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Sustainable Funding for Open Source Communities

Time: Thursday, August 2nd, 14:00 - 15:15 PST

Location: Hash Lounge (Live Streamed)

Description: This session is a panel discussion on effective ways to fund open source communities and projects of various stages and sizes. Reflecting on Nadia Eghbal's report--Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure, and drawing on experiences from different funding initiatives among our communities, we hope to collaboratively strategize moving forward.

What are the methodologies and tools that will help us support the diversity of contributions to open source ecosystems? What can we learn from previous experiences to ensure the flow of monetary incentives will reinforce social networks that have formed through open source collaborations? We will explore themes around accessiblity, accountability, inclusivity, sustainability, and transparency that have been surfaced as important topics for both contributors and funders.

We will begin our session by having each panelist share personal experiences and experiments in open source funding, followed by a panel moderated by Jenny Ryan from Omni Commons. Through this session at the Summit, we hope to frame the topic and provide context for panelists and audiences to find common grounds in general principles important to open source sustainability. The audience is invited to the Mesh the Planet! 2018 Unconference hosted by People's Open Network on August 4th, to extend our strategizing to small work sessions where we can put our thoughts into concrete actions.

Format

A 75-minute session with four panelists during the Decentralized Web Summit.

Each panelist will spend 8 minutes sharing:

  • Thoughts about themes raised in this notepad
  • Related experiences in open-source funding projects

followed by a panel session moderated by Jenny Ryan to further explore specific discussion points.

Small-group discussions that are more output-focused will be held on August 4th, the Saturday after Decentralized Web Summit, at Mesh the Planet! 2018 Unconference hosted by People's Open Network.

Panelist Invites

We prioritized people who are already attending the Summit and do not have too many existing committments, and want the panel to represent diverse experiences in open source funding across different organizations.

Name Organization Invited By Status
Allen Gunn Aspiration Tech Jenny Declined
Andrew Lee Purse Benedict Confirmed
Dominic Tarr SSBC Jenny Confirmed
Mehan Jayasuriya Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) Jenny Confirmed
Nadia Eghbal Protocol Labs Benedict Declined
Althea Allen OmiseGO
Aya Mizoguchi Ethereum Foundation
Dandelion SourceCred / IPFS
Michael Brennan Ford Foundation
Nico Pace Altermundi / LibreRouter Jenny Confirmed

Panelist Bios

Jenny Ryan (Moderator):

Mehan Jayasuriya (MOSS):

Dominic Tarr (SSB):

Andrew Lee (Purse/Handshake):

Nico Pace (Altermundi):

Resources for Handout

  • Nadia Eghbal's lemonade stand of funding models for open source and also her report, Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure
  • Organiations/Foundations:
    • Mozilla/MOSS
    • Ford Foundation
    • Shuttleworth Foundation
    • Knight Foundation
    • Linux Foundation
    • Open Culture Foundation (ocf.tw who distribute small grants for civic tech community in Taiwan g0v)
  • Projects:
    • Code for X (e.g. codefor.ca)
    • SourceCred is a system for creating reputation networks for open-source projects, and give a sense of recognition for and ownership of contributions
    • Open Collective
    • Bcoin is a family of full node implementations. The project started as the back-end bitcoin implementation for Purse. Today it's one of 3 fullnode implementations running in production for Bitcoin. Bcoin forks include bcash (BCH), lcoin (LTC), and hsd (HNS).
  • Case Studies:
    • SSB – Dominic Tarr/or Cory Levenson (need photo/bio) on Microgranting -- story to tell along the way
    • Guifi/Benefitoria & Patreon – sustainable crowdfunding

Planning Notes

Panel Thread / Questions:

Funding Open Source Panel - Thursday, Aug 2nd, 2-3:15pm

  • Moderator: Jenny
  • Panelists: Dominic Tar (SSB), Andrew Lee (Purse.io), Mehan Jayasuriya (MOSS), Nico Pace (Altermundi) ** Possible: Allen Gun (Gunner) [AspirationTech]

Leadup or should this be a cliffhanger at the end? (jenny) [5 mins]

