I like the idea, not silly at all, but I think it has one caveat. Contrary to what you wrote about the ASF values, I think (that's my first thought at least) that if it happens it should be an individual initiative of some members. And IMHO there should be no formal board/ASF affiliation IMHO because then it is - at least that's my gut feeling - quite contrary to the values and the ASF legal status.
As I see it - people representing the Support Inc. company (even if they are from ASF) should not really be "ASF representatives" because if they do, this puts some responsibilities and guarantees on both sides (and especially on the ASF). There are certain guarantees that come with more or less formal association with the ASF brand and I think if the board overlooks the "Support Inc." - by definition it has some guarantees (and I do not know for sure but that would likely not be legal when it comes to the ASF status). But that would not (I think) preclude that some of the founders are board members. As long as there is a good care about conflict of interests separation, the multiple-hat idea is quite easy to apply here. That would likely make Support Inc. less "attractive" - especially for the potential customers (precisely because of the lack of those guarantees by the ASF). But on the other hand, if this company is run and started by people who are "well established" in the OSS community the attractiveness of such a Support Inc. company is already high. If anything, by the network of individual relations of those people who start it. In a way this would be similar approach as Tidelift (some of the people there are with the OSS background), but it could be structured differently (with different incentivization for both customers and contributors, focusing more on individual relationships of people who would start it rather than on "brand/company", different marketing and promotion ideas - so it could be better suited for the ASF projects. And it could become part of the "ecosystem" around the ASF (which the ASF could actually list on the page among others like Tiidelfit without endorsement or guarantees). So it might be a YABD (Yet Another But Different) Tidelift-like company. This is a model similar to many ASF projects commercial activities - there are people, individuals with merit and experience in the project and they decide to start or join a commercial company that puts their stakes with the project. There are many stories like that and even if some of the people are PMC members and committers that might work. I see that it could work here as well. I think it is important to see if there can be a real business model behind it. On top of doing "good support" for the contributors, such a company would have to simply have some business model and be a normal "business" I think. I am not sure if such an approach is contrary to the idea of yours Chris, or whether this is something that you also considered or whether "non-official-affiliation" is a "killer" in your idea (I hope not :). And I am not 100% sure if my "non-affiliation" is that important. I think it is, but I would love to hear what others and You have to say there. J. On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 2:11 PM Christofer Dutz <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> wrote: > > Hi all, > > now that the Aprils Fool Joke has worn off a bit, I think I can post this > here. I at first suggested this in the board list before April 1st, as I > wanted to make sure this hasn’t been wiped off the table as a silly idea > before. > > Turns out that I didn’t get a single “silly idea” response. > > As you all might know I have been working on finding ways to finance my work > on open-source, but in an open-source way that others can also profit from > what I might find out. > > There are some projects that managed to form or attract companies to grow > around them. These usually don’t have problems finding funds to finance > further development. > However, we also have a large number of projects that are not as big, or a > large number of people working on our projects, but don’t work for those > companies. > > So, these people are generally relying on finding contracts themselves. This > usually is problematic as many larger companies don’t do business with > individuals. > Also is it often tricky to get the legal documents and contracts right and > then not even talking about how long payments usually take. > > Another thing is that the ASF is a non-profit organization and therefore it’s > challenging to advertise commercial offerings around Apache projects. > > As an example: One of the things I found out with my crowd-funding experiment > is that this doesn’t work. Admittedly I wasn’t expecting it to work. > Companies just can’t donate large amounts of money without any assurances. > But I did learn one thing: My crowd-funding experiment was in a way the most > successful thing I did. > > The thing was, that I listed up things that could be on the roadmap and I > added a price-tag to them. This is one thing an Apache project just couldn’t > do. So even if I didn’t get a single cent in donations for my work, I was > approached by multiple companies willing to finance individual campaigns, but > with a normal consulting contract. > > Now there are also companies like Tidelift, that want to close this gap. > However, we are still a bit unsure how to align the interest of that company > with the values of the ASF. And there’s the fact that not everyone is able to > profit from Tidelift. I for example tried reaching out to them several times > for offering commercial PLC4X support, but the only responses I got, were > people wanting to discuss how my business could profit from using more > open-source ;-) So for me Tidelift is not an option as not everyone can use > it. > > Now let me get to my idea: > What If there was a separate legal entity closely related to the ASF (Let’s > call it “Support Inc.” for now). I would even propose that the oversight > entity for Support Inc. should be the ASF board. This would assure the > company is perfectly in-line with the ASF and its values. > > Individuals could sign up on Support Inc’s website for providing commercial > services around Apache projects. These services could be Consulting, Feature > development, Training, Commercial Support. > On this site a user could also add possible feature-development campaigns > with a price-tag attached, just like I did on my website. > > If a company wants to finance a feature, get support, consulting, or training > around an Apache project, this would be the well-known website somebody would > go to first. > > Support Inc. would provide the contracts and therefore the individual > wouldn’t have to (I usually spent 2000-4000€/year on legal advice for stuff > like that). Also, would Support Inc. be a bigger company the customer would > be doing business with, which would probably ease the problem of getting into > the companies with Chris Inc. > > The contracts would be between the Support Inc. and the customer, and the > customer would pay to Support Inc. The developer would have a contract with > Support Inc. and be paid from this but give Support Inc. a certain percentage > of the contact to cover its expenses (But in contrast to other pure > for-profit companies, this cut would be a lot less than usual). > Now a developer could probably choose from different models, where he gets > paid instantly (but then give Support Inc. a bigger cut of the profits) or > wait for the customer to pay. > The services the new company would provide, would be taking care of the > payments, the legal issues and provide the infrastructure for finding > commercial support offerings. > And if people know this is something integrated into the general open-source > ecosystem, I assume people would probably try less to screw with as they know > it might backfire PR-wise, just like dragging the ASF to court wouldn’t be > the smartest thing to do. > > If the company earns money, it could become a sponsor of the ASF. > > What do you think? > > I hope you’re now not going to point at me laughing because I like the idea. > > Chris > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
