[Bacula-users] RE: [Bacula-devel] Re: Open Source Funding Idea (Problems and Strategies in Financing Voluntary Free Software Projects)
Yes, indeed. This is a very interesting article. I was aware of the problems of funding especially bad feelings that can develop when certain developers are paid and others not, but I had never considered it from an angle of crowing-out of volunteer programmers. This crowding-out of volunteers is clearly something that I don't want to happen as I want Bacula to remain free and open rather than commercial or semi-commercial. I think another aspect that we haven't seen a lot of discussion on is transparency and accountability, which is often the big catch with commercial donors. One idea I've been toying with proposing is the idea of having a formally reviewed proposal process (similar to applying for a grant) for projects to be funded by the foundation. The formal review would include estimates of time, level of effort, timelines, and formal requirements for documentation and code standards. Asking someone to think about these things in advance tends to sort the serious contributors from the kibitzers. I believe the Apache and Samba folks have adopted this approach for this very reason. The review of the proposal would be conducted by Kern and a technical review body selected by him for technical relevance, usefulness, and furthering the general good. The proposals could then be ranked based on that technical review, and funded from the foundation accordingly. Some risk management controls would need to be implemented (along with a legal obligation to repay the foundation if you receive money and don't complete the project). Proposals would be open to anyone, and repeat proposals would be encouraged -- if you have a track record of doing good work, that should be a plus in your favor. Perhaps that idea could be combined with the authorized providers idea in that they could become part of that technical review body -- if you contribute resources/money, your opinion of what should be prioritized should (IMHO) count a little bit more than the random community at large (the put up or shut up model). Contributions of time should count as well as funding. What I would like to encourage is a few more long time contributors that work in the core code. See above. While most of us do this for the love of it, a little money coming back in makes it a lot easier to convince the PTBs of the importance of the work. Even a token amount goes a long way to making that case, and if there's a clear audit trail, I think a lot of organizations would be interested. This is the major area that is lacking in Bacula. Perhaps this will happen over time, perhaps it will improve if I start making a few public appearances next year in free software meetings. Any suggestions from anyone along this line would be welcome. I'd also start hitting the bigger storage management conferences. The IBM zSeries Expo in EMEA would be a good place to reach a lot of the enterprise-level customers, as would Guide/SHARE Europe (usually colocated with above). --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
[Bacula-users] Re: [Bacula-devel] Re: Open Source Funding Idea (Problems and Strategies in Financing Voluntary Free Software Projects)
On Wednesday 31 August 2005 13:30, steve apale wrote: An interesting read considering the recent discussions on funding. Yes, indeed. This is a very interesting article. I was aware of the problems of funding especially bad feelings that can develop when certain developers are paid and others not, but I had never considered it from an angle of crowing-out of volunteer programmers. This crowding-out of volunteers is clearly something that I don't want to happen as I want Bacula to remain free and open rather than commercial or semi-commercial. What I have noticed is that most, for sure not all, of Bacula's contributors have made one, sometimes important contribution, then gone on to other things. There is a growing number of long time contributors, which is very pleasing to me -- thanks guys, and there is a growing number of contributions as well. What I would like to encourage is a few more long time contributors that work in the core code. This is the major area that is lacking in Bacula. Perhaps this will happen over time, perhaps it will improve if I start making a few public appearances next year in free software meetings. Any suggestions from anyone along this line would be welcome. Thanks for the link ... -- Best regards, Kern ( /\ V_V --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
[Bacula-users] Re: [Bacula-devel] Re: Open Source Funding Idea (Problems and Strategies in Financing Voluntary Free Software Projects)
On Wednesday 31 August 2005 20:29, David Boyes wrote: Yes, indeed. This is a very interesting article. I was aware of the problems of funding especially bad feelings that can develop when certain developers are paid and others not, but I had never considered it from an angle of crowing-out of volunteer programmers. This crowding-out of volunteers is clearly something that I don't want to happen as I want Bacula to remain free and open rather than commercial or semi-commercial. I think another aspect that we haven't seen a lot of discussion on is transparency and accountability, which is often the big catch with commercial donors. I don't think this is a really big problem. First, I am someone very open. I have no problem with keeping things transparent. The few conversations I have off-list, for example, are typically private or items that would interest very few persons such as release packaging problems (bugs), ... Concerning accountability, in general, that won't be a problem either as I must have been an accountant in a former life because I have no problem doing the bookkeeping for a number of corporations that ran in the past. One idea I've been toying with proposing is the idea of having a formally reviewed proposal process (similar to applying for a grant) for projects to be funded by the foundation. The formal review would include estimates of time, level of effort, timelines, and formal requirements for documentation and code standards. Asking someone to think about these things in advance tends to sort the serious contributors from the kibitzers. I believe the Apache and Samba folks have adopted this approach for this very reason. Yes, this is a good idea, but it is probably a bit early for this simply because we don't have sufficient numbers of contributors. If we had 10 programmers submitting code, this would be critical, but when it is one or two as it is now, there isn't much need. The review of the proposal would be conducted by Kern and a technical review body selected by him for technical relevance, usefulness, and furthering the general good. The proposals could then be ranked based on that technical review, and funded from the foundation accordingly. Some risk management controls would need to be implemented (along with a legal obligation to repay the foundation if you receive money and don't complete the project). Proposals would be open to anyone, and repeat proposals would be encouraged -- if you have a track record of doing good work, that should be a plus in your favor. Perhaps that idea could be combined with the authorized providers idea in that they could become part of that technical review body -- if you contribute resources/money, your opinion of what should be prioritized should (IMHO) count a little bit more than the random community at large (the put up or shut up model). Contributions of time should count as well as funding. What I would like to encourage is a few more long time contributors that work in the core code. See above. While most of us do this for the love of it, a little money coming back in makes it a lot easier to convince the PTBs of the importance of the work. Even a token amount goes a long way to making that case, and if there's a clear audit trail, I think a lot of organizations would be interested. I'm thinking about transitioning into something like Debian does, where a certain funding is really important, but they don't actually pay programmers. Paying programmers is what seems to create the conflicts or crowding out. What I can imagine, and what I had already planned, is to make a list of projects. Then rather than say that I will implement those projects for the next release, I step back, select one or two smaller things for me, and ask people to step forward for those projects. If no one steps forward, then we will simply not implement those features. As for funding those projects, I'm thinking that Bacula, at least in the near future, will not fund them. However, something that has worked in the past is that if one or more corporations want a particular feature that is on this project list, then they will have several options of getting it done: 1. supply programmers to do it under Bacula supervision. 2. submit a patch (not really recommended -- not so long ago, I rejected a pretty big patch). 3. provide funding incentives for programmers. For item 3, in the past, I have simply put qualified programmers in touch with the corporate sponsors, and they worked out the funding between them. This was the case, for example, for Landon, who wanted the funding to go to EFF. However, other programmers may want to receive the funding themselves. In any case, Bacula would not be directly involved with the funding. This is probably not the best long term solution, but it is a solution for the short term (I think) that avoids getting Bacula into the
