Just wanted to say, I don't think anyone was suggesting that Patreon
is the optimal long-term solution for the project. It just seems like
something that could get us by for now and address the needs of some
of our current (long term) developers. Most of this you can blame me
for, it was my idea to use Patreon in the short term while the project
decides if it wants to support full-time developers. It was me who
offered it as a solution for our contributing students who will need
to enter the job market soon, and could be working on Inkscape
full-time instead of searching for a job (or two) to make ends meet.
It's something we discussed at length at the hackfest.
It is also me that is offering help through the new Vectors Team to
promote Patreon pages of our developers who have proven to be
reliable. This is no more than we would do for anyone else who wants
to make money through promotion and spreading of open source software.
So I insist you blame me for it. It's not that our current developers
demand payment for their work, it's that I offered it to them. I came
to them and said "we in the community would like to fund your work on
inkscape, so you can work full time on it, and make it better,
faster." That was ME. No criticism of any kind should fall on the
developers for considering this offer.
I personally believe that any skilled developer who wants to work full
time on Inkscape instead of following a possibly much more lucrative
career of software engineering should be met with open arms and the
utmost respect by the project. Patreon is not risk-free, and funds can
dry up. No system is fool-proof, and there are no guarantees.
Blame me.
-C
On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 5:47 AM, Martin Owens <doctormo@...400...> wrote:
> Bryce,
>
> There is much to recommend your arguments, but considering the higher
> than normal emotional bandwidth required to conduct the discussion, we
> are going to have to pause this discussion until we can both be in the
> same room and have the high bandwidth debate this deserves.
>
> Know that I have done no work on any patreon system and have only
> talked and thought. There has been no technical time spent on it and I
> would not disrespect the project or yourself bryce by making a move on
> such a delicate subject without a fully developed consensus.
>
> I remain at service to the project's will.
>
> Kind Regards, Martin Owens
>
> On Wed, 2017-09-06 at 21:20 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 06, 2017 at 10:51:41AM -0400, Martin Owens wrote:
>> >
>> > Thanks for putting together your thoughts Bryce,
>> >
>> > These are my considerations for why I've changed my mind somewhat
>> > (although not completely) in terms of how we should layout project
>> > funding.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ ---
>> > > ----
>> > > -----
>> > > First, let me share my thoughts on Patreon and why we should not
>> > > rely
>> > > on it for our *project* needs.
>> > This sounds like you would be happy to have patreon be a part of
>> > the
>> > mix. And I'd be happy to conspire to have both, more below.
>> No. Perhaps my politeness here has left some room for ambiguity,
>> so let me be clear:
>>
>> Circumventing the Software Conservancy with the scheme you're
>> promoting
>> is probably not legally permitted. Certainly it is highly disloyal
>> to
>> the agreements we've entered with them. It is unethical.
>>
>> Privatizing our donor base would be divisive and bad for the project,
>> and would not address the *project*'s needs.
>>
>> -1. No. Full stop. I am opposed.
>>
>>
>> We can get far, far more money and be much more successful working
>> together as a group than splitting up and dealing with funding
>> individually. Patreon is the *wrong* solution for Inkscape.
>>
>> I totally get why the idea sounds appealing to you. Frankly, there's
>> no
>> reason you couldn't run your self-funding idea, just do it completely
>> independently from Inkscape.
>>
>> You are wanting to leverage the Inkscape project's name and
>> reputation,
>> and the free promotional labor of its volunteers. The value we have
>> here is the group. Our brand. Our collective effort,
>> specializations,
>> and divisions of labor. Our efficiency of scale, and resiliency
>> through
>> our group identity.
>>
>> Shouldn't we be using that group power for the *group*'s benefit, and
>> for the benefit of the Inkscape software itself, rather than
>> subverting
>> it to benefit a privileged few?
>>
>> The mere addition of Patreon use won't magically increase the number
>> of
>> donations we get, it will subtract from our existing donations. Our
>> volunteers would have to redouble their outreach efforts to make up
>> the
>> difference. Would they do it, knowing that a significant proportion
>> of
>> their effort would go to line individuals' pockets with no say in
>> what
>> those people do?
>>
>>
>> In Inkscape's early days, donations went to my own personal
>> account. I
>> paid the taxes out of my own pocket, and did not use the Inkscape
>> money
>> to pay for anything. Because people were donating not to *me* but to
>> *us*. I saw it as a duty to handle their money not as mine but as
>> *ours*, and to use it respectfully and responsibly.
