Xfce project and financial contributions

kevin.bowen at gmail.com kevin.bowen at gmail.com
Wed Apr 14 23:52:20 CEST 2021


This is all really good information Yousuf.

I will be taking a closer look at the Software Freedom Conservancy. 
Although, I will say that it is solely based out of the U.S. and thus 
subject, specifically, to Federal IRS regulations. Whereas, from what I 
can gather so far, Open Collective, has a structure in which there are 
several options for a European fiscal sponsorship. What that means, 
exactly, is TBD.

I am also sensitive to the fact that many of the core devs are not 
located within the U.S. (I am based out of Seattle, btw).

I am also looking at SPI (https://www.spi-inc.org/); but, their offered 
services seems pretty opaque, to me, right now. I am still in the 
research phase of this project and probably will be for a few more weeks.

Creating an Xfce foundation is definitely out-of-scope with my work 
here. Right now, the focus is just getting Xfce's funds out of 
bountysource and into a new service. In my opinion, that would be a 
separate discussion to have.

I am definitely most focused on Xfce getting a service that will allow 
both one time, as well as, recurring financial contributions. 
Suggestions about donor's pages & report, ala Mint, have been in the 
back of my mind for some time, and we'll cross that bridge once we get 
there. I like the ideas you have suggested. ;-)

Again. Great input! I appreciate it.

Kevin


On 4/14/21 12:18 PM, Yousuf Philips wrote:
> Hi Kevin,
>
> I recently stumbled on opencollective, as it's being used by Endeavour 
> OS, and think it's a great idea. Also recently stumbled on some bad 
> news about bountysource on twitter[1] where the user mentioned that 
> they were back at it again, so we should definitely not support them. 
> Another option might be the Software Freedom Conservancy, which I 
> heard handles all legal stuff, taxes, donations, etc. so that devs can 
> focus on what they do best. Not sure if this was ever discussed on the 
> ML, but it would be great if an Xfce foundation was set up, similar to 
> how Gnome and KDE have one.
>
> I've run personal fundraising campaigns, as well as proposed a 
> fundraising campaign when I was contributing to LibreOffice, and also 
> do marketing in my day job, so here are some ideas I've thought about 
> for xfce from months back. We should take examples from Linux Mint[2], 
> Sparky[3] and Ubuntu Mate[4], who put out funding reports of donations 
> that come in and what they are or will be used for. We should have a 
> sponsors page with donors who pledge a particular amount each month or 
> support xfce by other means, e.g. GhostBSD[5]. Have both one-time and 
> monthly donation options with minimum amounts that are reasonable, so 
> that processing fees don't eat a huge chunk of the donation. Set 
> donation goals that when reached, something will be unlocked, e.g. 
> contracting a web dev to revamp the website, buying HiDPI screens to 
> help fix related bugs, etc.
>
> [1] https://twitter.com/CassidyJames/status/1379810821874745349 
> <https://twitter.com/CassidyJames/status/1379810821874745349>
> [2] https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4049 
> <https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4049>
> [3] https://sparkylinux.org/april-2020-donation-report/ 
> <https://sparkylinux.org/april-2020-donation-report/>
> [4] 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20170516171647/https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-march-2017-supporters/ 
> <http://web.archive.org/web/20170516171647/https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-march-2017-supporters/>
> [5] http://ghostbsd.org/sponsor#BecomeaSponsor 
> <http://ghostbsd.org/sponsor#BecomeaSponsor>
>
> Regards,
> Yousuf
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 8:29 AM Kevin Bowen <kevin.bowen at gmail.com 
> <mailto:kevin.bowen at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hello all,
>
>     The Xfce project is currently in the process of looking to engage
>     with a new
>     organization to help us manage our collective funds as well as
>     allow us to
>     solicit donations and encourage fundraising efforts directed to end
>     users who
>     would like to support Xfce financially.
>
>     Back in June 2020, Simon had elaborated
>     [here](https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/18/why-bountysource-why/
>     <https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/18/why-bountysource-why/>)
>     as well as
>     [here](https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/26/bountysource-update/
>     <https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/26/bountysource-update/>)
>     on some of the issues encountered with Bountysource and that Xfce
>     has,
>     subsequently,
>     disabled its bug bounties and is looking to separate from its
>     association with
>     Bountysource.
>
>     As of this month, the Xfce team is considering signing up with
>     [opencollective](https://opencollective.com/
>     <https://opencollective.com/>) to assist us in managing
>     donations and financial contributions.
>
>     There are a few other options/orgs that are still being
>     considered; but,
>     opencollective is looking like a contender for where we will be
>     moving
>     towards to manage collecting funds.
>
>
>     Hopefully, we can announce, in a few weeks, that we are open for
>     business; and,
>     a few new donation buttons can be put up on our pages. Perhaps we can
>     even do a PR push to do a fundraiser. I am open to suggestions on
>     how,
>     exactly, to pursue this.
>
>     That being said, I would like to open this up to the general dev
>     mailing
>     list for discussion and feedback for at least two weeks before we
>     make a
>     final decision. As of today, the decision to go with
>     opencollective is
>     not yet final.
>
>     Any constructive feedback is welcome. Additionally, we are open to
>     considering other sites/orgs for handling our donations.
>
>     Thank you,
>
>     kevin
>
>
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