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

[Alec Warner]

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.


>
>
> 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.
>

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.


>
> 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;
>

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)
 - build a package-build service that is easy to deploy.
 - More performance work on portage.
 - Rewrite catalyst.
 - Replace repoman with pkgcheck.
 - Compile repo format into something less terrible then we have today.
 - Replace rsync mirror network with GIT https serving.
 - Help arzano build more developer tools on top of p.g.o


> * demonstrate the level of user focus of Gentoo developers
>

I don't understand how this is valuable; but it could be my poor
interpretation. I choose to interpret it as "show how the community can
execute on longer term strategic goals by properly allocating resources." I
know it sounds pretty manager-y but it mostly addresses a long-held
annoyance of mind where we talk about a lot in Gentoo but execute on very
little ;)


> * 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.


>
> 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.
>

I'm personally more interested in (1) than (2) but this is because I think
crowdfunding is not the only way to fund projects.

-A