Re: [gentoo-project] Encourage donations to Gentoo developers

[Alec Warner]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 2:36 PM Maciej Barć <xgqt@g.o> wrote:
>
> Hi Anna!
>
> Gentoo Foundation should take care of this problem. The issue of funding
> Gentoo developers was here for years but nobody stepped up to refine the
> funding policy.

For context, I'm President, Gentoo Foundation (since 2019.)

> I've also heard that GF will never touch this because it is against the
> foundation's laws, "because Gentoo cannot pay itself"... shrug.
> Hopefully somebody will correct me on this, because I wish that GF could
> found at least (non-remote) hardware for development usage.

Perhaps this was the previous stance of the Foundation board, but has
not been the case since I have been president. I ask at least once a
year for people to file requests for us to spend money and besides
specific programs (infra, hosting, nitrokeys) we continue to accrue
cash in the bank and receive no proposals to spend it.

>
> > I thought that it could be nice if users could easily discover how to
> > pay donations to Gentoo developers and package maintainers.
>
> That is rather easy, see: "https://www.gentoo.org/donate/", my question
> is to whom does this money go to?

The money goes to the Gentoo Foundation, a New Mexico corporation run
by 5 elected developers. We publish accounting books once a year (our
Fiscal Year 2022 draft numbers are at
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Gentoo_Foundation_Finances_FY2022)

Note the Foundation is trying to dissolve itself; at which point it
will be replaced by an OpenCollective fundraising campaign; operated
by OpenCollective (a holding corporation) run for the Gentoo Community
and administered by the Gentoo Council (in the current plan.)
Foundation expenditures that support development (e.g. not [taxes,
accounting, mailbox, fees, etc.]) already get reviewed by the Gentoo
Council regularly.

https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20220213.txt (to buy
2 new servers.)
https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20220313.txt (updated
quote for 2 servers, we eventually bought this.)
https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20220508.txt
(reimbursement for SSDs I bought to sustain existing infrastructure.)

You should expect any proposal to go to the council, and the councils
vote is required to disperse money from the Foundation. Eventually the
Foundation will go away (replaced by OpenCollective) and the council
will have the same control over the funds.

>
> Another way is to check out developers' wiki pages, some of them put eg
> Paypal info there.

I encourage developers to build their own brand (perhaps professional,
or perhaps volunteer oriented.) We also have a consultants page:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Foundation:Consultants that we list
people you may want to hire if you need Gentoo work done.

>
>
> On 2/15/23 20:06, Anna (cybertailor) Vyalkova wrote:
> > Some developers were lucky enough to be employed by a company that pays
> > them for working on Gentoo full-time. But most are left out and their
> > work on Gentoo is entirely volunteer.
> >
> > I thought that it could be nice if users could easily discover how to
> > pay donations to Gentoo developers and package maintainers.
> >
> > There are a few approaches:
> >
> > 1) Special commands (like `npm fund`), which are never run by users so
> >     they are kinda useless.
> >
> > 2) Informing users about funding opportunities via post-install
> >     messages. This is relatively efficient but obtrusive and can lead to
> >     hate campaigns (what happened to the core-js developer).
> >
> > 3) Fundraising campaigns, which I know nothing about :)
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
>
> --
> Have a great day!
>
> ~ Maciej XGQT Barć
>
> xgqt@g.o
> Gentoo Linux developer
> (emacs, math, ml, scheme, sci)