We're good, seriously!
Published on June 5, 2024 by Joshua Boniface
We have quite a budget collected over the last 5 years, and while we're really happy to see so many in the Jellyfin community contribute to us, we want to ask you to stop!
No, really. We don't actually need your money. At least, not here and now.
We have over $24,000 in the bank, and with average monthly expenses of only ~$600, that's over 40 months (3.3 years) of runway! So, we have plenty of money for the near future.
Thus, at this time, we want you to seriously consider donating to the authors of Clients you use, instead of (or in addition to) the main project. Client support is the hardest part of the Jellyfin ecosystem to keep going, and most of them are maintained by only a single person or very small team. With the API changes in 10.9.0 and the upcoming 10.10.0 releases, they're going to be very busy trying to keep up, and thus could really use your support in a way that the core project here doesn't right now.
So, if there's a client you use every day and that you love, consider finding it's author in our list of official clients, and sending them a little something instead (or too).
No, this doesn't violate our policy of "no paid development", because donations are just that - donations. We will still not honour bug bounties or similar, and still not use our collective finance here for paid development. So don't feel like you're doing something wrong, you're not!
I'll leave this notice up until we drop to ~1 year (12 months) of remaining runway, at which time we can re-evaluate where we're at.
Happy watching!
No, really. We don't actually need your money. At least, not here and now.
We have over $24,000 in the bank, and with average monthly expenses of only ~$600, that's over 40 months (3.3 years) of runway! So, we have plenty of money for the near future.
Thus, at this time, we want you to seriously consider donating to the authors of Clients you use, instead of (or in addition to) the main project. Client support is the hardest part of the Jellyfin ecosystem to keep going, and most of them are maintained by only a single person or very small team. With the API changes in 10.9.0 and the upcoming 10.10.0 releases, they're going to be very busy trying to keep up, and thus could really use your support in a way that the core project here doesn't right now.
So, if there's a client you use every day and that you love, consider finding it's author in our list of official clients, and sending them a little something instead (or too).
No, this doesn't violate our policy of "no paid development", because donations are just that - donations. We will still not honour bug bounties or similar, and still not use our collective finance here for paid development. So don't feel like you're doing something wrong, you're not!
I'll leave this notice up until we drop to ~1 year (12 months) of remaining runway, at which time we can re-evaluate where we're at.
Happy watching!
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I'd love to donate to the "parent" Jellyfin project and let the core developers decide which clients are in most need of financing but I'm also grateful there's a list of all client contributors to pick from.
I wish I could chime in for an extra android TV client maintainer to support Niels but that's not how volunteering works :)
I wish I could chime in for an extra android TV client maintainer to support Niels but that's not how volunteering works :)
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I would love for an option to also donate to the main project development (not just admin costs like hosting)
Oops, I have donated already but given the amount of budget, isn't there a way to help client developers with that budget? maybe not direct fund development but sponsor any expenses they could have related to Jellyfin development and testing (tools, devices, services).
Oops, I have donated already but given the amount of budget, isn't there a way to help client developers with that budget? maybe not direct fund development but sponsor any expenses they could have related to Jellyfin development and testing (tools, devices, services).
Thankfully client developers are able to use this budget to help fund devices, etc. and several have taken advantage of that! Appreciate your contribution.
The WebOS client seems kind of "abandoned". Which client project should I contribute to, to support Jellyfin on LG TVs? It can play only part of my videos, while the PC and Android Player seem to have no issues at all.
Not the first message I was expecting to read right after contributing :'D
I hope you can use the budget to help client developers!
I hope you can use the budget to help client developers!
Not the first message I was expecting to read right after contributing :'D
I hope you can use the budget to help client developers!
Normally I'd avoid replying here, but I wanted to be clear about this: a major goal of Jellyfin as a project is to ensure that all contributions are volunteer only and that no money changes hands between the project and its contributors. We do this to avoid not only the legal and organizational headaches ("who deserves how much"-type questions) but also to keep incentives aligned. As outline in the collective's About section, donations here will never be disbursed to contributors, by design - they're purely the project's "war chest" for recurring and emergency costs. You are always free to contribute to individual developers as you see fit, but donations to the project as a whole (i.e. here) are for the project's expenses.
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