GitHub Sponsors, launched in 2019, enables donations to individual open source software (OSS) developers. Financial support for OSS maintainers and developers is a major issue in terms of sustaining OSS projects, and the ability to donate to individuals is expected to support the sustainability of developers, projects, and community. In this work, we conducted a mixed-methods study of GitHub Sponsors, including quantitative and qualitative analyses, to understand the characteristics of developers who are likely to receive donations and what developers think about donations to individuals. We found that: (1) sponsored developers are more active than non-sponsored developers, (2) the possibility to receive donations is related to whether there is someone in their community who is donating, and (3) developers are sponsoring as a new way to contribute to OSS. Our findings are the first step towards data-informed guidance for using GitHub Sponsors, opening up avenues for future work on this new way of financially sustaining the OSS community.

翻译：GitHub赞助者于2019年启动,使个人能够向开放源码软件开发者提供捐款。对开放源码软件维护者和开发者的财政支持是维持开放源码软件项目的一个主要问题,个人捐赠能力有望支持开发者、项目和社区的可持续性。在这项工作中,我们对GitHub赞助者进行了混合方法研究,包括定量和定性分析,以了解可能接受捐款的开发者的特点以及开发者对个人捐赠的思考。我们发现:(1) 受赞助的开发者比非赞助的开发者更加活跃,(2) 接受捐款的可能性与其社区中是否有人捐赠开放源码软件有关,(3) 开发者正在赞助为开放源码软件作出贡献的新方式。 我们的研究结果是利用GitHub赞助者提供数据知情指导的第一步,为今后在财政上维持开放源码软件社区的新方式上开展工作开辟了渠道。