[asterisk-biz] General development funding: discussion and survey
John Todd
jtodd at digium.com
Fri Oct 31 09:14:33 CDT 2008
Craig -
No, that is not my inference at all, and I apologize if that is the
impression you or others received in reading my message. The Asterisk
Open Source project is as active as it has ever been, and is anything
but a failure at this point. My question is: could the project be 20%
more effective if there were a funding method to connect fee-based
developers with people who had requirements? 30% more effective?
100%? Other open-source platforms have already done this type of
funding arrangement - would it work for Asterisk?
I pose this question set at the request of companies and
individuals who have spoken with me privately (or publicly) about this
type of arrangement, and it is on their behalf that I am putting
together this interest estimate. Any mechanism that could improve the
Asterisk Open Source project is interesting to me, regardless of how
well we believe the current model works. If there's interest -
great! Let's see if it's serious. If not, OK, then things seem to be
working as they are now.
I'd have you go back and read this more closely - this is not a
request to have Digium collect money - this is an open-source
suggestion for something unrelated to Digium.
JT
On Oct 31, 2008, at 12:09 AM, Craig Lawrence wrote:
> John
>
> You are inferring that in this instance (with respect to Asterisk) the
> Open Source Model isn't working.
>
> As a consequence, you are researching alternative means of funding the
> existing Digium Open Source model.
>
> I would respectfully suggest that you look further into the reasons
> for
> the failure of Digium's implementation of the Open Source Model before
> you canvas the community with requests for funding.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Craig Lawrence
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of John Todd
> Sent: Friday, 31 October 2008 6:12 AM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion;
> asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
> Subject: [asterisk-biz] General development funding: discussion and
> survey
>
> [sending to -users and -biz in a slightly different format to broaden
> participation]
>
> Summary:
> Would you help fund different Open-Source Asterisk enhancements,
> bugfixes, or documentation if there was a way to collectively
> contribute money towards the effort without a profit margin
> incorporated into the price? If so, jump to the bottom of this
> message and fill out the form on the URL provided. There is no
> obligation to anything by filling out the form - think of this as a
> "market survey".
>
>
> The Long Version:
>
> Everyone on this list is presumably an Asterisk user, advocate, or is
> in some way benefitting from the project. Your ideas and survey
> participation would be welcome on the topic below.
>
> Many coders love coding for Asterisk but often can't find the time to
> do it for free when faced with things like buying food, paying
> mortgages, and keeping current with their insurance - this is totally
> understandable. Many coders have and continue to contribute things to
> Asterisk at no cost, but these patches are typically their own
> "itches", where they have solved a particular problem of their own.
> Rarely do people pick up problems that are not related to anything
> they're doing, or pick up unrelated problems that are so large that it
> would involve 100% of their time for any significant period. Some
> people ("Bless your heart!" as they say here in Huntsville) work on
> bugs and enhancements that don't directly benefit them at all - these
> are the most valuable contributors we have - you know who you are.
> Most of the time, though, there is a directly relevant reason why
> people work on code and often that means more obscure bugs or feature
> implementations languish, though still worthwhile if someone were to
> complete them.
>
> On the other side of the scale there are many people or companies who
> perhaps would like to contribute to paying for various features in
> Asterisk that would be described as "large enhancements" or even minor
> bugs and annoyances, but do not have sufficient funds to pay for an
> entire project themselves. There are perhaps also many people who
> would like to help out Asterisk in a way that allows them to
> contribute funding towards the project, but they're uncomfortable
> sending money to a corporation and hoping that it gets eventually
> applied to OSS Asterisk (and I'm not only talking about Digium in this
> case.) There are coders available for a fee (perhaps much less than
> market rate, perhaps not - we'll just say "non-zero cost") who could
> do this work and would love to do it if they could justify the time
> spent. Open-Source Software doesn't always imply that the code is
> "unpaid work", and Digium's contributions towards Asterisk are a case
> for the benefits of having an income stream and payment system
> (salaries) that supplements OSS development.
>
> So there is a disconnect between two groups of willing consumers and
> willing producers - how do we bridge it? The answer some have come up
> with is "Let's create an Asterisk fund and collect money and disperse
> money to pay for work by community members!" This is a great concept,
> but the devil is in the details, and I've found that when money is
> involved, the detail devil is much larger and angrier than usual.
