“My GitHub Sponsors profile is live!” Investigating the Impact of Twitter/X Mentions on GitHub Sponsors Youmei Fan Tao Xiao Hideaki Hata Christoph Treude Kenichi Matsumoto 

Open-source software (OSS) is ubiquitous https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fyosephintechnicolor.medium.com%2Fin-defense-of-open- source-software-6751b69b3c28&psig=AOvVaw2oz2T48I1fX5GBKhL0aefE&ust=1710509319775000&source=image s&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCJix9_Tt84QDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAx Open Source Software (OSS) is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. OSS is the backbone of the modern software industry, powering everything from operating systems like Linux to web servers, databases, and development tools. 2 

The Challenges of Open Source Projects -- Sustaining and Abandoning [1] Coelho, J., & Valente, M. T. (2017, August). Why modern open source projects fail. In Proceedings of the 2017 11th Joint meeting on foundations of software engineering (pp. 186-196). [2]https:/ /blog.sonatype.com/npm-libraries-colors-and-faker-sabotaged-in-protest-by-their-maintainer-what-to-do-now 3 ❖ OSS projects abandoned[1] ❖ The uprise of "paid open-source"[2] ICSE 2022: GitHub sponsors: exploring a new way to contribute to open source (Shimada et al., 2022) 

GitHub Sponsors[7] Since 2019 Financially support [4] Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/ [5]Open Collective:https://opencollective.com/ Financial Support Platforms[4][5][6] [6]Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/ [7]GitHub Sponsors: https://github.com/sponsors 4 What is GitHub Sponsors? 

Username GitHub Sponsors Profile Introduction… user’s user’s @user’s Introduction to the repository Repository Repository Introduction to the repository 5 GitHub Sponsors User’s Profile Page 

6 ● Hints at an interconnection between developers ● But what mechanisms drive sponsorship? Shimada et al., 2022 ● OSS Developer use Twitter/X(Singer et al., 2014) ● Tweets attract stars to OSS GitHub projects (Fang et al., 2022) Interconnection between Developers 

7 @username @username Tweet It! 

8 @Username @Username @Username Developers Advertise to attract Sponsors @Username @Username @Username 

● RQ1.1: What are the characteristics of tweets mentioning GitHub Sponsors profiles from organizational and personal accounts? ● RQ1.2: Who mentions GitHub Sponsors profiles on Twitter/X? ● RQ1.3: What is the context of GitHub Sponsors profile mentions on Twitter/X? ● RQ1.4: When are GitHub Sponsors profiles mentioned on Twitter/X? RQ 1: How are GitHub Sponsors profiles discussed on Twitter/X? ● RQ2.1: How are GitHub Sponsors profile mentions received on Twitter/X? ● RQ2.2: How are GitHub Sponsors profile mentions discussed on Twitter/X? ● RQ2.3: How do GitHub Sponsors profile mentions impact sponsorship? RQ 2: What is the impact of GitHub Sponsors profile mentions on Twitter/X? 9 Research Questions 

RQ 1: How are GitHub Sponsors profiles discussed on Twitter/X? Research Questions ● RQ1.1: What are the characteristics of tweets mentioning GitHub Sponsors profiles from organizational and personal accounts? ● RQ1.2: Who mentions GitHub Sponsors profiles on Twitter/X? ● RQ1.3: What is the context of GitHub Sponsors profile mentions on Twitter/X? ● RQ1.4: When are GitHub Sponsors profiles mentioned on Twitter/X? ● RQ2.1: How are GitHub Sponsors profile mentions received on Twitter/X? ● RQ2.2: How are GitHub Sponsors profile mentions discussed on Twitter/X? ● RQ2.3: How do GitHub Sponsors profile mentions impact sponsorship? 10 RQ 2: What is the impact of GitHub Sponsors profile mentions on Twitter/X? Read the paper! 

Tweepy Gather 11,582 Tweets from Twitter/X Keyword: github.com/sponsors/username GitHub Gather GitHub User Information from GitHub Analyze Relationship Between Twitter User and GitHub User Analyze Impact Tweets/X That Mention GitHub Sponsors Has an Impact Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 11 Approach 

Timing RQ1 How are GitHub Sponsors profiles discussed on Twitter? Qualitative Analysis Manually Coding 371 Tweets from the Initial Population of 10,531 English-language Tweets Context 12 Understand why tweets are used in sponsorship communication, potentially informing strategies for developers seeking sponsorship. @Username 

Context RQ1 How are GitHub Sponsors profiles discussed on Twitter? Qualitative Analysis Manually Coding 371 Tweets from the Initial Population of 10,531 English-language Tweets 13 Timing This tweet explicitly expresses appreciation of a donation. 

14 donation appreciation @Username RQ1 Results — Context Characteristics of tweets? Who mentions GitHub Sponsors profiles? 

RQ2 What is the impact of GitHub Sponsors profile mentions on Twitter? Causal Inference Quasi-experiment Statistical Matching 15 Difference in Differences CausalImpact Observing outcomes for groups at time points Estimating the causal effect of a designed intervention on a time series Propensity Score Matching (PSM) Estimates the effect of treatment in the treated individuals (ATT) 

16 Sponsored, Non-sponsored developers 2021 July (Shimada et al., 2022) Match with our dataset Treatment group Control group Variables used in the logistic regression estimate the propensity score ❏ Repositories ❏ Sponsoring ❏ Opened PRs ❏ Reviewed PRs ❏ Followers ❏ Organizations ❏ Language GitHub Sponsors profiles appear “My GitHub Sponsors profile is live!” Eliminate wording differences Propensity Score Matching (PSM) Matching Comparing Outcomes 

Significant positive effect of GitHub Sponsor profile mentions in tweets on the number of sponsors acquired, with an average increase of 1.22 sponsors per tweet. 17 How GitHub Sponsors profile mentions are received and discussed on Twitter/X? RQ2 Results – GitHub Sponsors profile mentions impact sponsorship 

Developers/ Users Interesting in Sponsoring Encouraging users who depend on OSS projects to actively promote the developers they rely on, even if the sponsorship amount is not substantial. Companies A two-pronged approach of corporate sponsorship and active social media engagement could be an effective strategy for businesses. Mentioning GitHub Sponsors profiles in tweets has a positive impact on the number of sponsors acquired. Developers Seeking Sponsors 18 Implications 

Paper Replication package Any Question? Email: Youmei Fan