[haiku] Haiku Inc: Proposed Annual Budget

  • From: Matt Madia <mattmadia@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:06:07 -0500

Greetings one and all,

In short:
Below is a proposed annual budget.
Feedback, comments, questions, ....,  are encouraged.

In long:

In the past years, Haiku, Inc. has relied upon good faith donations
from community members. Now, with Haiku's first release: R1/Alpha 1,
we have begun to organize a yearly budget to help identify our costs
and to provide a clear incentive to donate. We have now reached a
pivotal point and you, the community can help to further Haiku, more
than ever before.

At a minimum, Haiku Inc. currently needs to raise $1,000 USD every
year. This pays for domain name renewal and for the recently acquired
dedicated server, which hosts several of Haiku's websites. Thanks to
this funding, Haiku's internet presence is top quality and this is a
very high priority. Once those funds are earmarked, there are several
events throughout the year that can benefit Haiku, in terms of
immediate development results.

One of the most well known coding events is the week following
BeGeistert, during which the developers are working with each other in
person practically round-the-clock. Many great improvements and bug
fixes are committed during coding events. Money provided for these
events is used to assist in paying for the location of the event,
accommodations, and travel fares.

This past year, a few of the core developers started doing mini-code
sprints over the weekend. These are fairly low cost events, with
supplementing developer's travel fees as the primary cost.

Also important to the project is increasing the community of users,
testers and developers.  A very effective method of doing this is to
attend conferences, trade shows and exhibitions, where people are
often exposed to Haiku for the first time and get to see it hands on.
In addition to casual attendees, several well known people in the FOSS
world get to speak with project representatives and see how Haiku is
shaping up. This can often be an opportunity to strengthen our
networking among FOSS advocates and other projects. These shows can
also be an opportunity to locate commercial interest in Haiku. While
many of the current shows Haiku attends occur in the west coast United
States, several also occur in the EU, such as RMLL, FOSDEM, etc. We
would like to be able to provide reimbursement costs for individuals
attending, and pay for show expenses (registration fees, booth fees,
and related items).

In order to support conference and trade show presence, marketing
supplies is another area that needs occasional funding. Hard goods,
such as banners, presentation equipment, and fliers increase the
visual appeal and effectiveness of Haiku at trade shows. Many of these
items can be purchased and reused for several years, or purchased in
bulk and distributed to several individuals attending different shows
at different times.

Another group of expenses we would like to officially endorse, is
purchasing items used for the development process. Examples would be
hardware for writing new drivers or debugging existing ones, technical
documents purchased from standards organizations, etc. We hope to also
be able to provide developers with replacement hardware in the event
of the inevitable failures that occur.

$1,000 Domain renewal and dedicated servers *see below
$1,000 Formal coding sprint -- following BeGeistert
$1,500 - North America Shows
$1,000 - EU Shows
$600  Informal mini-coding sprints
$300 Developer Purchases
$100 Marketing
------------------
Total Expected Budget: $5,500 / yr

Regarding the approximated costs alloted for "Domain renewal and
dedicated servers",  $100 is for domain renewal. $900 is for the
dedicated server, which is currently Hetzner.  The first month was
slightly under $250. Each additional month is $65. So while the actual
cost is closer to $800, a buffer is being reserved for possible
increases due to exchange rates or other unforeseen fees. As
reassurance, any excess money can be applied elsewhere as needed.

From past experience and some initial feedback these are the items
that Haiku Inc. would like to finance.  We welcome and encourage the
entire community to make suggestions for improving this list, adding
additional items, or otherwise modifying it. In the reasonable future,
we hope to publish additional financial information, such as past
financial reports, a summary of our current assets, and account
balances.

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