Funded development thoughts (long)
by Bryce Harrington
There's been interest of late in figuring out some options for funding
development work on Inkscape. I'm thrilled to hear this as I also think
it's an important direction for Inkscape's longer term health, and
something I've been working on directly myself for some time now.
I promised Martin I'd write a thorough response to his proposal,
including the course of action I think we should undertake, which makes
for a long read, so I apologize upfront about the length.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, let me share my thoughts on Patreon and why we should not rely on
it for our *project* needs.
Patreon looks interesting for individual developers, but for the
Inkscape project in general what we really need is a mechanism to direct
and focus funds towards the issues our donors, users, and developers
care about collectively, and to provide them with a level of
accountability that the funds are being put to good use for tangible,
predictable benefits. Patreon is undirected, simply providing funding
for whatever the recipient wishes to do. It provides no mechanisms for
review, guidance, or transparency.
Martin suggested advertising placement on the Inkscape website and
utilizing trademark legal enforcement as a carrot/stick mechanism to
help ensure the recipients are at least working actively on Inkscape.
However, website placement is likely going to be contentious since it
relies on donors selecting who to fund. They'll either pick the most
popular, the guy at the top of the list, the biggest self-promotor, or
randomly. We can strive very hard to make it "fair" but with money
involved there will always be complaints, and someone feeling that
someone else is getting more funding priority than they "deserve".
Despite our best of intentions, this feels likely to turn into a can of
worms.
The use of trademark enforcement is an interesting angle, by restricting
who can label themselves as "Inkscape Developers". However, I believe
trademark law does not work that way, and even if it did would be
difficult to enforce, requiring the involvement of the Conservancy to
issue cease-and-desist letters -- I think we'd end up deciding the
marginal benefits would not make up for the time, manpower, and stress
investments of dealing with abusers flouting our trademark rules. It
may work adequately as a gentlemen's agreement, but if someone truly
challenges it, I fear our enforcement will be revealed to be a paper
tiger.
But we needn't overthink it to that level - fundamentally, restricting
how other developers define themselves within our community is at odds
with our egalitarian principles, and does not respect the development
freedom we cherish. If someone wants to refer to themselves as an
Inkscape Developer, we should encourage it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fortunately, we can achieve a much better approach by focusing our
efforts more intently into the funded projects system already under way.
Paid developer work has been long discussed in our project. We've
looked at bounty systems, direct patron sponsorship, straight up
contracting, and so on, that other projects have experimented with.
We approached the Software Conservancy with these ideas and hashed them
out into a workable system, after months of discussion and drafting.
The essence of the system is straightforward:
1. We post a list of approved jobs, similar to our GSoC lists.
2. Money from donations can be directed towards jobs the donors want
to see done. Small donations can be aggregated together to
provide big funding for larger efforts.
3. We carefully vet developers who wish to take jobs, similar to how
we vet GSoC students, but also judge their past work, history of
Inkscape involvement, etc.
4. Vetted developers can take approved jobs when the funding level
reaches the amount they feel is appropriate to the work, by
sending in a Job Proposal (similar to GSoC), that we review and
accept.
5. Developers are required to post monthly reports, just like GSoC.
Each job also defines an expected time limit, like with GSoC.
6. On job completion, a Reviewer checks that the requirements were
met, and the payment is cut.
The process is strongly modeled after Google Summer of Code, which has
been proven effective for us historically. It builds in several
checkpoints to ensure bad actors don't enter the system, and to ensure
accountability and transparency into the development work. It also
empowers and leverage donors to influence where their money gets
invested, both to give them a level of ownership and to use their
donation decisions as "crowd wisdom" to ensure we're putting money where
it will most benefit the Inkscape community's needs.
One important distinction from GSoC is that jobs don't need to be fixed
sized to fit 3-month summer schedules. This system should work for
quick turn-around 1-2 week projects, up to multi-month or even year-long
efforts. Whatever we need. It also doesn't have to be feature work,
but could target bug fixing, website work, documentation. Whatever we
need.
