[Qgis-psc] Financial warning

Sat Mar 9 01:26:10 PST 2019

Hi all,
I strongly support the idea to treat our developers with maximum
confidence: this is the way it has always been, and this approach proved
hugely successful.
We just have to devise a way to have a consistent budget, allowing for
maximum and hassle-free bug fixing effort, within known limits.
All the best.

On 05/03/19 00:01, Nyall Dawson wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Mar 2019 at 03:30, Jonathan Moules
> <jonathan-lists at lightpear.com> wrote:
> 
>>  > - what would be a fair amount how to distribute the money between
>> devs/companies and who would decide?
>> Maybe having some sort of auction process where the lowest bids get the
>> work.
> 
> Just to add my 2c to the existing replies:
> 
> Currently the bulk of QGIS development work is handled by a handful of
> commercial organisations. We're very fortunate in the QGIS project
> that although these organisations are in some ways competitors, there
> is still a great spirit of cooperation and collaboration between them
> all. Requiring a process like a reverse auction sounds very aggressive
> and competitive to me, and risks harming this cooperative spirit (to
> *everyone's* detriment).
> 
> The other reality is that all developers/organisations participating
> in the funded bug fixes are running at something like 3:1 unpaid vs
> paid bug fixing. When you factor this in, the rate is actually a
> bargain! (not to mention that you're getting the efforts of THE qgis
> code experts, and the few people who can smash out bug fixes at a
> speed 100x of those not intimately aware of the guts of the codebase).
> 
> I think, as others have said, the ideal solution would be getting more
> publicity out about the benefits of sponsoring the project and the
> return on investment received. I personally think the most logical
> next step here would be to implement
> https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Enhancement-Proposals/issues/102 so that
> we have a direct marketing channel to ALL our users, in order to
> publicise efforts like this.
> 
> Nyall
> 
>>
>> Just my 2p.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Jonathan
>>
>>
>> On 2019-03-02 11:35, Andreas Neumann wrote:
>>> Hi Paolo,
>>>
>>> It is very hard to coordinate the exact amount of bug fixing, due to
>>> several reasons:
>>>
>>> - devs can only roughly tell me how many days they are really
>>> available. So I don't know in advance, until I get the invoice.
>>>
>>> - information comes in at totally different times. Some devs only tell
>>> me quite late that they are available while others already spent some
>>> days working on it
>>>
>>> - what would be a fair amount how to distribute the money between
>>> devs/companies and who would decide?
>>>
>>> In general I think we should be grateful that the core devs
>>> participate in the paid bug fixing campaign for the low rate of 100 €
>>> h for us - because if they would sell their services to clients at the
>>> same time, they would probably charge 150-180 € an hour and earn more
>>> and potentially have a more interesting task than fixing bugs in QGIS.
>>> However through their efforts, in return they get the benefit of a
>>> "better QGIS" where they could more easily sell their services around
>>> QGIS, if it more stable and of better quality. And lets not forget
>>> that we have also a lot of "unpaid" contributions towards QGIS.
>>>
>>> Personally, I would like to keep the process of accepting all
>>> available bug fixing hours we get, but rather try to get more funds in.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> Am 02.03.19 um 12:27 schrieb Paolo Cavallini:
>>>> Hi Andreas,
>>>> thanks for this warning. What prevents us from sticking to the budget,
>>>> and allocating to bugfixing only what is available?
>>>> I think communicating our needs will help in this regard: I believe
>>>> donors will be more motivated when they will know all the additional
>>>> donations will go into bugfixing.
>>>> All the best.
>>>>
>>>> On 02/03/19 12:17, Andreas Neumann wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> In that respect I hope that our change from sponsors  to sustaining
>>>>> members (to be voted on during the upcoming AGM) will help to attract
>>>>> more organizations to join as financial supporters. I am positive that
>>>>> it will help, esp. for governmental organizations and universities.
>>>>>
>>>>> Andreas
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Am 02.03.19 um 11:50 schrieb Andreas Neumann:
>>>>>> Dear PSC,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the light of the current discussion around AGM and fast release
>>>>>> pace, here is some additional information and concern I have as the
>>>>>> financial manager of the project:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Most of our financial resources go into bug fixing (> 50%) and I have
>>>>>> the impression that this share is increasing every year. Currently I
>>>>>> have to send out a warning that our financial resources are dwindling
>>>>>> rapidly - our bank account is down below 30k €. For every release we
>>>>>> spend about 10-20k more on bug fixing than allocated in the budget. As
>>>>>> a consequence, we will have to either cancel the QGIS grants this year
>>>>>> or skip bug fixing of release 3.8 or cut down drastically if we can't
>>>>>> find additional financial supporters. I am very grateful that many
>>>>>> core qgis devs can find the time to participate in the paid bug fixing
>>>>>> (and they do a very good job!) - but unfortunately bugs are coming in
>>>>>> quicker ...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't want to sound overly pessimistic - but it is my duty to let
>>>>>> you know about this development that we currently spend more than we
>>>>>> get in. Something will have to change in this respect during the 3.8
>>>>>> release or we'll have to skip the QGIS grants program this year.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andreas
>>>>>>
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-- 
Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu
QGIS.ORG Chair:
http://planet.qgis.org/planet/user/28/tag/qgis%20board/