Re: call for help: partners program
Sorry for bringing up https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00020.html earlier today without having seen this message last month. also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-02-17 14:02 +0100]: I would like to build a small group of people in charge of this program. Count me in. Ideally, this program would be merged with a Debian fundraising team. Do we have a fundraising team? If not, then no need to merge, for then you are talking about the fundraising team, no? Anyway, details… 1) improve the DebConf fundraising processes, and keep in mind that it could be transferred from 'DebConf fundraising' to 'Debian fundraising' We're (DebConf fundraising) already looking at ourselves as that, at least when we take a step back, so I'd say that you can check this off. This was obvious in the discussion around a CRM, which we'll need desperately… 2) revitalize the partners team … and which I'd introduce as point 2.5). In fact… 3) discuss merging both efforts when they are both in a sufficiently good shape. … I wouldn't do it this way. Please let me propose an alternative idea that I think could get us further faster without disrupting DebConf fundraising until we're ready to. How about we revive the partners team and work e.g. on a brochure / marketing material (incl. all the benefits and stuff we sell), as well as a CRM (and cash collection automation).¹ Meanwhile, communications between this newly revived team and the DebConf team will be keep all on the same page and it might well make sense to prepare our DebConf sponsors e.g. during the DC16 cycle.² Once a CRM is in place and we have products identify that we can sell to our subscribers,³ then we can dive into the waters and merge in DebConf fundraising. Footnotes: ¹) DebConf fundraising uses a text-file and it's quite bad. A real CRM would really help the process and would be a great asset for Debian anyway. Allison Randall has taken a lot of time and scouted out some possibilities: https://titanpad.com/hHhmrGb7uY. So one contribution anyone who's less interested in sales and finances but still likes the ideas being discussed here would be to drive on this evaluation; then — in collaboration with DSA — identify a CRM we could use, and set it up. ²) We'll always also have DebConf fundraising: the small business close to Heidelberg giving us money to be able to be at the DC15 job fair, as well as the small startup in Cape Town going bronze this one time because it's in their home town even though they cannot really afford it, will not really be reachable by a global Debian partners/fundraising programme, at least not without support from the DCX team. ³) Reduced prices for DebConf sponsorship packages could be one such product… -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems there's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: On Debian not using its money (was: Q to all candidates: SWOT analysis)
also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lu...@debian.org [2015-03-15 12:40 +0100]: I agree that it should be possible to improve on identifying a recurring, plannable, dependable income. But there hasn't been much response to requests for help in the related areas. For example, I only got one answer to the call for help for the partners program, which has been stuck for months now. The auditors team is also clearly under-staffed. I think the problem with both partners programme and auditors is that it's not entirely clear what the roles and the potentials are. I mean, what would it mean nowadays to help the partners programme? And our auditors are not just auditors, I think they're also expected to be accountants and controllers. By your theory that it's good to separate decision-making (DPL) from auditing (with which I agree), I think it's also important to separate auditing from the actual trade of keeping books and handling the money. Regarding fundraising, we actually force the ones willing to organize DebConf to do our fundraising, while it would be much more sensible to have a 'Debian fundraising team' that just collects funds for Debian, have Debian allocate funds to the DebConf team for DebConf organization. Right, the regular Debian contribution to DebConf could be much higher, and we could either just give our partners the advertising space, or we could offer DebConf sponsorship packages at big discounts to existing partners. But if we decide now that the DC16 team doesn't need to do fundraising because a Debian team will do that, and call for help to build such a Debian team, I fear that we might not get enough volunteers ;) I would assume it to take us a good 2 years to set this ship in motion; meanwhile, DebConf fundraising needs to continue as it doesn, but maybe the contacts can already be prepared for the future plan, so that the handover from DebConf fundraising to Debian fundraising will be as smooth as possible. So, unless there are people who are willing to do more work in that area, I fear that we will be stuck in the statu quo, and discuss this again during next year' DPL campaign. I think it's a matter of creating an arena that's large enough, if I may use this metaphor. We're all fantastically proud of Debian and our achievements. If those of us with trades(wo)men's blood in their veins would be allowed to conceive of ways to monetise that and know that they can play the arena after conceptualising the game, then I'd be surprised if we didn't find anyone enticed by it. DC15 fundraising wasn't the activity of my dreams at the start, but engaging with sponsors and being able to tell them about how awesome we are, and then seeing money come in in return for the sales job was also a satisfying experience. Much of this IMHO had to do with entrepreneurial freedom. We tried a few new things this year and some didn't fly, others did. Under such conditions, even fundraising can be a fun job; not, however, if all you're expected to do is grunt work without the ability to make any decisions yourself. But just like with accounting and other grunt work, there are professional fundraising agencies out there. We could also outsource this if we didn't think that fundraising is an entrepreneurial activity. ;) -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems writing a book is like washing an elephant: there no good place to begin or end, and it's hard to keep track of what you've already covered. -- anonymous digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: On Debian not using its money (was: Q to all candidates: SWOT analysis)
also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lu...@debian.org [2015-03-15 13:29 +0100]: Wasn't it addressed in https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/02/msg00070.html ? I am sorry, I have not been following every mail lately. Yes, this looks spot-on. I'll reply there. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems a: no. q: should i include quotations after my reply? digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: On Debian not using its money (was: Q to all candidates: SWOT analysis)