A final benefit - this system's already been reviewed and approved by
Software Conservancy's lawyers. So, while there might be some bumps
along the way, there is no reason we can't start using it immediately.
What I have been working on myself is Django-based software that would
enable us to scale the system up to handle a multitude of project ideas,
track jobs in various states of completion, and coordiate work by
arbitrary numbers of developers, vetters, and reviewers. It aims to
also directly hook the donation system into the project listings so a
donor has instant feedback of the effect of their funds. This is
complex, as you can imagine, and with my time being in short supply it's
been slow going.
However, for small scale needs the software is superfluous, we can do
all the same steps manually, tracking status in a google spreadsheet or
whatever. And for the near term, I think we should. Here's what we'd
need to do:
* Designate several people to defined roles:
1. Fundraising coordinator.
2. Vetter (must be a board member)
3. Reviewer
* Add more Job definitions.
+ For each Job we define Completion Criteria
+ Board can vote to make certain of them immediately fundable.
* Organize an online fundraiser.
+ Set up is just as we've done for hackfest fundraising, but with a
detailed list of what Jobs are specifically being funded.
+ Donated funds are distributed equally to the specific Jobs we
list.
+ Board can vote to assign Inkscape funds, too.
* Recruit developers to participate
+ We already know of several (Mc, Tav); put out a call for more
+ Vetter will receive job proposals and review applicants, check
that they've been actively contributing, and look able to complete
assigned work, have provided payment details, etc.
+ Once vetter gives OK on a given job proposal, work can begin
immediately
When the work is done, the Reviewer reviews it, and I notify Conservancy
to cut a check or wire transfer to the person that did it.
This system is set up to make payments after completion, rather than
reliably regular monthly payments, and I know that will be an issue for
people needing predictable income for covering monthly rent and so on.
One way we can hack around that is instead of defining one big 3-month
job, to break it up into three 1-month (160 hr, $2000+) jobs assigned to them
that they perform sequentially. This will require more reviewer
involvement, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
For all of this to work, though, I would need to recruit a number of you
to help out in various roles. I don't think these roles will be time
consuming, but you'd need to commit to being available regularly as
stuff comes up.
How does this plan sound in concept?
Bryce
3 years, 8 months
User feedback from forum
by Maren Hachmann
Some very nice user feedback that I think you'd enjoy reading, from this
forum thread:
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=32905
---------------
New to Inkscape, very thankful about it
by ken » Fri Sep 08, 2017 3:22 pm
I would like to praise the creators and maintainers of Inkscape, and the
Inkscape community as well, for the great free software you all brought
to reality.
I'm still learning many things about Inkscape, I started using it some
days ago, I needed a free option because of my budget, and I found in
Inkscape a great alternative. It is far above my expectations, and many
times, when I find something new and useful in it, I get impressed with
the quality of your work, and I feel thankful for having such a good and
useful software for free.
Thank you very much, I hope I can retribute your efforts.
---------------
Maren
3 years, 8 months
Election Inkscape Vectors Team: Nominations
by unknown＠example.com
Dear Inkscape Developer,
There is a new election underway to elect a new member to Inkscape Vectors Team,
you have 4 days (Sept. 9, 2017) to invite members of the community to stand for the election.
----
This election has been called to test the election software. It's a work in progress and although a lot has been done to try and get this software ready, we do need a live test before we can start a proper board election using it.
----
You must be a member of the team on the website in order to vote or invite candidates to stand. You must make sure that your team membership status is settled before the vote opens in order for your ballot to be created in time.
Send invitation: http://www.inkscape.org/en/*inkscape-vectors/elections/test-election-2017/
3 years, 8 months
[karen@...3057...: Conservancy mini-conf around FOSDEM]
by Bryce Harrington
Let me know if you'd be interested in attending this event in Brussels
to represent Inkscape.
Bryce
----- Forwarded message from Karen Sandler <karen@...3057...> -----
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2017 14:50:17 -0400
From: Karen Sandler <karen@...3057...>
To: Project Reps <project-reps@...3057...>
Cc: Staff <staff@...3057...>
Subject: Conservancy mini-conf around FOSDEM
Reply-To: karen@...3057...
