A majority vote of the current board members is required for this
matter.
Proposal:
1. Adoption of the procedure described below for handling fundraisers
and funded development work.
2. Board chairman will document this procedure on the Inkscape
website, and announce to the developer and user mailing lists.
[ ] a. Yes, adopt this procedure and announce it
[ ] b. No, do not adopt this procedure
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[See Appendix B for changes made based on feedback from Inkscape community.]
Inkscape Funded Development Model
---------------------------------
1. Fundraising
===============
Using the model we'll describe below, anyone may start an official
fundraiser for Inkscape development. We leave it to your imagination
how to structure and run your fundraising campaign, and empower you with
selecting from a list of defined development goals to fund, so long as a
few requirements are met.
First, the person who organizes and supervises a fundraising campaign is
termed a Fundraising Coordinator. We may have multiple coordinators if
we have multiple campaigns, but only one coordinator per fundraiser.
They have three duties:
a) Administration of the fundraiser
b) Allocate raised funds to projects
c) (Optionally) Be involved in final signoff of completed projects
The first duty is left to the Fundraising Coordinator's discretion.
The second duty should be straightforward. When the fundraiser is
completed, all funds must be allocated to one or more projects in the
official Jobs List. No guarantee is made that any given project will be
undertaken if there is insufficient developer interest, but future
fundraisers can up the funds allocated to it to stimulate interest.
We expect some campaigns will wish to target one or more specific
projects, and announce this upfront to stimulate donations. This is
fine to do, but keep in mind that projects can change (or get
implemented) while the campaign is under way. So instead of naming
specific projects, it may be better to describe the types of projects
the campaign is aiming to fund, and make the specific decision(s) when
the fundraiser is over.
For ongoing fundraisers, the coordinator responsible for setting it up
can specify the distribution programmatically (e.g. "distribute evenly
to the four oldest projects in the list as of the end of the campaign",
or "10% to each of the ten projects with the highest funding from past
campaigns", or "allocated evenly across all documentation projects
registered as of the start of this campaign". The coordinator will
remain responsible for administrative duties both during and after the
fundraiser. Should they need to step down, they may name a replacement
to hand the remaining duties down to. If they disappear without naming
a replacement, or if there are any other irregularities or questions,
the issue should be escalated to the Inkscape Board for resolution.
The third duty - signing off on completion of the project - is described
in more detail below. The Fundraising Coordinator *can't* do this if
they personally contribute most of the funding, because it'd run us
afoul of IRS rules.
2. Proposing New Projects
==========================
We maintain a listing of proposed (unfunded) projects. Anything can be
proposed, including feature development, bug triaging, documentation,
administration, etc. but it must include a detailed description (>100
words) of the work to be done. Anyone may adopt these projects as
regular (unfunded) development tasks, GSoC projects, etc. (This is so
that any proposed projects that are fun or easy get done by volunteers,
and money can be focused on harder unsexy work, and to make abuse
harder.)
Once a proposed project has reached a certain age, it will be eligible
for funding. We'll call these eligible projects 'jobs', once they meet
the following conditions:
a. Has been on the Proposed Projects list for >=6 months
b. A Deliverable has been defined
c. Acceptance Criteria has been defined (see appendix)
d. A Time Limit has been estimated for how long the work should take
e. Proposal has been Seconded by another Developer that the proposed
change is, in concept, worth including in the Inkscape codebase
Once a proposal meets all 5 of these conditions it is considered an
Approved Job.
3. Fundable Jobs List
======================
The money from these fundraisers goes to the Inkscape Foundation account
administered by the Software Freedom Conservancy, who takes a small
percentage of each donation. Conservancy is a US 501(c)(3) public
charity, and all donations are tax deductible in the United States as
allowed by law.
We maintain a list of allocations-to-jobs so we can keep track of what
money "belongs" to which job, so the correct amount is paid when the job
is done. This amount is displayed on the web for developers to browse
when selecting a job to do.
Anyone in the Inkscape AUTHORS file is eligible to apply for a job.
