[openbeos] Re: "One Hour for Haiku" - Coordinating Voluntary Cash Donors
- From: "Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:50:02 -0700
Hi Czeslaw,
Czeslaw Czapla wrote:
But it would be a mistake to pose these various elaborations as
*prerequisites* to implementation of a simple membership donation
program like One Hour for Haiku. I must argue that it would be more
useful to think -- contrariwise -- of the membership donation program
as part of a *foundation* that could ultimately permit greater
organizational capabilities and maturity through improved financial
wherewithal.
There is already have a *foundation* and it's called Haiku Inc. I am
just pointing out that this is the one entity that should have been
driving this kind of effort.
Keeping it simple, what I am proposing is really just an addition to
the Haiku website.
You can surely keep it simple as you propose. However, if you want to
make a *meaningful* difference in terms of funding (and then more), then
you need to do something more involved.
People are willing to donate, but they do want see their contributions
translate into tangible results (or at least results that they can
relate to). You should start with having some sort of yearly
*operational budget* (so to call it), with a breakdown of the different
areas that require funding (admin, legal, advocacy, development, etc.),
specific goals for the year (ie., move website/Trac to dedicated server,
trademark Haiku logo(s), hold WC07 in Europe, exhibit at XXX Expo and
YYY Conference, sponsor development workshop, hire X number of for X
months, etc. etc.), and target numbers for each area that people can
donate against. A donation drive can be announced, and scale showing how
much has been raised so far against the total target could be shown in
the website front page. Finally, for transparency purposes, you need
some sort of periodic financial reporting showing where the money has
actually been spent.
As a desirable side effect, the above exercise would also help project
some sort of direction of where Haiku is headed as a project (not the
OS), making it more compelling by inspiring the sort of confidence that
makes people more comfortable with entertaining the idea of making a
monetary donation that they consider worthy.
All of the above can only be done with the *proactive* involvement of
Haiku Inc. and the endorsement of the core devs (admins). I realize this
is quite involved, but then, so is the work of the many contributors to
Haiku, and you don't see developers/etc. complaining because they spend
their time on Haiku. I am not a dev and I certainly don't speak for
them. But when I contribute to the project, I know that I would expect
this sort of reciprocity from the entity that I am giving the copyright
of my work to.
Cheers,
Koki
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