Fundraising in KDE
Karl Ove Hufthammer
karl at huftis.org
Sun Sep 27 09:52:47 BST 2020
Nicolas Fella skreiv 24.09.2020 11:42:
> I would be cautious about creating a system that allows targeted
> donations for specific features/requests. I don't want the e.V. to be in
> a position where work is done/prioritized because it brings in money.
I agree. KDE has a list of goals (https://kde.org/goals), which have
been selected using a democratic process. It would, IMHO, be better to
say that donations from companies will be used to hire developers to
work towards KDE’s goals. Then the companies can decide if they think
this a good thing or not.
There are really three possibilities – a company wants work done that is
a) aligned with KDE’s goals, b) against KDE’s goals or c) orthogonal to
KDE’s goals. For (a), the above communication is fine. For (b),
receiving money so the e.V. can hire people to work *against* the
communities explicit goals seems like an extremely bad idea. For (c),
there are no technical problems, but why should KDE e.V. actively spend
money on something that really isn’t in KDE’s interest? There are other
companies (https://ev.kde.org/consultants/) that the company can hire
instead.
So if a company donates/sponsors to KDE e.V., this should mean that
they’re saying that they want to support KDE (and its goals). Currently,
what the get back is very vague. But it can also be made explicit, e.g.,
‘if you support the e.V. with x amount of euros/dollars, the e.V.
(promises that it) will hire a developer in a 20% position for a
year/month to work towards KDE’s current goals’.
--
Karl Ove Hufthammer
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