After writing the first post I shared it in one of the Facebook groups where I am a frequent poster. On person wrote:
I make a monthly donation of $10 to bovine3dom (author of tridactyl). He makes the web experience a little less crappy for me.
So I looked at the GitHub account of bovine3dom
Physicist by training. PhD in complex networks. Polyglot but Julia is my favourite. Most people know me for making and maintaining Tridactyl. – bovine3dom
github.comand that of
A Vim-like interface for Firefox, inspired by Vimperator/Pentadactyl.
Replace Firefox’s default control mechanism with one modelled on the one true editor, Vim.
Installation •
Changelog •
First Look •
Features •
FAQ •
Contributing
Installation
Click this link in Firefox to install our latest “beta” build. If it doesn’t install automatically, you may need to 1) rename the extension from .zip to .xpi and 2) open it with Firefox; a fool-proof method is to go to about:addons, click the extensions tab, click the cog in the top right, then click “Install Add-on From File…”. If you want more options, read on.
Stable
Our “stable” builds are essentially just frozen versions of our beta builds. Our beta builds themselves are not much less stable; all our developers and about half of our users use the beta builds. Stable builds, however, do get new features documented in the changelog, whereas beta builds get new features before they…
And then looked at the Sponsor Oliver Blanthorn page.
What is Tridactyl?
Replace Firefox’s default control mechanism with one modelled on the one true editor, Vim.
While I personally love and use vim as an editor and I know vim enthusiast would want to use it everywhere, I though this is a rather esoteric project. However it has 4.9k stars on GitHub. Not bad.
What does Oliver ask for?
He wants to reach $700 / month, a very modest request. Especially given the cost of living in the UK where he seem to be located. He basically wants to spend less time looking for contract work and spend more time on the project.
Currently he is “47% towards $700 per month goal” with 64 current sponsors. That $329 / month an average of $5.14 / sponsor / month.
What does he offer?
He offers a quarterly newsletter to every sponsor and a monthly newsletter to every sponsor above $10. He has several tiers also above $10, but based on the reported amounts not many people selected those.