Fundraising in KDE

[Nate Graham]

 > On 9/24/20 3:42 AM, Nicolas Fella wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think the discussions about the technical implementation of our
> donation system and whether or not to pay developers using the funds are
> relatively orthogonal. Updating our current system is a good idea IMO
> regardless of what comes out of the latter discussion.
> 
> If Carl thinks that CiviCRM is not a feasible solution from a technical
> POV he has my full support for leading the work on a replacement system.

Like Nico, I would be inclined to trust Carl on this, as he just won an 
Akademy Award for his excellent work on KDE's web presence and 
infrastructure. :)

I'm not in a technical position to evaluate whether CiviCRM is capable 
of meeting current or future needs, but I feel like I've been hearing 
the system described as a problem to be solved for several years now. 
The fact that nobody seems very happy with it, and that it's been in 
this state for quite a while, does seem like it's a bit concerning.



 > On 9/24/20 3:59 AM, Albert Astals Cid wrote:> [...] 
https://ev.kde.org/consultants/ is for "i want to implement X,
> how much it will cost? 20K€? Fine here you have, now do it for me" not for 
> "i have 100€ a year, please let me pitch in with more people so we can
> hire a developer to work full time on improving Qt for KDE needs".

I agree, and this is why I think it's so important for the e.V. to start 
hiring developers. Right now the "hook" (so to speak) for donating is 
fairly weak. I think potential donators are much more excited about 
supporting the technical development of our software than they are 
supporting travel reimbursements, conferences, infrastructure, 
non-technical personnel, etc. (if they even know what the money is used 
for in the first place). Even though these expenses are very important, 
I think in the minds of the general public it's harder to connect them 
with tangible results.

On the other hand, if people knew that their money would help hire 
some/more developers, I think we could eventually reach 100,000€ per 
month just like Blender gets. And this money could also be used for 
critical non-development expenses as needed.


Nate