>
>
> The problems with this idea have continually been:
>
> - Escrow of capital. It is not feasible to trust that donors will
> be good on their contribution post-release. This may be because it
> takes a while for the code and economic situations change, it may be
> that internal paperwork processes take forever to get done (Hi, Raj,
> sorry about that delay from Tello!), or it may just be that a large
> portion of funders are flaky. I'm willing to be convinced this isn't
> the case, but personally I certainly wouldn't code a large amount of
> hours based on the say-so of people I'd never worked with before.
> Perhaps some sort of metric could be created for more reliable payers,
> like a rating system of integrity?
>
> - Agreement of project goals. Who defines the project? Who gets what
> they want? Based on money? Based on some arbitration? What and who
> defines "success"?
>
> - Corporate structure for payments. If there is an agent in between
> the coders and the funders, then what kind of agent is that? For-
> profit? Not-for-profit? Who pays for the creation of this entity?
> It's possibly the case that Digium Inc. is not the best place for this
> funding repository, though possibly that would make life a lot easier
> from an organizational standpoint. (not sure about taxes, though.)
>
> - How to pay? Obviously, the more the merrier, but credit cards, bank
> accounts, PayPal, and other payment instruments are complex and
> expensive. Payment to consultants is another problem - taxation may
> be a problem again.
>
> - Serious interest. This has been a topic of conversation for the
> last 6 years that I'm aware of, and none of the concepts or problems
> I'm bringing up here are new. However, it is discussed but no action
> is taken. Perhaps now is the time to serious look at this concept
> since Asterisk is reaching such a large audience. Traditionally, the
> number of people or organizations that would provide "seed" funding
> for something like this is low; possibly only a single organization
> (Digium) would have the focused interest and capital to create such a
> financial/organizational entity as a non-profit or other unrelated
> instrument. But who would use it, really? At what level of actual
> contribution? To convince Digium (and/or hopefully other founding
> members of some as-yet undefined organization) to put their money and
> effort towards such a fund/foundation, there would have to be
> significant interest beyond idle discussion. The bounty concept on
> voip-info.org has been around for a while, but saw only marginal
> uptake. I've been a part of three or four (or more) paid projects,
> but only two (the sounds-extras recordings, and the SIP session
> timers) have actually seen multiple contributors, and the rest were
> straight-up consulting. What companies or individuals would actually
> put money into such a fund, and would it be enough to make it
> worthwhile or self-sustaining on an ongoing basis? Those of you who
> re-package Asterisk for commercial purposes but are not active
> contributors of patches or enhancements: I'm looking at you,
> specifically.
>
>
> Before these fairly large problems get discussed, I think the first
> goal in this investigation would really be to see if there is actually
> an interest in such an entity, so that last point is the problem I
> think we can try to solve here first. To try to get some metrics on
> this that are something other than "around-the-dinner-table"
> discussions, I've put together a form to collect some data. If you
> have an interest in putting money towards some general fund for
> Asterisk development, we're at a stage in the cycle where your input
> counts. Please take a moment to put your data in the form below.
> Note that all replies (except for email address) are public, given the
> spirit of this whole concept being a community effort.
>
> All of the points above are open for discussion. Your comments on
> this thread are welcome, since this is truly a "community" concept.
> Since this topic has come up on many occasions, but rarely in a wide
> forum, this perhaps is a good time to determine if there is truly
> interest or if the methods that we have currently are sufficient. If
> may be the case that there is no interest - that's OK. It may be the
> case that there is interest, but there is no viable way to create such
> an entity. (Digium, my employer, is not putting itself on the hook
> for anything in this message - I'm trying to gauge interest ONLY.)
> You're not obligating yourself to actually paying anyone by filling
> out these forms, as this is just a quick survey of how large the
> audience really is.
>
> PLEASE keep discussion of policy, structure, and technical details
> here on the list. Use the form below ONLY for cataloging your
> willingness to pay for Asterisk work via some idealized mechanism.
> If you're a coder, a survey about that may follow later which captures
> your willingness to work for money, but I suspect that's a pretty
> well-
> known truism that needs little confirmation.
>
> Feel free to forward this note to others (your boss, your co-workers,
> other less-involved Asterisk coders) who may have an interest in this
> type of funding approach. I figure a month would be a reasonable time
> for letting this form collect data, but that's open for discussion as
> well.
>
>
> Form for your input:
> http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pmllU1ebPNlhUl_3QHUqvAg
>
> Results:
> http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pmllU1ebPNlgCMhLQ2FaZRA
>
>
> JT
>
> ---
> John Todd
> jtodd at digium.com +1-256-428-6083
> Asterisk Open Source Community Director
>
>
>
>
>
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John Todd
jtodd at digium.com +1-256-428-6083
Asterisk Open Source Community Director
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