🪩 It's time to create a v2 🚀

[ldez]

There are at least 6 years since the idea of a v2 is here, we should pass this step now.

Important

The focus will be on structural configuration changes and default values changes only (and removing all deprecated options). Because a long tunnel with a massive wishlist to create this release is something we should avoid for multiple reasons.

💭 Main Proposals

• new fmt command (+ new dedicated formatters configuration section) 🌟 Let's talk about "formatters" #5296
• new linter configuration (and default set of linters) 🌟 Let's talk about linters section of the configuration #5299
• new default exclusion configuration 🌟 Let's talk about default exclusions #5298
• new exclusion configuration 🌟 Let's talk about exclusion options inside issues section #5297
• new output format configuration 🌟 Let's talk about output formats options #5364
• changes some default values (timeout, cpu quota, etc.)
• fixes some field names and types
• removes some "prehistorical" flags

🗺️ Plan

There are 3 ways to achieve this v2:

1. a deprecation phase: this will be slower and more complex (because of the compatibility).
2. a breaking change (with a migration command): this will be faster and easier but the impact on users could be more important.
3. a mix of the 2 previous ways.

The choice of the way to achieve this v2 will not be defined based on opinions about those ways: we will know the pros and cons between all those ways.
The choice will be based on technical constraints and how much time the community is ready to give us to do it (cf the Sustainability section).

In all cases, v1 will still be maintained during the v2 development phase.

Work on v2 begins with the opening of this issue.

❤️ Sustainability

This will require a lot of work, and so a lot of time, and where there is time there is money.

First, I would say thanks to the people, who already donated ❤️

Asking for money feels very uncomfortable to me, but I should do it because without that nothing will happen magically.

I will work full-time on this new version, I'm not working for a company, my only revenues are donations.
I've applied to several OSS funding programs but so far without success.
I will continue to look for OSS funding programs, and encourage users to donate, and I will try to find other ways.

Also, I'm not alone: all the active maintainers are a major part of this plan.

As golangci-lint's user what you can do:

1. Give your feedback on the proposals
2. Donate ❤️: even 2€ / $2 / 350円 / 15元 / 200₽ per month is important
   • golangci-lint
   • ldez
3. Ask your company to donate (if needed we can exchange by email: info at golangci dot com)
   • golangci-lint
   • ldez
4. Help us by spreading the message:
   • on Bluesky
   • on Mastodon
   • on Twitter
   • on Reddit
   • IRL
   • everywhere you can

If you want to know who I am: I'm Ludovic (aka LDEZ), I'm 44, and I'm living in a small city in France.

Me

[ldez]

To donate ❤️:

• golangci-lint
• ldez

💵 Financial report

Open Collective is the fiscal host for golangci-lint.

The GitHub Sponsors are transferred automatically to Open Collective about the 22 of each month (Open Collective receives them about the 26).
All donations after the 22 are transferred the next month.
I don't control this date.
The first recurring donation or recurring donation changes can be prorated depending on the billing cycle: for example, a $2 donation can become $0.97/$0.77/$-1.03/... (yes it can be a negative number)
This explains why there are decimal numbers even if donations are integers.

The thanks.dev platform is only related to dependencies, as golangci-lint is a tool and not a library the system is not adapted for the project.
The donations seem to appear on the 13 of each month (I don't have enough data to be sure if it is always the 13).
For now, we have only received one-time donations.
The thanks.dev donations are not transferred automatically to Open Collective.
When I will transfer them, fees will be applied but they are not a part of this report as I don't know them for now.

Here is the financial data (extracted from Open Collective and thank.dev).
I only keep the last 3 months for better readability.

• Donation platform balances:

	2024-11	2024-12	2025-01		AVG
GitHub Sponsors	$108.26	$51.50	$155.29		$105.02
Open Collective	$0.00	$0.00	$12.00		$4.00
Thank.dev	$0.00	$3.01	$1.62		$1.54
Total	$108.26	$54.51	$168.91		$110.56
Fee	$-10.83	$-5.15	$-18.08		$-11.35
Total	$97.43	$49.36	$150.83		$99.21

There are between 10% and 20% fees on transactions, this is related to payment platforms like Stripe, PayPal, and Open Collective.
You can see the details of the fees on golangci-lint profile on Open Collective

During the 3 last months, golangci-lint received $99.21 average per month after the fees.

I will talk about theoretical Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), which this related to recurring donations only and without considering prorated amounts, fees, etc.
So those numbers are higher than the reality.

The theoretical MRR is important because it is a good indicator of growth and sustainability.

	2024-11	2024-12	2025-01
Theoretical MRR	$77	$72	$76

My personal (related to different OSS I maintain) theoretical MRR:

	2024-11	2024-12	2025-01
Theoretical MRR	$40	$82	$84

I live in France, I should convert USD to EUR (currently $1 is between 0.90€ and 0.95€).
I should also pay taxes: I don't know exactly how many but it is at least 22%.

It's not enough to pay rent, food, bills, or travel to FOSDEM, but at least we can pay for our 4 domains (to avoid another domain squatting) and email accounts with a custom domain (required by some institutional entities).

---

I conclude I must improve the funding strategy.

I'm waiting for the answer about a funding program, but I have no real hope for this answer because I think that golangci-lint doesn't really meet the criteria.
I will continue to look for funding programs and apply to them, but there are not a lot of funding programs for OSS, it takes a lot of time (the joy of administrative forms in English 😢), and funds answers take months.

I promoted the v2 on social networks, I pinned the issue about v2, there are donation buttons on the readme, the changelog, the home page on the website, etc. but it is clearly not enough, I feel like we are missing most of the golangci-lint users or the incentives are not good.

I wonder if adding a log, displayed maybe on -/+10% of the runs during a predefined period can improve the situation 🤔

Additionally, there are 0 donations from businesses/companies 🤔