The applicant must submit a Job Proposal, which will identify the
applicant's qualifications for doing the job, and outline how they
intend to do the implementation.
The Inkscape Board will delegate one of its members to review and vet
applicants to help ensure the best candidates are selected for each job.
For larger, longer, or more complicated jobs the vetting may take some
time, but for moderate sized jobs the intent is for a decision to be
made within a few days. The Inkscape Board may elect to mark some jobs
(such as smaller ones) as Pre-Approved; once an applicant files an
application they may begin the job immediately, no vetting required.
Board members are excepted from this process due to conflict of
interest; they may apply for the jobs but must still be vetted.
No one may assign themselves more than one Pre-Approved job at a time,
and the Board reserves the right to subsequently review the application
and disapprove it in case of problems.
When an applicant is assigned the job, the clock starts ticking. The
applicant must post at least one progress report each month (e.g. to a
blog or to the Inkscape wiki). During the time limit, so long as the
monthly reports are being clearly posted, no one else can apply to do
the same job. If two months pass without a report, or when the 6 months
time runs out, and the job is not completed, the assignee doesn't
receive the funds and can't attempt the same job again for 6 months.
The job is considered completed when the identified deliverables are
delivered according to the specified criteria.
4. Completion Criteria
=======================
The Reviewer makes the decision as to whether the job has been
adequately completed, using the originally specified criteria.
By default, the Fundraising Coordinator is the Reviewer; if the project
was funded from multiple sources, the one that allocated the largest
amount of funding (or their chosen delegate) is the Reviewer. This
person must formally accept the Reviewer role by email within 1 week.
For any reason, they may opt to decline the Reviewer role. If they are
unresponsive or opt to decline the role, it passes to the next
Fundraising Coordinator. If no Fundraising Coordinators take or
delegate the role, then the Inkscape Board will delegate a Reviewer.
However the Reviewer is decided, he or she must be a different person
than the original Project Proposer, and neither the Reviewer nor the
Reviewer's employer may contribute more than 50% of the total funds for
the given project. We want to avoid a situation where a person or their
employer has an independent business interest in seeing the job
completed, and is over-involved in the management of the work.
5. Termination and Modification
================================
The original proposer of the Project or Job may withdraw it or modify
its definition at any time, so long as someone is not signed up for it.
If the Project is withdrawn, all funds allocated to it return to the
general Inkscape fund.
Unassigned Jobs expire 24 months after their initial project proposal.
This is intended to clear out deadwood projects and to encourage
developers to adopt projects with allocated funds before they expire,
and to discourage proposing projects that are unlikely to get attention
in 24 months. Any funds allocated to untaken jobs are moved to
Inkscape's general fund.
At its discretion, by majority vote the board may elect to extend the
expiration date of about-to-expire Jobs with funds allocated by 12
months.
6. Process Exceptions
======================
Historically, all development work funded by the Inkscape Project
required authorization by the Inkscape Board of Directors; this funding
model is to establish a structure for development funding that does not
require Board involvement. However, the Board retains the ability to
authorize exceptions for anything outside the bounds of this policy, to
be handled on a case-by-case basis, with decisions made by a majority
vote.
In particular, the Board may select by vote certain projects to be
immediately fundable, without needing to wait the normal 6 month period.
They may also withdraw any project or job at any time, by majority vote,
including even assigned, in-progress jobs (though this should be highly
unusual).
The Board may also make changes to this policy via a normal majority
vote.
7. Conflict Resolution
=======================
If there are any problems or disagreements once a project has been
assigned to a Developer, a Meeting can be called by any stakeholder
(Project Proposer, Developer, Fundraising Campaigns, Reviewer, or
Inkscape Board Member). For proper quorum, at a minimum the Meeting
must be attended by the Developer, either the Project Proposer or the
Reviewer, at least one Fundraising Coordinator involved in the funding
of the project, any one Board Member, and a Colleague Developer (whom
can be anyone in the Inkscape AUTHORS file selected by the Developer).
