Hi Roman and Jarek, well the reason I was proposing something new was that I did try to participate with some of the existing initiatives like Tidelift, but they showed a great amount of disinterest. It seems as if only the projects big enough are considered worthy of being supported. The entity I proposed should be available for any project, no matter what size it is.
Yes, it could just be a new company and wouldn't need to have the blessing of the ASF, but then there would be yet another Support Inc. Effectively all splitting the cake up into smaller pieces hereby keeping each one from not reaching the breaking point in which things would start running on their own. That's why I thought: Something with explicit ties to the ASF could benefit from being considered the “official” way to get support or at least the way the ASF considers to be absolutely in-line with its policies and might help reaching the critical mass needed to work. I mean with most companies in the Industry, they only work with preferred vendors and they have a limited amount of “slots” on that list. So, they usually have business relationships with the bigger companies. If we don’t have a good open-source Support Inc. able to fill one of these slots, it doesn’t matter how many there are. In general, I’d be happy, if an existing company could provide this service, but as I mentioned, my condition for accepting this as a solution would be that every project wanting to do so, could do their business though them. Tidelift has proven to only select the filet parts, which I consider inacceptable for being considered as being a solution to this problem. And to what Jarek said. I think the non-profit charity aspect definitely would disqualify the ASF as being one of these Fiscal Hosts. But in general, it does sound like they could be something usable, just not using the ASF as Fiscal Host. Chris -----Original Message----- From: Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com> Sent: Montag, 9. Mai 2022 11:49 To: dev@community.apache.org Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] Crazy or good Idea? Very good points Roman. I think it's great to think about it with the building business "mindset" - this is the only way it can actually succeed. But maybe we do not have to go this way. The #1 seems much more attractive and there are other options. I think Open Collective is as close as it can be to the 'Apache Way" when it comes to enablers and the economy of scale is already there I think. I've been participating with several campaigns now through them - they seem to be they don't even want to "own the relation" between the "collective individuals" and "sponsors". They seem to be pretty much 100% of what I consider as "enabler" - https://opencollective.com/how-it-works: * Managing payments and admin * enabling easy marketing and promotion * basically enabling a group of people to establish effective, repeating campaigns and building long-lasting relationships generally focused on "doing good". * the "collectives" decide themselves on the scope and conditions of the campaign they run - but eventually it's all based on the reputation of the people who run the collective to be trusted by the supporters. * you can organize your "collective" there without legally incorporating it (by a group of individuals) and get anyone to support it. I think the only remaining question is - how feasible and attractive such "collective" might be for Sponsoring companies. And there is an interesting option that might be actually a good response to it and a way how such a collective **might** get reputation. The Apache Software Foundation **could** become a "Fiscal Host" there https://docs.opencollective.com/help/fiscal-hosts/fiscal-hosts - i.e. an entity that holds the funds and manages the legal/bank account but it is not involved in any way with the contracts and decisions of the "collective". A fiscal host is a legal company or individual who holds a Collective’s funds in their bank account and can generate invoices and receipts for supporters and sponsors. You can think of a fiscal host as an umbrella organization for the Collectives in it. I think such "Fiscal Host" is precisely the "missing" link we did not have so far. Of course it needs to be checked from the legal side - what is the responsibility and whether it is in-line with the ASF bylaws and mission, but seems like becoming "Fiscal Host" in open collective is precisely what the ASF could do. And then it gets even better, because such Fiscal Host might host mutliple collectives: - one per PMC for example - why not - "Security at the ASF" - for multiple projects And many others. The nice thing there is that IF the ASF will not charge the collectives, OpenCollective does not charge their 15% cut. And any collective can "apply" to be hosted by a fiscal host. I am not sure what are the rules and policies there, but I believe the collectives have to be "approved" by the ASF host. And this is as close to "endorsement" without actually a legal responsibility as it can be. The "sponsors" would deal with the ASF that would issue the invoices, while the "business relationship" of Sponsor will be with the collective organizers. This really sounds rather cool if we could make ASF become such a Fiscal Host. Few claims they do: * "Unlike other crowdfunding platforms, Open Collective is designed for ongoing collaborations. That means your funding and community of support doesn’t disappear after a single campaign, or if the initial organizers move on. * "Our code is fully transparent and open source, just like our budget. You own your data: we’ll never sell it or lock you in." * "Open Collective uniquely combines a powerful tech platform with fiscal hosting, enabling Collectives to raise and spend money without legally incorporating, worrying about taxes, or opening a bank account." J. On Mon, May 9, 2022 at 11:16 AM Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org> wrote: > Chris, thanks for sort of reviving the old thread I had before the > war: I'm slowly coming back to my more regular Open Source life from > all the craziness of the past two months. Because of that, there's not > much to report back -- but I will share a few points and comment on a > few of yours. Hope this will help move things along. > > On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 3:11 PM Christofer Dutz > <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > now that the Aprils Fool Joke has worn off a bit, I think I can post > this here. I at first suggested this in the board list before April > 1st, as I wanted to make sure this hasn’t been wiped off the table as > a silly idea before. > > > > Turns out that I didn’t get a single “silly idea” response. > > > > As you all might know I have been working on finding ways to finance > > my > work on open-source, but in an open-source way that others can also > profit from what I might find out. > > > > There are some projects that managed to form or attract companies to > grow around them. These usually don’t have problems finding funds to > finance further development. > > However, we also have a large number of projects that are not as > > big, or > a large number of people working on our projects, but don’t work for > those companies. > > > > So, these people are generally relying on finding contracts themselves. > This usually is problematic as many larger companies don’t do business > with individuals. > > Also is it often tricky to get the legal documents and contracts > > right > and then not even talking about how long payments usually take. > > > > Another thing is that the ASF is a non-profit organization and > > therefore > it’s challenging to advertise commercial offerings around Apache projects. > > > > As an example: One of the things I found out with my crowd-funding > experiment is that this doesn’t work. Admittedly I wasn’t expecting it > to work. Companies just can’t donate large amounts of money without > any assurances. But I did learn one thing: My crowd-funding experiment > was in a way the most successful thing I did. > > > > The thing was, that I listed up things that could be on the roadmap > > and > I added a price-tag to them. This is one thing an Apache project just > couldn’t do. So even if I didn’t get a single cent in donations for my > work, I was approached by multiple companies willing to finance > individual campaigns, but with a normal consulting contract. > > > > Now there are also companies like Tidelift, that want to close this gap. > However, we are still a bit unsure how to align the interest of that > company with the values of the ASF. And there’s the fact that not > everyone is able to profit from Tidelift. I for example tried reaching > out to them several times for offering commercial PLC4X support, but > the only responses I got, were people wanting to discuss how my > business could profit from using more open-source ;-) So for me > Tidelift is not an option as not everyone can use it. > > > > Now let me get to my idea: > > What If there was a separate legal entity closely related to the ASF > (Let’s call it “Support Inc.” for now). I would even propose that the > oversight entity for Support Inc. should be the ASF board. This would > assure the company is perfectly in-line with the ASF and its values. > > First of all, I 100% agree with Sam -- there's absolutely 0 reason > that I see these two entities should have (structurally!) any more > ties than ASF and let's say Cloudera. If you disagree on that point > strongly -- now would be a good time to list all your reasons for why. > > Back to building an independent business: my hypothesis back when I > started the Tidelift thread is that we basically have two choices: > 1. piggy back off of somebody who is already doing a similar kind of > a business (and convince them to tweak it to be fully aligned with > ASF's vision) > 2. have a brand new business > > This thread of yours seem to be focused on #2 so I'll