>>
>> This is why so much time and effort was invested into joining the
>> Conservancy and moving our assets there, to build a group resource we
>> maintain collectively as a team to benefit *Inkscape* and its needs,
>> not
>> to create personal income sources for ourselves. Focusing on Patreon
>> disrespects that history and regresses us as a project.
>>
>> I was originally against us taking donations at all, in
>> fact. Sodipodi
>> had left a bad taste there. But donors were clamoring for it. My
>> mind
>> was changed by a donor saying, "I don't want to 'just send a patch',
>> I'm
>> not a coder! I have money and I want to throw the money at you guys,
>> so
>> that *you* fix it." Donors don't care about you or me; they care
>> about
>> Inkscape and about their personal needs. They trust us as a group
>> with
>> their money, to use it responsibly to address what the _software_
>> needs.
>> Their objective isn't to create full paid jobs for us, as much as we
>> might want that, we mustn't think that way.
>>
>> Just look at the most _recent_ big sponsors we've gotten as evidence.
>> The money didn't come to me personally, or to any one other person,
>> but
>> to *US*. The donors like giving us money as a *group*, they aren't
>> seeking us out individually.
>>
>> Patreon does not address Inkscape's needs either. Our freeform
>> development culture makes development very convenient, but has the
>> downside of incurring prodigious technical debt. Developers complain
>> to
>> me about this all the time. No stretch of the imagination is needed
>> to
>> consider using donated money to pay for work on technical debt. But
>> Patreon is simply not structured to do that; sexy feature work is
>> what
>> gets donor attention. "I refactor code, triage and fix bugs, and
>> write
>> test cases," will get Nada. But that sort of work is what will
>> actually
>> improve the project.
>>
>> Patreon does not automatically create paid time development
>> positions.
>> I totally get that people would like to work on Inkscape full time,
>> and
>> still be able to cover their rent and expenses. It's a lovely idea.
>> I'd like that too. Real jobs are hard, I've been balancing work on
>> Inkscape with a job and family myself for two decades now, it's
>> tough.
>> But at this stage in our project, working on Inkscape full time is as
>> unrealistic as a rainbow-farting unicorn. Even if you cannibalized
>> all
>> of Inkscape's donor base, it's not even enough to pay one half-time
>> position; we simply don't see that level of donation. The math is
>> clear, at least as it stands now.
>>
>>
>> But, we do have a solid model that works. We've brought in many tens
>> of
>> thousands of dollars. We've worked collectively to bolster and
>> improve
>> our infrastructure, outreach, and management of the money. Yes, it
>> involves some overhead, but that's part of what donors expect. Our
>> donor base is growing - slowly, but growing. The biggest thing that
>> helps is getting releases out the door - which is why I make that a
>> personal priority for my own time. Outreach efforts work - which is
>> why
>> I have championed getting the Vectors team established. Sponsor
>> solicitation, hackfest-related donation calls, and tending our
>> website
>> all work - and again the reason I make these personal priorities is
>> in
>> service of building our donor base further. I would like to build up
>> more of our revenue - merchandising for instance. I continue to
>> invest
>> myself in these things because I can see them paying off tangibly.
>>
>> The flip side is to develop our capacity to *spend* the money.
>> Bradley pointed this out to me directly, and is what got me pushing
>> for
>> hackfests, and encouraging other ideas people come up with. We need
>> to
>> get good at taking money in for the project, and paying it out to
>> the tangible benefit of the project.
>>
>> The ultimate goal, though, is funded development. That's what I have
>> had my eye on since that donor convinced me of it. But it needs to
>> be
>> done in service to the project, by ensuring that we retain our
>> collectively say in how it's used, and can direct it to specifically
>> what will improve the software.
>>
>>
>> I could keep going, but I will bring it to a close. If I haven't
>> convinced you by now and your feet are going to remain dug in, then
>> continued dissertating is just wasting my breath. I read and
>> understand
>> your points below, but the arguments fail to persuade me.
>>
>> I totally understand people want to see income for their development
>> work, and we totally can achieve that working together. Patreon
>> isn't
>> the right direction, it serves to splinter us not strengthen us.
>>
>> Ideally, I would like to convince you, Martin, that instead of
>> putting
>> your Django time into the Patreon concept you are proposing doing on
>> your own, that you should team up with me and collaborate on building
>> something bigger and better. We can get quantitatively more money to
>> more developers in a fairer way that satisfies donors and honors our
>> volunteers by ensuring they can directly influence how donations are
>> invested and incorporating them as equals in the processes. We can
>> make
>> something that goes far beyond what can be achieved by Patreon, that
>> may
>> well change how FOSS is funded throughout the industry.