On 15/03/15 at 13:05 +0100, martin f krafft wrote: also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lu...@debian.org [2015-03-15 12:40 +0100]: I agree that it should be possible to improve on identifying a recurring, plannable, dependable income. But there hasn't been much response to requests for help in the related areas. For example, I only got one answer to the call for help for the partners program, which has been stuck for months now. The auditors team is also clearly under-staffed. I think the problem with both partners programme and auditors is that it's not entirely clear what the roles and the potentials are. I mean, what would it mean nowadays to help the partners programme? Wasn't it addressed in https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/02/msg00070.html ? Quoting: I would like to build a small group of people in charge of this program. There are ideas floating around about having several levels (platinium/gold/silver/...), and a limited duration for membership. The team would be responsible for setting this up in a way that makes it possible to mix different kinds of contributions using the same rankings/levels. Then, the team would be responsible for evaluating requests for joining the program. There's a number of pending requests that could be used to benchmark the designed ranking. - Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
On Debian not using its money (was: Q to all candidates: SWOT analysis)
[I've moved this over to debian-project and only bcc'd debian-vote] The post I am replying to is https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2015/03/msg00033.html (and https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2015/03/msg00031.html), but there's a sibling discussion going on at https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2015/03/msg8.html also sprach Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org [2015-03-15 10:47 +0100]: I encourage DPL candidates to look at Debian reserves under the angle of how many DebConf with close-to-nothing sponsorship would our current reserves allow us to do?. That, I believe, would set the discussion in a much reasonable mindset than OMG, we've *a lot* of money which we're not using. I'd like to also offer an additional perspective. First, I don't think we should ever organise DebConf such that there is a six-digit risk that Debian might have to cover, and if only because the non-profit (and hence tax-exempt) nature of our assets might make it difficult to just spend the money on a whole DebConf. DebConf should always be well-planned/-budgeted and include various emergency brakes (i.e. worst-case scenario planning), and Debian's contribution or guarantee to DebConf should be capped and ideally known very early on. But the main point I would like to make is that we should (IMHO) strive towards separating our assets (substance) from our income (cash flow). It'll be very useful to have a some funds sitting in various accounts that can be used in emergencies and to cover liquidity bottlenecks, the amount of which would need to be determined (and would probably be less than what we have right now). Recurring expenses, such as aforementioned DebConf guarantee, or budgets for various teams, should come out of cash flow, not substance. So the problem is really not that we have too much money and don't know how to spend it. Fortunately, we have conservative DPLs and thinkers in Debian so that we were able to build up substance. Our problem wrt money is IMHO that we don't have cash flow, i.e. recurring, plannable, dependable income, which can be allocated to budgets and necessary expenses, bypassing the substance which then only serves as our backup. The substance is one of the two things that distinguishes us from a startup seeking cash flow. The other difference is that we already have a very strong brand. It won't happen without careful design and a lot of work on our behalf, but it should definitely be possible to create this cash flow, especially if it were a project decision and delegated to a few. ¹) https://www.debian.org/partners/ -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems i always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. -- david bowie digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: On Debian not using its money (was: Q to all candidates: SWOT analysis)
On 15/03/15 at 11:28 +0100, martin f krafft wrote: Our problem wrt money is IMHO that we don't have cash flow, i.e. recurring, plannable, dependable income, which can be allocated to budgets and necessary expenses, bypassing the substance which then only serves as our backup. The substance is one of the two things that distinguishes us from a startup seeking cash flow. The other difference is that we already have a very strong brand. It won't happen without careful design and a lot of work on our behalf, but it should definitely be possible to create this cash flow, especially if it were a project decision and delegated to a few. I agree that it should be possible to improve on identifying a recurring, plannable, dependable income. But there hasn't been much response to requests for help in the related areas. For example, I only got one answer to the call for help for the partners program, which has been stuck for months now. The auditors team is also clearly under-staffed. Regarding fundraising, we actually force the ones willing to organize DebConf to do our fundraising, while it would be much more sensible to have a 'Debian fundraising team' that just collects funds for Debian, have Debian allocate funds to the DebConf team for DebConf organization. But if we decide now that the DC16 team doesn't need to do fundraising because a Debian team will do that, and call for help to build such a Debian team, I fear that we might not get enough volunteers ;) Additionally, it is one of the areas of Debian where it's better if the DPL is not too involved, to maintain a clear separation of powers between the one making decisions (the DPL) and the ones making sure that those decisions are sensible (the auditors). So, unless there are people who are willing to do more work in that area, I fear that we will be stuck in the statu quo, and discuss this again during next year' DPL campaign. I wonder if this is actually such a big issue: there are many areas of Debian where things are not perfect, but are sufficently OKish not to be blockers. As long as we don't want to spend much more money, as teams are fine with not having annual budgets (but with each expense being approved separately) , and as we can continue to ignore potential sponsors that request a summary of Debian's income and expenses, we can probably continue like that. - Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
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