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

[Alec Warner]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 3:36 PM Andrey Utkin <andrey_utkin@g.o>
wrote:

> Hi Alec,
>
> Thanks for your comments.
> My impression is that what you discuss is a bit detached from what I meant.
> My bad! Will try to point that out.
>
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:00:45AM -0700, Alec Warner wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 6:04 PM Andrey Utkin <andrey_utkin@g.o>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Summary:
> > > Could we please look for the possibilities to deliver more, given extra
> > > reward
> > > from users interested in that happening?
> > >
> >
> > So I'm trying to understand the goals here. I see  nominally two goals:
> >
> > (1) We develop some kind of valuation function where we have some project
> > proposals and we 'fundraise' for them and the proposals with the most
> funds
> > / valuation get selected. This doesn't imply that there are actual
> dollars;
> > but it's simply a means (one of many potential methods) to rank
> proposals.
> > Basically this is your description of "figure out what users value."
> > (2) Once we determine (via 1) what proposals users want, how do we
> actually
> > make these happen? This is where we come to things like actual
> fundraising
> > of real money, finding people to do the projects, getting them the money,
> > etc.
> >
> > I would argue that in theory these are separate activities; it might be
> > valuable to do 1 and not 2.
>
> I don't believe in (1) detached from (2), because valuation without
> willingness
> to pay has no credibility to me. I also think it's just not going to work
> because without bringing in more resource you have reallocate it, that is,
> take
> it from somewhere where it currently is, aka "rob Paul to pay Peter".


Valuation without willingness can certainly lead to some exciting
challenges in ranking, certainly. I understand your reticence to trust such
valuations.

I'm not suggesting we cannot get more resources for Gentoo. I might suggest
that "someone" should be in charge of vetting the work that is funded to
make sure it aligns with Gentoo's mission so we avoid the money-trap.


>




> Whatever values and priorities we currently have, if it doesn't take more
> resources (read: money) to do well enough on them, why aren't we done
> already?


Perhaps being overly cynical here but I'm not entirely convinced the Gentoo
Developer community actually shares very many priorities; and I think this
is perhaps one reason why progress is slow on many initiatives.


>
> > I'd perhaps go more generic than your customer success narrative; but
> again
> > this is more about my point (1) than about point (2).
> > If you just did (1) in the community, its plausible to do separately with
> > sufficient fundraising activity.
>
> My idea is around bringing in extra funding and spending it for the
> purposes
> which have attracted this funding.


I agree that if we fundraise for specific activities we may get more money.
I'm not sure this is certain but i think it does follow logically. There
are other trade offs in having 1 bucket of money versus N buckets of money.


>
> It seems to me you are thinking more about allocating the currently
> available
> resources (volunteer time, available unconditional donations) towards some
> goals set by some governing body. This may work for some orgs, but I think
> won't work in case of Gentoo, because we're kind of an anarchy as in
> everybody
> does what they want.
>

I don't really follow. How is the Anarchy a problem? To take an example,
lets say you pick my proposal (to replace rsync with git for all users.)
You raise 10,000 to do the work and fund the infrastructure for 2 years.

How does Gentoo's Anarchy affect this project in your model?
How does Gentoo's Anarchy affect this project in a model where the
Foundation raised 10,000$ and paid you to do the work?


>
> > 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:
>
> (a list of 9 items follows)
>
> Ok, what's next with that?
> Who's willing to pay for any of that being done?
> If you suggest Foundation to pay for that, then I'd suggest instead that
> Foundation comes up with their own list.
>

To be clear this is a made up list; so I'm not sure we need to move on any
of these items. They were simply examples.


>
> > > * demonstrate the level of user focus of Gentoo developers
> > >
> >
> > I don't understand how this is valuable;
>
> Would it tell you anything if Gentoo developers fail to raise reasonable
> funds
> for any conceived improvement which is not going to happen by chance alone?
>
> It would tell me that evidently the vision the developers hold is
> irrelevant to
> the user community, because one of these has to be true:
>
> * too few users rely on Gentoo for anything useful or important, and users
> are
>   not going to be better off even if it improves, or
> * Gentoo developers don't understand why people use Gentoo and how it
> improves
>   their lives.
>
> So, the more is raised for any causes, the better Gentoo stands in my eyes.
>

So our job as developers here is to deliver a better open source product to
our users and you see this as a way to kind of measure demand for new
features and fund more ambitious proposals that you think don't happen in
the current project model?


>
> > > * channel more community resources towards Gentoo development,
> > >   where community needs it most.
> > >
> >
> > So community resources are currently channeled towards the Foundation.
> > Admittedly the Foundation runs a surplus so there is definitely room for
> > reallocation.
>
> I'd put the emphasis on "more" in my phrase.
> Currently Foundation gets some unconditional donations.
> For example, street beggars also get some money, similarly in unconditional
> donations.
> But literally any sort of product seller or service provider is much more
> interesting for giving them money in practice, because they give something
> in
> return and the only way for you to get that usefulness is to give your
> money.
>
> Perhaps it sounds distasteful to say "let's turn Gentoo into a service
> provider", so I'd say: let's be less of a beggar.
>

Note that the Foundation does not really *actively* raise money or
resources. Most of them are just given to us.

 - We received $25,000 in AWS credits because a kind user worked at Amazon
and helped us sign up for their OSS program.
 - We received $7,000 in hardware from Google because we needed some new
boxes and I knew the people in the Google OSS program and asked them for
money / resources.
 - Most of our infra hosting providers we know from community members or
infra contacts whom we often ask to donate hardware or saw our hardware
donation pages.
 - We participate in GSOC many summers and the Foundation receives the
mentor stipend for each student.

These are activities done by the community, not by the board (although we
definitely appreciate them.) I think that regardless of the kickstarter
fashion type ideas if we went tax-exempt and actually staffed fundraising
we could raise more money for Gentoo. It would help if we had a plan of
activities for the nonprofit so that we could raise money in good faith for
prospective donators.

-A