Absolutely.
I thought about creating something similar to humble bundle, where you can pay as much as you want distributed as you want. Or creating a git tracker, a tool that tells you at the end of the month which packages and repos have you used /cloned more so it can distribute your monthly donation budget accordingly. The problem with this approach is that you are not giving any chance to all those people who are developing stuff on their own and you don't even know they exist (this happens constantly if you are using a linux distro).
I have many ideas I would be very happy to share. I'm on vacation right now, but I will write you back if you send me an email to my personal email. Check my HN personal description to get my email addresss.
Ya, that's not a bad way to execute on the idea, however it does not perform one of Patreon's chief functions that make it so successful: discovery of projects on one, unified platform. Essentially the main setup that Patreon has over all the "tip jar" or decentralized methods that have been tried but never reached critical mass is that the entire patronage ecosystem has a home on the web rather than simply living inside everyone's browser extension or something. That's why a dedicated site for software patronage could really take off because so many open source projects and software ideas are floating around with really just donations or VCs as the only funding mechanism in the valley.
