[kde-community] Fundraiser money handling/redistribution - Re: KDE fundraisers and things we've learned

[Albert Astals Cid]

El Dimarts, 30 de desembre de 2014, a les 19:45:51, Boudewijn Rempt va 
escriure:
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2014, Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> >  - For Krita: open source digital painting | Accelerate Development [3]
> > 
> > Sometimes that projects that have had project specific fundraisers request
> > funds from the KDE eV to run a sprint.
> > 
> > KDE eV funds are not unlimited, so for me sometimes it seems that those
> > projects are being a bit unfair to the rest by running their own
> > fundraisers and then also asking for money from the common pot.
> 
> I've been expecting this, and in fact, I've been facing that idea already
> in 2014: KDE e.V. could not help out with the siggraph presence of Krita.

Because there's a limited amount of money KDE eV has, do you think it makes 
KDE eV happy it couldn't help there?
 
> We still did provide publicity for KDE, by prominently display KDE's logo
> in the booth and on the leaflets we were handing out, which could be
> considered really valuable for KDE, especially since we were reaching a
> set of people who, if they had heard of KDE before at all, were pretty
> much uniformly negative towards KDE, and now they got some positive
> impressions. In other words, Krita sponsored KDE e.V. in this case.

Cool :) Given that Krita is a KDE project, i'd expect this is natural.

> Also keep this in mind: Krita's fundraisers are not meant to provide for
> the usual costs any KDE project faces: they are meant to pay for
> development time, something KDE e.V. cannot do.

This is a misconception, there's nothing in the KDE eV bylaws that forbid it 
to pay for development time, it's just something it has decided not to do.

> Asking for Krita to pay
> for sprints means asking the Krita Foundation to cut down on support for
> development.
> 
> Finally, I understand the reaction -- oooh, look, they got _20k euros!
> they are rich! I understand that it makes some people feel that those 20k
> were a loss for KDE e.V. It's not true, because doing fund-raising isn't a
> zero-sum game, and different projects are targeting different audiences.
> The money is used for different purposes. Money raised by Krita is not
> money lost by KDE e.V., it is not money stolen by Krita from KDE e.V.
> 'common pot'. Krita is not double-dipping in the same moneybag.

You say that fund raising is not a zero-sum game, that's right, and that's the 
reason why i said "some percentage" should be payed by the "specificly raised 
funds" and not 100%.

> And compared to the cost of developing Krita, 20k just a bagatelle. To
> keep Krita moving as fast as in 2014, I need about 10k a month. Which is
> an extremely cheap and non-commercial estimate.

I don't think you have to convince anyone in this list that software 
development is expensive.

I don't think you're asking for the KDE eV to fund salaries for the hundreds 
of developers, translators, artists, we have either.

> And moreover, I don't have 10k a month : which is why I asked Intel, KDE
> e.V. and others to support Krita's stand at Siggraph (and promised
> exposure in return) and KDE e.V. to support our sprint in Deventer (which
> was further supported by me personally, taking care of accomodation in my
> own place).
> 
> If asking for that sort of support is 'a bit unfair', then how long until
> using KDE's infrastructure is considered 'a bit unfair' for projects that
> manage to get some funding? Especially when a project like Krita is a
> relatively _heavy_ burden on the infrastructure, which I totally admit.

Given we don't pay our sysadmins, i'd say the monetary burden Krita brings us 
is not really that big to be honest.

> This is a big discussion, and I am not sure I want to be a real part of
> that discussion: when I was approached by the board about the thorny
> question of what to do now that KDE project has some money of its own that
> wasn't coming to the KDE e.V., I had to beg for more time and a
> postponement of the discussion until 2015.
> 
> After all, I am on the dole now, because right now, nobody can afford to
> pay for my work on Krita development, and I need to get 2.9 released.

I'm sorry nobody can pay your Krita time.

> Until that's fixed, I guess that I'll go on expecting KDE e.V. to continue
> to support Krita, a KDE project, with the usual support extended to every
> other KDE project.

Well, we're discussing this right now right here, if you decide to abstain for 
the discussion then later you can't complain if you don't like the results :)

Cheers,
  Albert

> 
> Boudewijn
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