stay with that > (and will comment on #1 in a separate thread). > > I'll start with saying that I've been talking to a LOT of my VC and > OSS Foundations friends about #2 lately and the consensus seems to be > that it is all about the economics of bootstrapping this kind of a > business. The economics simply doesn't seem to work out (at least not > in the US market) until you hit a certain number of customers AND > committers in what, effectively, can be described as a marketplace. We > can debated at what # of both of these you can hope to be at least > somewhat revenue neutral, but it is pretty clear that the numbers are > significant. Effectively, you need seed money. > > This kind of seed money can either come from (please add to the list > if I missed anything): > 1. large Co's (FANG, etc.) > 2. traditional VCs > 3. non-traditional VCs > > #1 I am not hopeful -- and if there's anyone on this list who can help > move a needle in that direction I'd love to hear about that > > #2 the feedback universally is "you're proposing to build a > marketplace, there's a few already (e.g. Tidelif), please explain why > yours will be any better/different/etc. -- if you can't at least go > talk to existing ones and try to join forces" > > #3 (this could be something as crazy as Elon Musk seeding it btw) is > where I'm focusing right now (plus a bit of "go talk to them" from #2) > > At any rate -- until there's a concrete proposal about where this kind > of money can come from -- I don't think we will be making any > progress. > > But suppose we (and by "we" here I mean a group of individuals in the > ASF who would want to step up as founders of something like this) did > get some money -- we will have to have some rules of engagement with > the ASF. > > That seems to be the rest of your points: > > > Individuals could sign up on Support Inc’s website for providing > commercial services around Apache projects. These services could be > Consulting, Feature development, Training, Commercial Support. > > On this site a user could also add possible feature-development > campaigns with a price-tag attached, just like I did on my website. > > > > If a company wants to finance a feature, get support, consulting, or > training around an Apache project, this would be the well-known > website somebody would go to first. > > > > Support Inc. would provide the contracts > > Obvious point, but this is exactly where the liability starts and it > needs to be managed (for which seed $$$ is required). > > > and therefore the individual wouldn’t have to (I usually spent > 2000-4000€/year on legal advice for stuff like that). > > Yup. The economy of scale will obviously help, but not until we hit > 100s of participants in our marketplace. > > > Also, would Support Inc. be a bigger company the customer would be > > doing > business with, which would probably ease the problem of getting into > the companies with Chris Inc. > > Business development/marketing for Support Inc. will also require seed. > > > The contracts would be between the Support Inc. and the customer, > > and > the customer would pay to Support Inc. The developer would have a > contract with Support Inc. and be paid from this but give Support Inc. > a certain percentage of the contact to cover its expenses (But in > contrast to other pure for-profit companies, this cut would be a lot less > than usual). > > Again -- typical marketplace mechanics -- all great but (cue tons of > MBA articles on Uber, etc.) requires "buying" at least one end of it > (typically with VC money) first. > > > Now a developer could probably choose from different models, where > > he > gets paid instantly (but then give Support Inc. a bigger cut of the > profits) or wait for the customer to pay. > > The services the new company would provide, would be taking care of > > the > payments, the legal issues and provide the infrastructure for finding > commercial support offerings. > > And if people know this is something integrated into the general > open-source ecosystem, I assume people would probably try less to > screw with as they know it might backfire PR-wise, just like dragging > the ASF to court wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. > > > > If the company earns money, it could become a sponsor of the ASF. > > > > What do you think? > > > > I hope you’re now not going to point at me laughing because I like > > the > idea. > > I think: > 0. I am *really* excited about this -- to a point where I'd love to > be one of the founder's in a business like that, but we need at least > a few more > 1. I DO NOT think it is viable as an "organic growth" type of a > business -- hence it'll required seed > > Putting both of these together -- for now I'll focus on trying to > finding an existing marketplace we can mold to our needs. I'm still > bullish on Tidelift, but I need to re-start a few discussions with > them on particulars. > > Thanks, > Roman. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org > >
