[GRASS-PSC] Moving sponsoring to Open Collective

[Moritz Lennert]

Hi Nikos,

On 4/09/21 08:53, Nikos Alexandris wrote:
> Dear Moritz, dear All,
> 
> (as a user) I wonder if this new way can facilitate to "sponsor" work on
> specific issues/user-needs.

Vero suggested the following change in the email text:

"... and sometimes pay developers to work on important but tedious bug 
fixes and enhancements."

So, yes, this is a possibility.

> 
> In example, in issue https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/issues/1616, Maximilian
> Stahlberg would like to be able to catch signals (i.e. SIGINT) with(in) a
> Python the script to perform on-demand tasks such as reporting the current
> status. He proposes a solution as well. Say a developer is interested in 
> fixing
> this and he sets a cost for it. The user decides to sponsor this 
> specific work
> and things happen.

There is a big difference (just in tax law, for example) between a user 
paying specifically a developer to develop something, or the GRASS GIS 
community deciding to spend some of its budget (of which parts stem from 
donations) to pay developers for certain tasks (and before y'all get you 
hopes up too high: our budget is in the (few) thousands of €, so not 
much that can be paid).

> 
> Would this be something worth considering for the GRASS GIS development 
> team?

This has been considered and the idea was put out there to decide on a 
budget to spend and to organize some sort of community vote on which 
bugs/features we should pay for. However, nobody has taken the lead on 
thinking it all through and organizing it practically.

> Is there a way actually to connect https://opencollective.com with
> https://github.com/sponsors? GitHub has already an account
> https://opencollective.com/github.

OSGeo has a github sponsors account (https://github.com/sponsors/OSGeo), 
so people can also go through there if they want to sponsor GRASS GIS 
(should probably be mentioned in the email). AFAIK, however github 
sponsors have to pledge a regular amount / month. It is not really made 
for one-time donations.

I'm not sure I understand what your aim is in linking 
github.com/sponsors to Open Collective.

Moritz

> 
> 
> On 2021-09-03 16:02, Moritz Lennert wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> As has been discussed in the past, we have now an active Open
>> Collective account which can be used to receive donations. This means
>> that we can stop using the PayPal Money Pool linked to my personal
>> PayPal account.
>>
>> Our fiscal host on Open Collective is OSGeo. Thanks to Michael Smith,
>> the OSGeo treasurer, for his support.
>>
>> Below is a first draft of an email I suggest to send to -announce and
>> other mailing lists. As you can see, we highlight a particular company
>> donation that we received at the beginning of the summer (but we were
>> waiting with the announcement until the Open Collective system was in
>> place).
>>
>> Please let me know if you have any remarks or suggestions concerning 
>> this email.
>>
>> Moritz
>>
>>
>> ***********Announcement mail to be sent********************
>>
>> Subject: GRASS GIS moves to Open Collective for collecting donations
>> and thanks its many financial contributors
>>
>> In order to make money donations easier, the GRASS GIS project has
>> decided to use the Open Collective platform with the Open Source
>> Geospatial (OSGeo) Foundation as its fiscal host:
>> https://opencollective.com/grass. You can donate money via credit
>> card, PayPal, or bank transfer (US account - for EU account please
>> contact us). This new platform replaces our old PayPal Money Pool.
>>
>> Although most of the work on GRASS GIS happens on a voluntary basis
>> (or donated by organizations and companies in the form of working time
>> of their staff), money donations are very important for the
>> development of GRASS GIS as they allow us to organize face-to-face
>> coding sessions (sprints), finance infrastucture needs (web site, etc)
>> and sometimes pay developers to work on important but tedious bug
>> fixes. The new platform should allow both individuals and companies or
>> organizations to contribute to the GRASS GIS budget.
>>
>> We would also like to take the opportunity to thank those who have
>> already contributed money in the last years. You can see a complete
>> list of sponsors on https://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Sponsors.
>> Whatever the amount your help is deeply appreciated !
>>
>> As an example of a company support we wish to highlight the very
>> generous donation recently received from Bohannan Huston, Inc.
>> (https://bhinc.com/). We asked Robert S. Dzur, Vice President Spatial
>> Data, to explain their motivation behind supporting the project. Here
>> is what he has to say:
>>
>> "Our use of GRASS GIS is primarily related to areas of data inventory,
>> visualization, quality assessment and analysis.  As data producers, we
>> are regularly confronted with production challenges related to
>> ingesting and visualizing high data volumes of imagery, elevation /
>> point cloud and feature data.  GRASS GIS gives us the ability to
>> quickly handle large datasets at any point in the production stage.
>> For example, we use r.in.lidar and its capacity to read large
>> multi-billion point datasets from a text list and create derivative
>> elevation data products often to support both quality assurance tasks
>> as well as base maps for vector feature data development.  GRASS GIS's
>> multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux) support and integration with
>> GDAL/OGR is also a plus for us.  GRASS GIS gives us direct control,
>> access, and the ability to interact with our data at very granular
>> levels.  My colleague, Dennis Sandin also reminded me that one of the
>> greatest benefits of GRASS GIS is that its environments gives us a
>> plethora of options for manipulating data and testing/designing our
>> automation/workflow processes. We also appreciate the GRASS GIS legacy
>> and its long history of development dating back to its genesis with
>> the US Army Corps of Engineers and the continued scientific
>> foundations of its applications.
>>
>> Over the past few years, we have been making a concerted effort on two
>> fronts to 1) support the geospatial open-source community and 2)
>> reduce our dependence on commercial software.  Typically, our support
>> had been through sponsoring the broader community through code sprint
>> events.  Last year, however, with code sprints on-hold we decided to
>> contribute to the QGIS crowdfunding campaign for point cloud
>> functionality.  At the same time, we attempted to make a corresponding
>> reduction in our commercial licensing contracts.  This year we have
>> also been trying to reach out to some of our key clients and teach
>> team how to use GRASS GIS on their own computing infrastructure.
>> Specifically, we engaged with one client to teach them how to use
>> r.in.pdal to develop elevation range maps from LiDAR point cloud data
>> as a complementary data element in their NDVI analysis to identify
>> vegetation canopy.  Another client was interested in merging DEM data
>> of differing source lineage and quality and we conducted a basic how
>> to session on GRASS GIS with them and shared details about r.patch and
>> r.patch.smooth.  Given those recent technical exchange efforts locally
>> with some of our clients, our experience with GRASS GIS, and our
>> objective to support a specific open-source project, this year we
>> decided to contribute to the GRASS GIS project.
>>
>> If there are companies or organizations like us who are not already
>> using GRASS GIS to improve their workflows, they should be."
>>
>> Convinced you want to support GRASS GIS financially ? Go to
>> https://opencollective.com/grass !
>>
>> The GRASS GIS development team
>> ~
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