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