  • what is our definition of sustainability beyond a wage/stipend/grant/fellowship?
  • how do we balance the need for cash moneys to live in the world as it stands today with solarpunk visions of growing stronger and more sustainable local communities via global or peer-to-peer networks?
  • what do we mean by "community"? what do we mean by "markets"? what do we mean by "the state"? how do these definitions differ if you're thinking from a global vis-a-vis "hyperlocal" point of view? (eg; global community vs. neighborhood, barter vs. corporate monopolies, direct democracy / participatory governance vis-a-vis hierarchical / bureaucratically-overloaded / corrupt empires)
    • ...and could decentralized info/comms networks alternatively bridge this gap or fork a new economic "middle path"?
  • what do we mean by "the commons" or specifically 'network commons'?
  • how can people get their needs met through their community networks and shared stewardship of commons-based resources?
  • what kind of governance models can we draw from, adapted for local needs, to manage and equitably distribute these shared resources?
    • reminder that technologies in and of themselves are not the solution - it's the love, care, and shared human experience that is manifested / made possible which drives social movements / social change

Panelist Intros / Experience / Background [15 mins]:

  • Panelists introduce themselves and their experience with funding and sustaining open source projects [3-4 min each]

Questions for Panelists (15 mins)

  • Questions for Mehan: What are the three key factors you take into account in considering proposals? What are some of the warning bells that a proposal is unfit for funding?
  • Questions for Andrew: How does blockchain technology specifically open new doors for funding open source? What are your thoughts regarding blockchain developers and their relationship to venture capital and ICOs?
  • Questions for Nico: In your travels, what are some of the most inspiring funding models you've encountered? How have these travels been funded? How has LibreRouter been funded / what's its business model?
  • Questions for Dominic: How do you personally sustain yourself financially? Could you share a parable from SSBC's microgranting process?

Open-ended Panel Questions / Discussion Thread [25 mins]:

  • What, in your eyes, is the biggest challenge with regards to funding and valuation of open source projects?
  • what are 'roses' and 'thorns' (the pros and the cons) of current existing models for funding open source - aka the "software commons"?
    • ask panelists to base answers on direct experiences
  • where do we go from here?
    • working prototypes of new projects / endeavors / collaborations
      • ...and how they're funded
    • let's hack together! invite to unconference/hackathon @ sudo
      • folks who want to continue this conversation through building actual tools converge for hackathon
      • jenny tentatively proposing a hackathon sesh on building a toolkit for community self-governance and resource mapping that can be immediately, visibly manifested on the Oakland mesh network (PeoplesOpenNet) or other experimental decentralized networks
      • This could converge / overlap with folks working on these kinds of applications, or protocols such as DAT, SSB, IPFS, etc [note Protocol Labs unconf? hackathon? on Friday]
        • hardware hack sesh
        • disaster.radio; librerouter; alt microcomputers

Audience Questions (10 mins):

Reminder to center the voices and perspectives of those less frequently heard. You can geek out 1-on-1 later.

Gunner's Awesome Input:

Hello,

I can't hack the hackpad (don't want to honor any of those annoying corporate logins :^), but some thoughts:

What I don't see much of in the outline is focus on "actionable" items folks can do in the direction of funding and sustainability". We recommend:

  • MOST IMPORTANT IMO: Have a (real, complete, org-level) project budget drafted and ready to share. Don't just "ask for money", have a story about how it fits into your financial system, however minimalist, as well as how it benefits more than "just you".

  • Have a "buffet" of things you want funding for: coding, design, organizational development, events/travel, etc. Different funders fund different of those. E.g. Ford Internet Freedom program will fund travel grants for events that relate to their program objectives, but they rarely fund actual code development.

  • Have associated talking points about the benefits and impact of each type of funding, both to the project and to the world.

  • Have a "diversified revenue" narrative, e.g. "we seek individual donations, fee-for-service contracts and philanthropic grants". Even if 2 out of 3 of those are aspirational :^)

  • Have an already-drafted funding proposal ready to go, in 1-page and long form.

