| Author: | Benjamin Mako Hill |
|---|---|
| Contact: | mako@atdot.cc |
| Date: | June 24, 2005 |
| Affiliation: | Debian Project / Software in the Public Interest / Ubuntu |
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Talk Delivered at Linuxtag 2005 in Karlsruhe, Germany. More information available at http://mako.cc/
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SLIDE 1: Title and Moneybag Picture
Intro Joke: This talk is about spending money not getting money.
If you're doing good work on a project, especially a large project, money ends up entering the equation eventually.
If you're a volunteer project that wants money, there are a few things you can do:
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SLIDE 2: Overview
Overview of the talk:
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SLIDE 3: Volunteer Organizations are Great
Provides Background into Volunteerism and Why Volunteerism is a Good Thing
What I mean by Volunteer Organization...
Not all FOSS projects are volunteer (nor do they need to be):
On the other hand, some organizations are voluntary projects even though they incorporate a large amount of paid labor (e.g., Wine or Debian).
Finally volunteer projects can become non-volunteer projects -- and vice versa (although I think that's much less likely).
Fundamentally though, I am talking about projects in which the project is directed by non-paid labor and where the project itself is not paying developers to do or direct development.
I think volunteer projects are good for a number of reasons
The "bazaar" style model and the benefits associated with it -- are easier to secure when there's no method of centralized control.
Open Source fostered this misconception that if you stick your code on the Internet, problems and bugs disappeared. We all know how true that is.
Free software has been successful on a pragmatic level because it's fundamentally voluntary nature has allowed all of those eyeballs to appear.
This means:
It's easy to fund a project that doesn't require funding
Even in funded projects, resources are limited. Because there are dangers (which I will discuss soon) you may be able to fund one person but your entire volunteer community is often more important than any single person.
Everyone needs to decide if the volunteer model really is the correct model for your project.
Finally, it's fun, all of those things.
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SLIDE 4: Dangers of Funding Volunteer Projects (Overview)
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SLIDE 5: Examples of Dangers
General: Article by Bernard ENJOLRAS @ the Institute for Social Research, Oslo:
"Empirical results using cross- sectional data on voluntary sport organizations in Norway and on their members show a decrease in voluntary work from an increase in commercial income. Voluntary work and commercial income appear as substitutable resources."
The X11 Story (courtesy of James Gettys and a talk he gave at USENIX in 2000 [1]):
X11 started as a community driven project with developers from all over and X was one of the first major open source projects.
But limitations set in as well (the Internet broke (evidently)).
The X Consortium was founded to fix the problems.
Ultimately, many of the key contributors, including Guido von Rossum, were lost when X11 built the consortium.
A lot else happened, the X Consortium basically collapsed and lay X lay dormant for some time.
Mozilla threw the code out but Netscape kept development basically the same.
Design decisions should not be made over a coffee break -- even though this makes it quick to make progress.
- technical issues (code is optimized by and for folks who are staring at it all day every day)
Mozilla seems to have made it over that hurdle, but it took a couple years.
Ultimately though, the lack of volunteer labor eventually can translate into a marked decrease in the quality of the finished product.
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SLIDE 6: No Risk Slide 1
When there's no money, there's nothing to go wrong. No labor to crowd out.
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SLIDE 7: No risk slides 2 (boy in bird cage)
The boy is safe from roving lions. But he's seriously his ability to get things done in the world.
Limits on scope and mobility.
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SLIDE 8: Low-Risk Solutions: Spend Money on Things Other than Labor
Hardware (development servers, etc)
Software and things like "capacity"
Explain capacity and explain the visual joke
An accounting system. Software that helps you get the job done (bug tracking system, etc. but stuff that's outside of the core thing)
Conferences
Debconf is one example but many projects can spend money to put on conferences (and fly people there)
Facilitating coding "sprints" and intense programming
Python and Zope are the place where the term come from
Skolelinux has describe funding example the same thing.
Caveat to keep in mind: When you're selecting some people and not others for a trip to Tahiti, it shows favoritism. Either do it transparently or fairly (first come, first serve; most active on mailing list, most commits to CVS)
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SLIDE 9: Taking Strategic Risks
Pick WHEN you fund a project. Funding too early can be a problem.
Pick jobs carefully
pick jobs that no volunteer could do
non-technical things. funding applications, project manager. you need someone to do the project equivalent of the bookkeeping things
Offer focused jobs paid jobs should be focused and designed to tackle things that would not otherwise bet done by volunteers
needed thing)
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SLIDE 10: Transparency Transparency Transparency
These are all important. Phones and in person conversation.
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SLIDE 11: Have other organizations do the work within your project
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SLIDE 12: Summary^H^H^H Messages to Funders
If you're involved in funding volunteer projects:
| [1] | http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/usenix2000/invitedtalks/gettys_html/text13.htm |