ͺ)
But even that distorts the incentives, as some devs may want to work on something popular that attracts donations (e.g. speed), rather than something important that doesn't (e.g. privacy).
That's what I van remember. There was more, but it was a while ago. Anyway, it surprised me
Whatβs the best way to start reviewing/testing for the less technically inclined in your opinion?
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