  • Have intentional online identity (aka "more than a random github page :^) Domain name, social media presence. It can be flamingly minimal and doesn't have to depend on corporate social media, but online identity matters because...

  • "Looking like an org" usually matters. Those who give grants have been burned too many times by funding individuals who burn out/disappear/fail to be accountable, and often prefer to fund where there is plausible redundancy/resiliency and the ability for more than 1 person to focus on the success of a grant or donation.

  • Understand that philanthropic funding and individual donor funding are two distinct kinds relationship-driven paradigms. Get to know folks before you ask, either at events or via "informational interviews". For individual donors, it helps to have online narrative if possible, e.g. a blog or social feed where your vision, values and "project personality" can come across. And when those folks engage with you online, show a pulse.

  • NEVER TAKE VENTURE CAPITAL IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BETRAY AND SELL OUT YOUR FREE/OPEN DNA! (from a grizzled old Silicon Valley survivor)

FWIW/FYI, Aspiration offers pro bono support for creating all the above to free/open projects, which is why we have stronger-than-average opinions on those items. And templates to prove it :^)

For the resources section, our pro bono services listing for free/open projects:

https://aspirationtech.org/services/openprojects

And an excellent new free/open source online donations platform (full disclosure, I just became a board member):

https://houdiniproject.org/

Damn, this might just turn into a blog post...

peace, gunner

Old Planning Stuff

Precursor Tasks

  • Announce Mesh the Planet! 2018 Unconference in session description
  • Write session title and description (Benedict)
  • Make page on Summit website (Wendy)
  • Photo and bio from panelists and moderator

Involved in discussions

  • Althea (OmiseGO)
  • Benedict (Toronto Mesh)
  • Dandelion (SourceCred / IPFS)
  • Dawn (Our Networks)
  • Garry (Toronto Mesh)
  • Jenny Ryan (Sudo Mesh / Omni Commons)
  • Matt Zumwalt (IPFS)
  • Nadia Eghbal (IPFS)
  • Patcon (CivicTech Toronto)
  • Wendy (Internet Archive)
  • Dominic (secure-scuttlebutt)

Names that have come up (attending dweb?)

  • Alanna Irving (Enspiral / cobudget | n)

  • Allen Gunn (Aspiration Tech | y)

  • Althea (OmiseGO | y)

  • Andre Staltz (SSBC | ?)

  • Andrew Lee (Purse | y)

  • Aya Mizoguchi (Ethereum Foundation | y)

  • Clemens Toennies (Blue Systems | n)

  • Cory Levinson (SSBC | y)

  • Danielle Robinson (Code for Science and Society | y)

  • Dominic Tarr (SSBC | y)

  • Joseph Poon (Handshake | y)

  • Liz Steininger (formerly Open Tech Fund | n)

  • Michael Brennan (Ford Foundation | y)

  • Pia Mancini (Open Collective | n)

  • Guifi

  • Osaos.org

  • Mozilla

Possible discussion points

  • What needs funding:
    • Development efforts (e.g. primitive models like tip4commit)
    • Critical infrastructure (e.g. free open-source hosting on GitHub)
    • Experimental work (e.g. SSBC microgrants do support this to some extent)
    • Organizing work
    • Outreach work
  • Scale of funding and their roles:
    • Large amounts funding full-time contributors
    • Small symbolic amounts and "fun" money
    • Time scale (recurring vs. one-time)
  • Transparency:
    • Funds allocation (private? visible to contributors? to funders? to public?)
    • Contributor reputations (related to SourceCred, SSBC grant rating system)
    • What other project attributes are important to surface?
    • UI to navigate this data?
  • Grantmaking and reporting processes
    • How do we make the process of applying for support inviting for technologists who may have never applied for a grant before?
    • What education/resources are required to provide an onramp to applying, writing grant reports, etc.?
  • Reputation schemes that can address:
    • Recognizing the different ways people may contribute to an open-source project (e.g. work that don't result in a tracable item in commit history, exploratory R&D work, telling people about a project, how do we value these different types of work?)

