> As for A, one of my take is that seeing the grant budget disappear this year is a pity, especially seeing other amounts dedicated to documentation for example.
I agree with Vincent and Matteo and even if I understand the need of fund bugfixing and qt6 migration I would strongly recommend to improve grants budget as a consistent way to interact with community, furthermore I would enlarge core developers audience in any way with targeted training and social involvement and lowering the needed technical contribution skills. I thank you all for sharing this interesting discussion. Il giorno lun 5 dic 2022 alle ore 11:27 Vincent Picavet (ml) via QGIS-Developer <qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org> ha scritto: > Hi Andreas, all, > > On 24/11/2022 16:09, Andreas Neumann wrote: > [..] > > We did not really discuss the hourly rates at the budget meeting. > > From 2021 to 2022 we raised the hourly dev rates from 100 to 110 - > > and the hourly documentation rates from 40 to 44. I know that both > > rates are low. We can discuss raising them again. > > My question was general, and actually includes all prices. I have no > definite opinion on this topic, as it can be complicated given the > disparity of inflation according to what price we are talking about, and > also geographically speaking. > > > The plan for the two positions was not to have direct employees of > > QGIS.ORG <http://QGIS.ORG>, but to use a proxy company, in our case > > Kartoza, to act as the employer. Also - our budget does not allow > > regular European or North-American salaries. With these limitations > > at hand, we can use Kartoza as a proxy to hire employees in certain > > parts of the world where the salaries we can offer can be attractive > > - and where they have talented people to work on some of our issues > > (sysadmin, documentation, etc.) > > I have very mixed feelings about this, and it raises lots of questions we > definitely have to clear out before establishing any process. > > - Using a proxy company is very similar to me than having direct > employees, if these positions have no clear limits of time and perimeter > - Using a proxy company instead of direct employees can be considered > illegal according to local legislation. I do not know for Swiss law. > - How was Kartoza selected ? Was there an open process for other companies > to apply ? Who decided and on what criteria ? The fact that the company > owned by a member of QGIS PSC is selected is a big red flag for me, if the > process is not fully transparent and fair for others. > - "our budget does not allow European or North-American salaries" : see > below for the budget volume comments. But I have very mixed feelings about > this statement : it sounds exactly like social dumping. I do not know what > would be fair to select employees, and I recognize it to be a complex > issue, but in some ways it does not feel right. > > > For the documentation part: Tim and Harrissou are involved in the > > selection process of the candidates. > > Is the process and selection committee documented somewhere ? > > > I agree that the grant budget with 10k is not very attractive. We > > also discussed skipping it for one year. Not sure what is better ... > > > > BTW: you can all help to find new sustaining members ... that would > > increase our budget and would allow us to pay better hourly rates > > ... > > > > I wish we had a larger budget at hand than the +/- 200k € we seem to > > be able to attract each year. From certain countries where we know we > > have a lot of QGIS users (France, Italy - just to name two of them) > > there are not a lot of sustaining members or donations other than > > from a few private persons and very small companies. Maybe companies > > like yours could help us to get in touch with the larger companies > > with a lot of QGIS users that could become new sustaining members ... > > Do you think that would be possible? > > First of all, complaining that our budget is too low is definitely not the > way to consider the problem : QGIS.org budget will, by definition, > **always** be too low compared to what we could need. Developing a software > and managing a community is a boundless task and you can always find tasks > and work packages to spend all the money you can imagine of. > > I agree that QGIS.org could attract more sustaining members. I just hope > you are not accusing Oslandia of not doing our job of proselitysm, QGIS > community support, communication and globally QGIS.org and QGIS software > contributions. We do our part for sure. > > ... And this is not the point, as I said the question I raise is not how > to increase our budget, since the exact same issues will araise with a > larger budget. > > The questions are : > - A/ how do we use our existing budget for most important things to support > - B/ what our decisions processes are, where are they documented, and are > they clear, transparent and fair > > As for A, one of my take is that seeing the grant budget disappear this > year is a pity, especially seeing other amounts dedicated to documentation > for example. > > As for B, I consider that there is a lot of progress to do to make recent > decisions and actions clean and trustworthy. > > Should we want to attract new sustaining members giving money to QGIS.org, > we must have an exemplary behaviour in how we decide how to use this money. > > Vincent > > > > > > Andreas > > > > On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 at 15:05, Vincent Picavet (ml) via QGIS-Developer > > <qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org > > <mailto:qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org>> wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > Thanks for sharing the budget with the community. > > > > A few questions / remarks : - in most countries, we can see a general > > inflation, having consequences on every kind of costs ( hosting, > > salaries…). Did you take this context into account when preparing the > > budget, especially when basing planned 2023 costs on actual 2022 > > costs ? - the cut on Grant budget is really hard. With a "reasonable" > > mean budget of 5K per grant, this would mean 2 grants only this year. > > It sounds more or less like the end of the grant program. Who would > > candidate if chances to be selected are really low ? Wouldn't there > > be a way to mitigate it a bit, through various smaller budget > > reductions to other budget lines ? The increase in documentation > > contribution is huge compared to the grant decrease. I fear that we > > loose grants as a mean to attract new core developers. > > > > My most important remark is about "allow for a regular small salary > > .. for one person on each item". Disclaimer : I am quite strongly > > against QGIS.org having employees. If we are in the process of having > > "regular workers" for qgis.org <http://qgis.org>, then we really have > > to work hard on : - having a clear, written and transparent process > > for how to select these people - .. process including a fair way for > > anyone to candidate I may have missed some communications, but I have > > not seen this in place up to now. This is definitely something we > > have to put in place before having some internal troubles. > > > > Best regards, Vincent > > > > On 24/11/2022 12:07, Marco Bernasocchi wrote: > >> Hi all, we prepared the QGIS budget for 2023 and would like to > >> have feedback before submitting it to the voting members for > >> approval. You can directly leave comments in the file [1]. > >> > >> Please let us have any Feedback until December 4th. On december > >> 7th we'll send the budget for vote. > >> > >> Cheers Marco > >> > >> [1] > >> > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WyoZCKOehNhU5YB4pFPOuiJbie1mUmMPiq8YW7qyez0/edit?usp=sharing > >> < > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WyoZCKOehNhU5YB4pFPOuiJbie1mUmMPiq8YW7qyez0/edit?usp=sharing > > > > > >> > > < > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WyoZCKOehNhU5YB4pFPOuiJbie1mUmMPiq8YW7qyez0/edit?usp=sharing > > < > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WyoZCKOehNhU5YB4pFPOuiJbie1mUmMPiq8YW7qyez0/edit?usp=sharing > >> > > > > > > > >> -- Marco Bernasocchi > >> > >> QGIS.org Chair OPENGIS.ch CEO http://berna.io <http://berna.io> > >> <http://berna.io <http://berna.io>> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ Qgis-psc mailing > >> list qgis-...@lists.osgeo.org <mailto:qgis-...@lists.osgeo.org> > >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc > >> <https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc> > > > > _______________________________________________ QGIS-Developer > > mailing list QGIS-Developer@lists.osgeo.org > > <mailto:QGIS-Developer@lists.osgeo.org> List info: > > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > > <https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > > <https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer> > > > > > > > > -- > > > > -- Andreas Neumann QGIS.ORG <http://QGIS.ORG> board member > > (treasurer) > > _______________________________________________ > QGIS-Developer mailing list > QGIS-Developer@lists.osgeo.org > List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer >
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