A data point from the Friends of GNOME survey[1], most people that gave money were not GNOME Foundation members. Less than 5% were GNOME Foundation members, less than 20% were contributors and many said they donate money because they can't contribute code.
So asking corporations who use our software but don't participate in the community might be a good idea. Stormy [1] My mail with results is stuck awaiting moderation - I have a request into the sys admin team. On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:53 AM, Dave Neary <dne...@gnome.org> wrote: > Hi, > > This feels like reflex replying to remake the same point I made earlier, > but anyway... > > Jaap A. Haitsma wrote: > >> How about something more like this: >>> >>> $3000 <= 10 employees or $1M revenues >>> $10000 <= 50 employees or $5M revenues >>> $20000 > 50 employees or $5M revenues >>> >> >> Many private companies don't want to disclose their revenues so I'd >> leave that out. >> > > This is the type of structure (orders of magnitude different but...) that > the Eclipse Foundation has. Revenue/size calculations are on an honour > basis. > http://www.eclipse.org/membership/become_a_member/membershipTypes.php > > Furthermore in this case if you are 11 people you >> already pay 10K, which is a lot for such a small company. >> > > If we're talking about advisory board dues (and again, I'm not sure which > thing you're talking about with these packages), you're a strategically > aligned company with GNOME, and you have 11 employees, then you're probably > a company like Collabora - maybe Openismus is up to 11 now too? and your > annual revenues are likely to be between $500K and $1M per year. Or you're a > company like Litl (or Canonical in 2004-05), and you don't have any revenues > yet. > > $10K is a lot of money, don't get me wrong, but it's an investment which > will give a return for companies like Collabora and Openismus, because the > companies who spend money on developing their software will likely also be > in the room in the advisory board meetings, when they're talking about > things that should be invested in for the GNOME platform. And for companies > like Canonical and Litl, it's important to be able to influence what people > are investing in - whether it's Novell, Red Hat, Intel, or volunteer effort > in the community. What we've seen in recent times is that there is more > direction coming from corporate sponsored development by companies like > OpenedHand, Nokia, Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, etc... than there is from > community volunteer efforts. A company like Litl can definitely benefit from > a dual approach - co-ordinating with bigger companies to help set direction, > while working actively within the community (as they are doing) to ensure > that their priorities are taken into consideration. Given the annual budget > of 20 developers, $10K doesn't seem much for access to that influence. > > If we're talking about an annual donation, then I agree with you, for a > company that is a fan of, but not really aligned with, GNOME (someone like > SilverOrange or maybe Dupedi (Belgian GNOME user, 75 employees), $10K is too > much to ask, but $3K is entirely reasonable/possible. > > For the normal sponsorship I would be opposed to only have size of the >> contribution matter. Many small shops are really important for the >> further development of GNOME and relatively contribute a lot of code >> to GNOME compared to large multinationals. >> > > This is what makes me think that you're conflating advisory board & donors. > The small shops that are very important for the further development of GNOME > should be encouraged to join the advisory board. The large multinationals > not contributing much code to GNOME should be encouraged to give us as much > money as possible in return for the value we give them. The small companies > who get some benefit from GNOME should also be encouraged to give us as much > as possible. > > A serious question: will anyone give money to GNOME because of the things > they get? Or will the things they get help grease the wheels? I can imagine > a few different scenarios here. > > CTO: "We have 200 people using GNOME internally - we're already paying for > a support package to Red Hat, but I'd like to give some money to the GNOME > Foundation to support their good work. What do you think?" > CFO: "Sure, why not. How much are we talking about?" > CTO: "$10,000" > CFO spits coffee on keyboard. "You're kidding me? You want to give $10,000 > for software we're already paying for?" > CTO: "Hold on, hold on... there's a package. We get our logo up on the > GNOME website as a sponsors, we get to meet the GNOME Foundation executive > director, we get to take part in the annual GNOME User Meeting, and we can > call into a monthly conf call to get latest product plans and vote on the > bugs that are important to us!" > CFO: "Oh, if you put it like that..." > > Here's a second possible conversation: > > CTO: "How about we give some money to those fine folk in the GNOME > Foundation?" > CEO: "How much do they want?" > CTO: "$10,000, and we get our logo on the website and in their annual > report as a donor, and an invitation to attend the GNOME Users Summit to > talk about the issues we have." > CEO: "$10,000? I was talking to a buddy who got all that last month, and > they only gave $3,000. what gives?" > CTO: "Well, they're smaller than us." > CEO: "Oh, if you put it like that..." > > People don't like paying more just because they can afford to. Joel Spolsky > talks about this in his article on how to fix the price of a service or > product: > http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html > > You need an "enterprise version", a "home version" and a "student version" > of GNOME sponsorship, but the key is that they can't be the same thing, or > the big guys won't give. > > > Cheers, > Dave. > > -- > Dave Neary > GNOME Foundation member > dne...@gnome.org >
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