    • People who are starting to produce may not yet be trusted. People who have produced a lot in the past have accumulated trust that exceeds their current production rates. There is a lack of balance. --via Andre Staltz's %256HjW0kVQCmRFJCko5cFcdr4rrQ8vaGViaOdJIb2IdQk=.sha256

    • [...] the value of something in the digital commons is only known at read time, not at write time. --via Andre Staltz's %256HjW0kVQCmRFJCko5cFcdr4rrQ8vaGViaOdJIb2IdQk=.sha256

  • Related to previous point, sometimes projects that started out as a toy turn popular, and the Internet expects the author to continue maintaining these projects (they are clearly useful, but the path for sustainable maintainance may not be so straight-forward)
  • Sometimes the introduction of monetary incentives change the way people feel about their involvement in a project and the social dynamics among contributors, in an anti-productive way. What have we learned and what is a reasonable approach?

  • It's my opinion that most people think of the value of open source all wrong - they think of the utility that the code provides (maybe that is appropiate in the one-thing-well simple solution projects) but in the latter I argue that the it's not the code that is the source of value, but it's the community that is the valueable thing. I.e. all the people who understand the code, and are driving it's evolution, and their friendships and whatever it is that keeps them motivated to work on the project. I don't think any of the tools we have are really oriented explicitly around that. --Dominic Tarr

  • Many developers choose to work for privately owned companies for the sake of steady work/steady pay. Rather than having these developers be "lost" to to open source community, how do we encourage these companies to open source their code and research? What's the value proposition?
  • Are developers who want to contribute to open source but need training and practice sufficiently supported?

Possible format

Need more creative ideas!

  • Panel followed by small breakout discussions where people can speak more freely?
  • Wendy suggested to invite Liz Steininger as panel moderator
  • Expected audience and size?
  • A session to familiarize audience with existing models (panel? prior reading? handouts?)

PANEL: How do we create sustainable funding for Open Source Projects?

75:00

PRODUCER: Ben? MODERATOR: Jenny Ryan

Audience Expectations:

  • People working in open source, people working in underfunded projects.
  • People wanting to make their open source work a full time sustainable job.
  • So need to manage peoples expectations from the get go.)

In Audience: (invite)—break out groups OmiseGo, Aya; Jeff Ubois MacFound; Mike Brennan, Ford Brennan, Linux Foundation https://www.linuxfoundation.org/ OTI (Open Technology Institute part of New America)--Ross Schulmann, Kevin Bankston

5:00—Stating the problem? Nadia being very meta

20:00—case studies 5:00 x 4 people

  • Dominic Tarr on Microgranting (5:00)
  • Andrew Lee(?) or Joseph Poon on new venture
  • Danielle Robinson, ED of Code for Science & Society (foundation grants, pros/cons) TOO BUSY
  • Gunner Allen-- Aspiration Tech
  • FOUNDATION -- what we look for (Mozilla, Ford, OTI, Linux)

10:00—discussion about lessons learned, raising specific question: how to secure funding; other-- how money flows afterward: trust, transparency governance, what happens when $ is introduced in a system?

30:00 for Breakout groups with notetaker -- should it be each group is one question like transparency? or let each group decide

  • What is the desired output?
    • GITHUB REPO: repository of resources
    • Primitive version that we can iterate on?

Possible Outputs

It may be premature to imagine outputs from this session, but I assume some of us have in mind what we hope to get out of this. For example, IA may have organizational goals of seeing a blog post of the results, and I may want to see the establishment of a grant experiment based on what we come up with. Perhaps we can share our hopes and dreams here?

  • Some general principles about what is important in a grant process from perspective of all stakeholders
  • Concrete plans to establish an experimental grant that we can collectively reflect on the process regularly, and iterate the process rather quickly

Ideas yet to be integrated

  • Government as potentially big source of funding (e.g. riot.im in France, Sandstorm in gov.tw, micro-procurement experiments in Canada)
  • Open Whisper Systems uses (do they still?) BitHub to pay out bounties for coders resolving open issues and feature requests, which is based on tip4commit.