Re: [gentoo-project] Fundraising for incremental service level

[Tim Harder]

On 2020-07-18 Sat 01:00, Alec Warner wrote:
> So I think we can, somewhat, get away from this framing. Just get the
> community to pitch N projects and rank them. Offhand I can think of a few:
>  - Replace portage with pkgcore.
>  - pkgcore maintainer (replace radhermit; who has been asking for help for
> months)
>  - Replace repoman with pkgcheck.

Giving some perspective on the pkgcore/pkgcheck side of things, I'm not
sure most people realize how much work, for example, replacing portage
with pkgcore would entail. For a niche project within a niche OS, the
interested base of users is a few orders of magnitude too small to move
the needle much through generic crowdfunding.

In the past, pkgcore did have a patreon account since an interested user
kept poking me until I set it up. I think it peaked around a handful of
patrons and dwindled to nothing until I closed it earlier this year.
While I thank all those who contributed for their interest/generosity,
to put the stats bluntly, I think it garnered less than a person around
my level could make in a day's work across 3 years.

From my experience in software development, the most feasible method of
getting higher levels of work done in open source generally requires a
company hiring/contracting known project contributors to work on things.
For rewrite projects like pkgcore, it can be incredibly difficult to
convince entrenched interests that funding some core replacement will
turn out as anything more than an expensive, time-consuming moonshot.

For myself personally wrt pkgcore/pkgcheck, I'm somewhat open to
third-party funding for specific work. To be honest, I don't see much of
a future for the project under the current development scheme so more
quantified external support might help spur more interest.

Tim