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

[Andrey Utkin]

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".

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?

> 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.

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.

> 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.

> > * 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.

> > * 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.