[gentoo-project] Fundraising for incremental service level

[Andrey Utkin]

Summary:
Could we please look for the possibilities to deliver more, given extra reward
from users interested in that happening?


There are many good motivations to contribute to FOSS, and the fact that
somebody contributes means some motivation is in place. But given stable
motivation and real life arrangements, the level of effort would stay in some
predictable range - there is some optimum, where contributing either more or
less hurts some needs of the contributor.

But what if contributing more than usual would be rewarded more than usual?
For example, a person with a flexible job schedule may be willing to switch to
4 workdays week and spend one full day each week contributing, given reasonable
remuneration - not necessarily equal to their employer's rates, but not peanuts.

I think if we find such possibilities - the levels of service quality which
we're not going to meet given the status quo, but which we're going to meet
fairly confidently given funding - some of these would be interesting enough to
wide users community to fund them.

The idea of crowdfunding major projects has been brought up in 2015, and
unfortunately it hasn't turned into action:
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/0f35aba409bc64e539a88895bfe6cc42

If you are a member of some projects within Gentoo:

Do you know some specific promises, or service level or quality criteria which
it makes sense to meet but which you don't consistently achieve because of
resource constraints?

Do you believe the goals of your project really matter for quality of life of
real users so that they'd give non-zero amount of money for this criteria to be
consistently met (as opposed to current inferior quality)?

If yes, why not try fundraising to ensure that such a higher quality bar is
met, say, throughout the next year?

If funding doesn't reach the bar, then you don't lose anything - you just keep
doing what you are doing and you don't have any new commitment. If funding
happens, then you have a new commitment, but you're funded to exactly enable
you to meet your objective with confidence.

I believe such approach would achieve such important results:

* reveal the real needs, values and preferences of Gentoo users;
* demonstrate the level of user focus of Gentoo developers;
* channel more community resources towards Gentoo development,
  where community needs it most.

Personally I am interested mainly in the validation of the approach.
Ironically, I myself am not in a position to receive any funding due to my
current work visa restrictions so I am unable to validate this idea on my own.

I am interested more in finding somebody who is keen to try this out on their
positions, than in the arguments about whether this approach is right or wrong,
but I welcome any responses.