Hi project reps!
We're strongly considering holding a Conservancy mini-conference around this
coming FOSDEM, which has been announced for February 3rd and 4th in Brussels.
We've often been asked over the years to organize an event like this and in
addition struggle during FOSDEM to find the time to meet with everyone who
wants to meet with us.
Would you mind surveying key participants in your project to see if they are
planning to attend FOSDEM, if they would be interested in such a meeting and,
if so, whether the Friday before or Monday after FOSDEM would be more
convenient for them?
We've got a lot of projects in Conservancy now, so please let us know what you
find out off-list :)
thanks!
karen
Karen M. Sandler
Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
__________
Become a Supporter today! http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
----- End forwarded message -----
3 years, 8 months
Be careful with icons
by C R
Right-Click > Image Properties
currently fails to bring up Object Attributes dialogue in trunk.
This is because of a missing icon dialog-object-attributes.svg
Just a reminder that mucking with the icons can break Inkscape functionality.
Thanks.
-C
3 years, 8 months
Election Inkscape Vectors Team: Nominations
by unknown＠example.com
Dear Inkscape Developer,
There is a new election underway to elect a new member to Inkscape Vectors Team,
you have 4 days (Sept. 9, 2017) to invite members of the community to stand for the election.
----
This election has been called to test the election software. It's a work in progress and although a lot has been done to try and get this software ready, we do need a live test before we can start a proper board election using it.
----
You must be a member of the team on the website in order to vote or invite candidates to stand. You must make sure that your team membership status is settled before the vote opens in order for your ballot to be created in time.
Send invitation: http://www.inkscape.org/en/*inkscape-vectors/elections/test-election-2017/
3 years, 8 months
x86 MSI installer detected as a malware
by Daniel Berteaud
Hi.
Since 0.92.2, a few antivirus programs detects the x86 MSI installer as
a malware (Avast, Sophos and AVG see the Other:Malware-gen signature).
See
https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/665507b85422f25350736b8b47a50931521bc7e...
for details
The x64 MSI is not affected. This is most likely a false positive, but
as the file is quite big, I cannot submit it to Avast as such for example.
Anyway, I think you might be interested in knowing this. Not sure what
can be done.
Cheers,
Daniel
--
Logo FWS
*Daniel Berteaud*
FIREWALL-SERVICES SAS.
Société de Services en Logiciels Libres
Tel : 05 56 64 15 32 <tel:0556641532>
Visio : http://vroom.fws.fr/dani
/www.firewall-services.com/
3 years, 8 months
Fwd: Important Changes to your GitLab.com Account
by Maren Hachmann
Just in case anyone is worrying, this is a quote from the FAQ they link to:
"What about public projects?
We're still committed to open-source software, so all paid features are
also available to all public projects on GitLab.com."
Maren
Gitlab message:
-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: Important Changes to your GitLab.com Account
Datum: Fri, 1 Sep 2017 16:41:49 +0000
Von: GitLab Team <info@...3601...>
... (removed tracking links)
We 💜 free and are committed to always offering a free plan with
unlimited private repos, unlimited contributors, and access to features
that modern developers need on GitLab.com. To ensure we can uphold this
commitment, we’ve introduced exclusive paid features
to our Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans. With this change, we can continue
to support a great free version of GitLab.com while offering additional
enterprise features to teams with more specialized needs.
Since its launch, GitLab.com has grown to over two million projects!
We’re excited about this growth and, as an early adopter, you have been
a key part of our success. For that, we want to thank you!
*We’ve upgraded your existing Free plan account and groups on GitLab.com
to the Early Adopter Plan. You will continue to have access to the
Silver plan features
,
with the exception of additional CI minutes and improved support, free
for 12 months.
*Over the coming months, we will continue to add new
features to our paid Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans—these features will
not be available on the Early Adopter or Free plans.
...
Best,
The GitLab Team
3 years, 8 months