>>
>> Yes, the software I have in mind will take effort to work, but it's
>> not
>> terribly beyond the scope of systems you've skillfully put in place
>> already. We can do it, and it will be something you and I can be
>> proud
>> to put our names to.
>>
>> Bryce
>>
>>
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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.
>> > The mechanisms are one to many. i.e. they act to patreon users from
>> > thier funded projects. Each person on the site is responsible for
>> > their
>> > upkeep to make sure their users are happy. The mechanism for
>> > keeping
>> > users happy is transparency.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > From a project perspective; we don't get special guidance or
>> > > review.
>> > Only normal guidance and review, that we would normal have with any
>> > developer.
>> >
>> > And to my mind, this is good. Part of what makes this a good option
>> > is
>> > that users themselves have more direct control over what the
>> > developer
>> > spends their time on without excessive filtering by gate keepers.
>> > To an
>> > odd degree, patreon fits better with inkscape's flat developer
>> > model
>> > than the majority of more rigid foss project hierarchies.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > However, website placement is likely going to be contentious
>> > > since it
>> > > relies on donors selecting who to fund. ... We can strive very
>> > > hard
>> > > to make it "fair"
>> > Yeah, that's not an easy thing to solve. But random plus funding
>> > step
>> > sort would be most useful I think. The funding step is how patreon
>> > organises how productive you can be for your users at each funding
>> > level. And this information would be invaluable to any placement
>> > links
>> > we do on our website.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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.
>> > There are no more or fewer worms or possible complaints about
>> > unfairness. We know the thicket of risk on this one.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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,
>> > I think you're right. No need to make it complicated.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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.
>> > Without any sort of control over who does and does not add
>> > themselves
>> > to patreon, we will be the most egalitarian possible. That has it's
>> > own
>> > risks of course. But I'm happy to proceed on the basis of trust.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ ---
>> > > ----
>> > > 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.
>> > We all put work into (although you the most) the project mechanism.
>> > We
>> > should be careful though, it could be a sunken time fallacy if
>> > we're
>> > not careful.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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.
>> > The number of steps required, the amount of intervention from
>> > volunteer
>> > project members. It's a HEAVY system. By comparison, the weight of
>> > the
>> > patreon model is mostly self-contained and responsibility is placed
>> > on
>> > the individual developer.
>> >
>> > This also goes so far as the weight and costs in regards to the
>> > conservancy. The conservancy's responsiveness makes me very scared,
>> > since they'd be the ones paying people real money for real rent.
>> > This
>> > has all sorts of issues and the conservancy may not even be able to
>> > pay
>> > some developers in some countries.
>> >
>> > I'm not saying the conservancy couldn't pull it out. But they're a
>> > small team without the same level of automation of the patreon
>> > system.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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.
>> > One of the advantages of having a more fluid system, is that a
>> > developer could focus on bug triage, or making icons, or any number
>> > of
>> > smaller tasks and could report on it to their patreons. The project
>> > model is focused on larger proejcts and we know we're retrofitting
>> > it
>> > to work for smaller items.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 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?
>> > So, the parts that are missing is the types of donators to both
>> > types
>> > of funding models. Patreon donators are more likely to be small,
>> > individual users. $1, $5 amounts and the 5% cut goes to patreon
>> > when
>> > the money is withdrawn.
>> >
>> > The project funding however can come from donors who give us $10k,
>> > or
>> > $100. If we promoted patreon, we'd probably see a reduction in
>> > smaller
>> > donations to the main fund, but we'd probably still get quite a
>> > lot.
>> > The conservancy will take 10% at donation time.
>> >
>> > The project model is still a good model, but it's a different
>> > model. We
>> > shouldn't kid ourselves that all the filtering, reviewing and deep
>> > personal attention means projects are what /developers/ want for
>> > the
>> > project. Which is not a bad thing at all. But part of the filtering
>> > is
>> > filtering out user direction.
>> >
>> > Having patreons doesn't mean we shouldn't have projects. It just
>> > means
>> > we have a more user directed, developers contracted by a mass of
>> > users,
>> > sort of method too.
>> >
>> > I support the promotion of both with the idea that our projects are
>> > run
>> > more like GSoC projects with known rewards with known reviews and
>> > the
>> > alternative fluid, more risky but less work patreon system which
>> > can
>> > run along side.
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>> >
>> > Best Regards, Martin Owens
>
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