On Sun, Jan 03, 2016 at 10:51:12PM +0100, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:
2016-01-02 3:17 GMT+01:00 Bryce Harrington <bryce@...2...>:
A majority vote of the current board members is required for approving this budget.
Proposal:
Adoption of the Rev1 budget in the attached spreadsheet for use as guidance in 2016 finances.
Align the 2016 budget to the Software Freedom Conservancy's fiscal year, which runs 3/1/2016 to 2/28/2017. We will stretch the 2015 budget to cover expenses through 2/29/2016.
Formalize the division of Inkscape's funds into distinct "pools", each carrying balances year to year, and registered in Paypal to allow donors to directly target the pool they wish to fund, as we did in 2015 for hackfest:2015 donations. We will still have a General Fund for general expenses and untargeted donations.
In general, having a little more structure in the budget is a good idea. However, I am not entirely sure about splitting the SVG WG budget into a separate item. It is really important that we keep participating in the WG, and that Tav can get the money to get to the WG meetings with a minimum amount of fuss, so I just want to make sure that we are not painting ourselves into a corner financially.
Just to be clear, we will always have the ability to vote for more funds for WG meetings on a case-by-case basis, as we have always done. I'm hoping that targeted fundraising will make that less necessary going forward but we'll always retain that capability.
What changes, though, are two things. First, it gives Tav a lot more predictability. In the past, we voted on each WG event individually, and unfortunately at times we were slow at getting a decision made, to the point that it affected Tav's being able to make reservations. With an established fund *just* for these events, he'll be able to plan and make arrangements long in advance.
Second is for fundraising. Like you say this is really important to continue participating in, and I think that case can be easily made to donors directly. Donors gain transparency into what is happening, and we gain the confidence that the community is in solidarity with us.
My proposal here is to allow funding SVG WG participation from the Hackfests pool, which can actually be called Developer Events or something like that. The end result of our participation in WG meetings is very similar to the hackfests (they lead to new features), so I think this is reasonable and most hackfest donors would approve of such use of their donations.
I would worry that this would force hackfest planners and Tav to have to horse trade on how much should be allocated each way. Better to just have discrete pools. It also doubles the number of tangible things we can go to donors to ask for, so theoretically this should increase the total donations we get. I don't think its to our benefit to conflate the two.
We still have plenty of money in the general fund, to supplement either pool with if need be. But I think we should instead focus on pushing the fundraising angle.
Generalize last year's Hackfest:2015 pool to cover future Hackfests. The money in this pool will be used exclusively for Hackfest sponsorship and related organizational costs. Assume an increase of 150% in the budgeted amounts over last year, to make provision for increased attendance. Since the hackfest-targeted fundraising has proven successful, no additional money is being allocated from the General Fund; we'll rely on the balance from last year and ongoing fundraising to cover these expenses.
Establish a new SVG Working Group funding pool. Seed this pool with $2250 from the General Fund, usable retroactively (i.e. the pool can be used to cover the Feb 3-6 meeting in Sydney, Australia.)
Allocate $250 each to the three existing funded project proposals, and to three new funded projects (to be determined in a subsequent board vote). Each funded project will have its own pool, in order to track per-project donations.
Sounds good. What happens with this money when someone comes in and just does stuff (Marc's case)? Do we vote as a board to reward them with the allocated money, or does it go into the general fund?
Ideally I'd like to see him sign up for the project (even if we have to do the arrangements manually).
The Funded Development Policy says:
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.
So this says to me that if a task becomes invalid for whatever reason, such as being completed with no one actually signed up for it, the proposer (which I guess is the Board in the case of the current set of projects) can simply withdraw it, and the money returns to the general fund.
Otherwise, if the job is completed and no one was assigned to it, I suppose eventually it'll just expire, and the funds will return to us.
Again though, my preference is that we get Marc signed up officially for this project. If nothing else it'll help us iron out the process a bit further. Is anyone working closely with him already? If so perhaps you could put a bug in his ear about it, and if he's interested have him contact me and we can get things squared away.
Bryce
Other budgeted expenses follow the 2015 budget. An OSUOSL grant, Developer Education (details tbd), and sponsorship for LGM and SCALE are budgeted with the same amounts as 2015. The Contingency line item from 2015 is eliminated since we didn't have a use for it, and its $500 is lumped into Other Events.
Board chairman will document the budget on the Inkscape website, and follow up with subsequent votes on individual expenses as appropriate or as they come up.
[ ] a. Yes, adopt budget as described in "Rev #1" (below) [ ] b. Revise budget with the following changes recommended: _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ [ ] c. Do not establish a budget for 2016
Vote: b. Revisions: merge SVG WG and Hackfest pools.
Best regards, Krzysztof