Regular contributions to upstream software
Nathan Schneider
Public
Seen by 196
Our primary service is Mastodon, a piece of free, open-source software. We do not yet contribute to its development financially. In a recent poll, members expressed strong interest in doing this. I am advancing this thread on the basis of that signal.
Thanks @Nic Wistreich for reminding me here that we need to do this.
Update: I have changed the name of this to reflect the many voices here that express interest in contributing not just to Mastodon but to other fediverse software projects.
Nick Sellen Fri 25 Nov 2022 3:05PM
| 1 - 5 GBP | ||
| 2 - 10 GBP | ||
| 3 - 25 GBP | ||
| 4 - 50 GBP | ||
| 5 - 100 GBP |
.... I wrote too much for a "vote" comment, so will comment below. in summary, not in favour of donating to mastodon as things stand now.
Fenn Martyn Fri 25 Nov 2022 3:05PM
| 1 - 100 GBP | ||
| 2 - 50 GBP | ||
| 3 - 25 GBP | ||
| 4 - 10 GBP | ||
| 5 - 5 GBP |
I agree with many of the others here that 10% of our income is a good amount to shoot for. I love FOSS applications and would be glad to see us support Mastodon in a big way.
Ana Ulin Fri 25 Nov 2022 3:05PM
| 1 - 50 GBP | ||
| 2 - 25 GBP | ||
| 3 - 10 GBP | ||
| 4 - 5 GBP | ||
| 5 - 100 GBP |
If we set the TWG monthly budget to 250 EUR (~215 GBP right now), it seems disproportionate to be spending more than an additional 20% of that on sponsoring Mastodon development. I would also like to prioritize paying *WG members for their work.
Tom Resing Fri 25 Nov 2022 3:05PM
| 1 - 100 GBP | ||
| 2 - 50 GBP | ||
| 3 - 25 GBP | ||
| 4 - 10 GBP | ||
| 5 - 5 GBP |
Agree with @sky
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Alex Fri 25 Nov 2022 3:05PM
| 1 - 25 GBP | ||
| 2 - 50 GBP | ||
| 3 - 10 GBP | ||
| 4 - 100 GBP | ||
| 5 - 5 GBP |
Sustaining the tech working group (etc) and our other infrastructure is a priority but we should definitely be contributing upstream. So definitely support this. Thanks for initiating.
Andreas Bastias Fri 25 Nov 2022 3:05PM
| 1 - 10 GBP | ||
| 2 - 5 GBP | ||
| 3 - 25 GBP | ||
| 4 - 50 GBP | ||
| 5 - 100 GBP |
As a new member, I really enjoy reading through the discussion. It’s illuminating. That said, my vote is fairly uninformed, relying on the arguments in this thread. It seems to me that we want to (and should) contribute to the open source dev that undergirds our own project. At the same time, we do not want to subsidize other instances that do not share our co-op values. As Mastadon grows, it seems like they’re directing resources toward their own instances. I’m for $100, but not all to Mast.
Nick Sellen Sun 27 Nov 2022 10:06PM
I think
a) mastodon is adequately funded for now
b) I think donations go to mastodon dev AND running the big instances, without being able to distinguish
c) we should support the broader ecosystems of co-operativism and fediverse stuff (as @Arnold Schrijver explains well)
... so when it comes to vote for actually donating to mastodon, I will vote against, but would love to send that money to other aligned/related causes, such as:
a) alternative fediverse software (e.g. Bonfire), it's in our interest to keep the ecosystem from capture by one tool/org/person/etc
b) wider co-operative development aims, which could involve donating more to Platform6 (our fiscal host on opencollective), or other co-operative social media instances
c) other instances which struggle for money, but play important roles in making the fediverse a nourishing space
d) people within social.coop, who might be able to participant more deeply with some money (so far, I think most of the people contributing have enough other money... which is usually the case in these kind of volunteer-y things, and that is not very fair participation) (I did a very unscientific "mini poll" recently in tech chat, and a good number of the people were currently being paid, by someone else..)
e) anything/person/org/etc that provides a decent counterbalance to the power/domination of mastodon as an all encompassing entity for the fediverse.... that could look very varied in practise.
Boris Mann Sun 27 Nov 2022 10:17PM
I think it's important to lead by example and fund upstream open source dependencies, even if it is just a token. Same goes for Loomio. So rather than zero or the upper bound -- even token funds flowing to our upstreams would be good.
I also don't think we should send funds to things we don't actually use (for starters). I'm open to revisiting this but also might be best for outside social coop. Eg if there are particular features we'd like to see, then an Open Collective for that feature could be something to fund if aligned with our needs.
Ed Summers @edsu Sun 27 Nov 2022 10:24PM
I definitely agree about helping fund software that we actually use in social.coop and try to steer clear of funding software (e.g. Bonfire) simply because it is a good idea, or we use it elsewhere.
Doug Belshaw · Sun 27 Nov 2022 4:50PM
I'm not voting on this, because I'm torn. On the one hand, I would argue that it's not unreasonable for the amount to donate to Mastodon to be 10% of surplus. On the other hand, I echo what others have said about the direction the project is going, the way it's run, and the alternatives that might actually suit social.coop better.