Hello,
At present, Haiku, Inc. has quite plentiful funds, enough to pay a
developer for at least a few years, and it seems probable that the
community has reached the critical mass to potentially even sustain
that over a longer period.
There were previous conversations between myself and some of the Inc.
members late last year about potentially taking advantage of this
situation, but I was not in a position to apply and potentially begin
that at the time, and passed on the offer then. Well, now I am so
able; and Haiku, Inc. not apparently having found anyone else (or sent
out a general call) in the interim, here is my concrete proposal.
SCOPE
========================
Fundamentally, this should just be a continuation of the work I have
already been doing on Haiku, except now as a paid employee with much
more time to spend on it, and thus the opportunity to tackle larger
projects more easily, or to do "grunt work" to free up time for the
other, volunteer contributors to do more fun things with the time they
contribute.
This would include:
* general work to get the system closer to a stable release: bug
fixing most of all, patch review, working on documentation, helping
maintain infrastructure, etc.
* general work to improve the whole ecosystem: documentation
reorganization, website cleanup and potentially design changes, etc.
* larger desired features that have yet to be tackled: multihead
support in app_server, hopefully also 3D acceleration, USB
audio/webcam, better HiDPI support, new NTFS driver, permissions audit
& ability to run desktop as non-root user, build system overhaul
(either by finishing `ham` or by some other means entirely), ...
* "developer advocacy," likely in conjunction with the up and coming
promotions team (I have had assorted notes and a bookmarks collection
for a long-form article titled "The Case for Haiku" that I have not
found time to write)
Of course, structural changes would largely warrant technical
discussion on the development@ mailing list before concrete changes
were implemented, as is already done.
TERM & TERMS
========================
"As long as the money lasts" (or we have some other reason to part
ways.) Ideally, the money will not dry up, and I will one day not be
the only person working full-time on Haiku. But one step at a time.
Since Haiku, Inc. and I are both in the U.S., it may make the most
sense and be easiest for both of us to make me an actual employee of
Haiku, Inc. and not a contractor, which should significantly simplify
taxes and paperwork for me, but maybe also for the Inc., as there are
payroll services for nonprofts that are relatively inexpensive which
handle most of the red tape around such things for you.
The alternative would be to bring me on as a contractor, which has
been Haiku, Inc.'s usual mode of paid work so far, but previous
contracts were fixed-cost/fixed-time/fixed-objectives, not open-ended
like this. (PulkoMandy and WebKit in 2013-2014 was the exception here,
but he is in Europe, which would have made hiring him instead of
contracting him prohibitive.)
If the Inc. board members think real employment instead of a contract
would be too burdensome on their end, we can discuss that.
PAY
========================
I propose an initial salary-equivalent of USD $65,000 per year. This
is far below market rate for a skilled programmer in the U.S., let
alone a systems programmer (I think by a factor of something like
3-4x, I didn't actually poke around to see what Microsoft and Apple
pay their systems programmers). It is however a reasonable number over
the long term for an individual with not so many financial obligations
in the geographic region in which I live (it is a pay cut from my
present employment, but almost entirely because it will not come with
any benefits and I will have to purchase my own healthcare).
At least initially, though, I will likely be working only 3-4 days per
week for Haiku, and between that and potentially bringing me on as an
employee and not a contractor, hourly rates make more sense. We can
bang out the exact details of this and figure out what will be most
amenable to both parties here.
OTHER
========================
If Haiku, Inc. board members wish to see my full resume in considering
this application, I can send it to them; but there are only two or
three things on it that are not directly or indirectly related to
Haiku anyway. My contributions and work on Haiku over the past eight
years (wow, I guess it really has been that long) say far more than my
resume does, though.
Let me know what else you might want in considering this proposal. If
the board members reading this are generally amenable to what I have
laid out here, please do not hesitate to say so, and if not, what
points of disagreement there might be.
Thanks for your time in reading and considering this so far. Here's to Haiku!
-waddlesplash
