I might be reading this wrong, but does it not say "yearly"? It may be repeating, but if that frequency is once a year, I'm willing to live with that.
this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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The big deal to me is it's being added to the base code, to go out on all instances.
People will see "Lemmy developers" and assume it's related to their instance, and not realize it's the "salary" for two admins on one of the most problematic instances around.
It feels like other people took the free code, did well with it, and now the creators suddenly believe in capitalism and want rewarded for their labor.
If the only instance using Lemmy was lemmy.ml, most of us wouldn't be here, but they want to profit off of us because our instances used free code.
This is very standard in the open-source world. No matter what you may think of the developers' personal opinions, their work is valuable.
Also, asking for donations is not "profiting off of us(sic)", nor is it a salary, it's just a text prompt hoping you'll give the devs a kickback for their contribution. You can just ignore it and go about your day.
They likely don't make enough to live off of from those donations.
Maybe a stupid question, couldn't someone just fork it and remove this?
Yep, lots of people have been wanting to fork.
Especially since the excuse for lemmy.ml is the two developers need a "test instance" because there's so many bugs when they release.
The large instances are usually a couple versions behind because they give volunteers time to fix the code first.
There's no benefit tying the future of all instances to lemmy.ml
Fork it, it's free.
I'd love to see you try to maintain the codebase. That's not free.
Yep, lots of people have been wanting to fork.
Hm? You make it sound like the devs are blocking that from happening, and that there's all this chatter about it, but people cant decide -- But that's not how forking works. There's no "people want to fork, but they just cant decide how to proceed, or they're being blocked from doing it, or there's been all this talk about forking, whatever whatever." Like usually it's not an all or nothing, it's not a thing everyone has to discuss, "we gotta fork and every instance migrate over to this other codebase." Anyone can just fork it and self host it. I know you didn't say exactly those words, but it kinda sounds like you don't really know much about what you're saying, sorry to say :/ Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an open source dev, just an admin. But idk dude, it sounds like you have a misunderstanding about the big picture of open-source development.
The problem is maintenance, as mentioned below, but I guess I'm more curious about the federative implications of forking lemmy and running your own fork -- is it feasible? Maybe someone else could answer
Hm? You make it sound like the devs are blocking that from happening, and that there’s all this chatter about it, but people cant decide – But that’s not how forking works.
I apologize for not being clear.
I meant lots of users of the large instances, they want to fork away from lemmy.ml. because they believe lemmy.ml is holding everyone else back.
If you don't believe that's a popular opinion, have a look:
I think you have some confusion with the word fork. You don't "fork away" from a lemmy instance -- instances are their own thing. You can defederate from them, but that's not forking. Forking is really only in the context of the code -- its when you copy a codebase and change it in whatever way you see fit, so a fork of Lemmy would not be lemmy.
That thread has a couple mentions of forks of Lemmy, like piefed and mbin, but there is so much non-technical conversation that its really not about creating forks of lemmy. I think what you're trying to say is that people want to decrease their reliance (don't want to donate to, really) the lemmy devs, who also are the lemmy.ml maintainers, who have pro-CCP views. I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong there. Really most of that thread is discussion of politics.
But the thing is, you don't have to support them. You don't have to donate, and if you're really upset that they are adding a donate button, you can move to another activitypub platform like piefed or mbin or whatever. I mean, you probably should be doing that since you seem so invested in this issue. It'd definitely be more effective protest -- because the lemmy devs aren't going to be ousted or anything like that. Lemmy is their project. The best thing you can do is move to a fork of lemmy. That's the whole beauty of open source -- if you don't like it, there is a fork. If there's no fork, you can fork it yourself (but that's work).
But there's not much you can do to influence the direction of lemmy as a codebase, and if the devs wretched political opinions outweigh the usefulness of the platform for you, you should just switch platforms. It'd be a bummer to lose your comment history, your moderator status, or whatever, but why would you care about that stuff if it contributes to something that is owned by some tankies you hate?
Idk, maybe something to think about. There are just a lot of avenues built into open-source software, and into the decentralized nature of the fediverse, that allow you an off-ramp. But sounding the alarm on a yearly donate button won't influence the direction of lemmy because those two devs are in complete control of the codebase.
Hell, I'm looking at mbin now. kinda enticing...hmmmmmm..lol
Edit: Hmm hold on, it sounds like piefed and mbin are not forks, but were developed independently of lemmy
And just to add a little extra confusion (for that sweet and smoky flavour obviously)... Mbin is a fork of Kbin.
Why do you feel negative about it? I like lemmy and asking for yearly donation by people that actually put hours isn't a crime in my opinion.
OP doesn't like the devs' political opinion. I, too, hate tankies, but their work is not less valuable due to their opinion and they are allowed to seek monetary donations to help them do further work in the future.
KDE Plasma introduced a yearly popup for donation and it stirred controversy. Apparently it worked quite well to get donations.
I think it's acceptable and not an advertisment. It's a reminder for the service you're using and you should donate to keep it going.
If I don't get a silk screened Lemmy tote bag and or travel mug for my donation, I'M NOT DOING IT 😤
This will not take effect for a while, most large instances take a long time to update because their releases are full of bugs and need fixed by volunteers before rolled out to larger instances.
The reason many of us came to Lemmy from Reddit is the decentralized nature, and the fact no one could really control.
If the creators are holding Lemmy back, it's worth discussing why the larger instances don't make a full fork independent of lemmy.ml admins