Any unanimous decision reached in this Meeting is binding on all
parties.
Any conflict that can't be resolved via a Meeting may then be escalated
to the Inkscape Board of Directors, who will be the ultimate arbiter.
Conflicts of interest, including conflicts with the board, are governed
by the Software Freedom Conservancy's org-wide conflict of interest
policy.
Appendix A: Example Delivery and Acceptance Criteria
=====================================================
# This is a sample set of delivery and acceptance criteria; each project
# may use, alter, or replace any of these conditions as appropriate.
a. Test cases are provided to add coverage for all newly added
functionality.
b. Documentation patches provided for describing all newly added
functionality.
c. Updates provided for release notes, NEWS, bug reports, etc.
d. All patch(es) have landed in the official upstream repository. Either
in the mainline tree, or in an officially designated branch as per
upstream policy.
e. Code builds and runs on the major platforms supported by the
project.
f. Code passes the upstream project's designated style/lint checking
tools.
g. User-visible strings are translatable as per project policy.
h. Unit and regression test suites pass with no new test failures.
At project completion, once the above criteria is met, 70% of the
payable funds are delivered. 30% is held in reserve for bug fix
followup: One month after completion, a list of identified bugs can be
specified by the Reviewer to be fixed; if all are fixed within a month,
the remaining 30% of the funding is released to the developer. If no
bugs exist, or none are specified before 6 weeks after completion, then
the developer is paid the remainder directly.
Appendix B: Changelog
=====================
Changes v5
* Exclude the board from pre-approved jobs, to avoid conflict of
interest.
* Drop the section for handling the case where a non-assigned
developer does the assigned task. This will probably be an unusual
situation, and the board can decide on a case-by-case basis.
* In the example Acceptance Criteria, adjusted payments to 70% for
project completion and 30% for bugfix / final acceptance. Don't
set a limit to the number of bug reports; this should be determined
organically - in case of abuse there is a conflict resolution
mechanism available.
* In the opening paragraph clarify that the allowed development goals
are selected from a pre-defined list.
* Elaborate on how a rough proposed idea becomes an approved job for
selection.
* Jobs that are about to expire can be extended 12 months by a
majority Board vote.
* For Conflict Resolution, renamed 'Neutral Developer' to 'Colleague
Developer', since this person is selected by the Developer and thus
likely will be partial to their cause; 'Neutral' would suggest a
level of impartiality which is neither realistic nor really
necessary.
Changes v4:
* Drop the requirement for allocating no more than 25% per project.
* If a project is withdrawn by its original proposer, any money
allocated for it goes back to the general pool.
* Avoid ambiguous "Fundraiser" verbage. Use either "Fundraising
Coordinator" or "Fundraising Campaign".
* Fix Software Freedom Conservancy name.
* Give advice on allocation of funds to projects to not be too
specific upfront.
* Require job applicants to submit applications, which will be vetted
and approved by the board. Allow board to delegate this work to an
elected member. Allow for smaller tasks to be marked Pre-Approved,
that can be undertaken with no vetting.
* Require job assignees to post monthly progress reports, or else
job can be reassigned to someone else.
* Prohibit the Project Proposer from also being the Reviewer.
* Prohibit person from being a Reviewer if they or their employer
contributed over half the funds.
* Various spelling and grammar fixes.
Changes v3:
* Reordered sections for clarity. Start with fundraising.
* Discuss the duties of Fundraising Coordinators in more detail.
* Reviewers cannot have contributed more than 50% of the funds for the
project. This is due to IRS restrictions we must follow in order to
remain covered as non-profit. "50%" is just a WAG and may need
adjusted down (possibly to 0%) pending legal advice from SFC.
* Expire unassigned jobs after 24 months rather than 30.
* Note that SFC can be used for resolving conflicts of interest.
Changes v2:
* Added subheadings
* Added Exception section clarifying board powers
* Jobs expire after 30 months
* Gave original proposer power to modify or terminate projects
* Defined the Reviewer role
* Added example Delivery and Acceptance Criteria as an appendix
