OpenProducer
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For LibreTime we need developers or paid contributions from existing developers. I can't speak for the other core contributors, but even if I was paid, I don't have the time outside my day job to do more than an hour or so a week. I suspect that if LibreTime paid for contributions, it would need to find contributors to pay too |
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Quick overview of my current motivations and goals... Firstly I'm hoping Netmix will take product ownership (in an open-source sorta way) of the WordPress/Newspack powered radio platform so that OpenProducer could position itself as a service #3 beginning with these projects -
I'm also hoping Netmix will become a primary 'customer facing' service provider for all of the above. Services is something we've all been talking about in various discussions and again warrants a separate discussion here. Personally, I'd like to spend around 5hrs/wk on each of these projects (in my hybrid open-source biz dev/community/outreach/sustainer type of role) - very similar to what I'm currently doing (to a smaller extent) but I'd like to invoice for this work. Obviously, this will require each project have an adequate budget in their collective after key team members (all of you) are paid what you need (or want). To do that we'd need a good chunk of funds flowing into each collective - I do think the combo of customer-facing + open-source services (including sponsorship, donations, bounties, grants, etc) can get us there. I think the main need for all these projects are non-developer roles such as PM/scrum manager, fundraising, and customer/client support. |
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I'm not sure there is much here that isn't already done or at least a pipe dream for LT. We have OpenCollective set up and call-to-actions can happen once we have a spending framework set up (not much point asking people for money when we don't know what we are doing with it). Further, having defined funding goals would help make those calls more real (e.g. we need $XXX to fund a developer to implement Y feature).
Yup, we are in agreement there. I don't have any additional time that paid contribution would help with. I am as active as I can be, but work still takes preference. Money would not be a motivating factor for me to change jobs. The other maintainers aren't as active at the moment, but may be open to paid contributions to LT....
Whatever market rates for those positions and hours are I would guess. I don't actually know what is reasonable |
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@paddatrapper I think steps 3-6 in this development priorities discussion would still help LibreTime determine goal and needs - With regards to the overall call to action... in the simplest terms "your funds will enable a continuously updated and maintained version of AirTime broadcasters can depend on"... which seemed to be one of the main motivations for the fork. https://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/18302/libretime-a-fork-of-airtime-due-to-stalled-development/p1 Formalizing the governance and spending plan will be helpful, but I'm not sure its essential for paying folks for ongoing time. This is again something I brought up in this comment - Developing new features via a bounty or fundraising campaign should be treated separately. The overall call to action should be simple. Look at OBS (https://obsproject.com/contribute) again for a good example - we're talking to those folks in Open Collective's Slack about how they've been able to generate enough funds to pay key team members. All of the projects here can do a variation of the same. |
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@team Skim through the recent convo in #openproducer (Open Collective Slack) when you can. @dodgepong from OBS has joined and shared some knowledge about how their project sustains a handful of paid core team members. Obviously, projects like AzuraCast and LibreTime are much smaller but I do think a similar model (see my comments above) could sustain @SlvrEagle23 and other core team members of those projects. First step is to get a better sense for goals and needs (what we're working out here). Possibly we can follow up in #openproducer next week on improving the fundraising messaging and strategy. Cheers! |
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I came across https://contributor.link/ while lurking in one of the Open Collective Slack channels.
Seems like it could provide a way to connect all the projects representing here #4 (comment) with contributors (once a few more folks provide input on goals and needs). I'm hoping to connect with the Contributor.Link organizers to see if our projects would be a good fit. |
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@gusaus for AzuraCast, a simplified answer to these questions: Budget needs: Our first priority is to make AzuraCast something that I can continue to invest full-time development energy into without being at risk of financial disaster. There have been periods when GitHub Sponsors matched donations (and, in general, donations were higher) when the monthly amount was closer to $1,000 a month, which is not a whole lotta money at all but is enough to cover essential expenses. Donations have fallen down to closer to $350 a month, which is not enough to cover rent and presents a very dire financial situation. Only once we can stabilize that aspect could we consider compensating additional staff for their time and energy, unfortunately. People needs: High priority:
Medium priority:
Nice to have:
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@SlvrEagle23 We both should be thankful you chimed in here - #openproducer in Open Collective's Slack has suddenly become highly interactive - it's great, but I/we definitely need to do better at summarizing the important bits and getting that into Github issues (like this one) and discussions like AzuraCast/AzuraCast#3994 Defining needs for OpenProducer, the 501c3 open source service provider, is off-topic for this issue... but we definitely need folks who enjoy documentation, writing, and project management involved in the collaboration. Simplified replies to your very detailed simplified answers are as follows -
Everybody in this discussion can relate to how difficult it is to sustain an open source project. Of course every project has it's own unique definition - I believe an open source project is sustainable when the key people making and supporting it are receiving the compensation they desire. A totally ground up, grassroots open source project is tricky because it takes a lot of (free) time to create something valuable to enough users and orgs that would pay $$ to keep it going. Just looking at page one of the most popular (whatever that means) projects on Open Collective illustrates the scarcity of sustainable projects https://opencollective.com/discover?show=open+source&sort= It should be comforting that Azuracast has a ton of compliment and similarity to one of the trendsetters - I'll follow up on your other needs tomorrow - generally speaking it would be ideal to work with folks already contributing to AzuraCast. How would access to funds affect the time folks would be able to contribute? |
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@SlvrEagle23 Here are some hopefully not too long-winded or confusing replies to your people needs - High priority:
The platform is something we've talked about and is something OpenProducer could provide or help build if it doesn't already exist. I think we've looked at elements of https://civicrm.org/ as model. Being that's a combo of Drupal + CiviCRM, we can get folks to build it if we can raise the funds. Probably justifies a separate issue or discussion. So are you saying you'd need people to essentially help run the service? If yes and you're open to collaboration or partnership we should talk more with @tonyzeoli @paddatrapper and some of the other providers in #openproducer. I know you intend this to be an official services arm of the project (for good reasons) - personally, I'd recommend keeping the open source project and for-profit services separate. That would avoid community conflict like what happened with AirTime and also avoid potential limitations of running services through Open Source Collective https://www.oscollective.org/how This obviously justifies a separate issue or discussion. #16
Are there or could there be people in the AzuraCast who could assume some of these roles? I'm assuming the providers referenced above would provide this type of customer-facing support. OpenProducer is already set up to provide 'open source' services to AzuraCast. We just need to finish defining the service #3. Considering OpenProducer is a project of this service provider http://openmediafoundation.org/, any services they provide could be considered fair game for what OpenProducer could provide. I'd rather keep the focus on serving open source projects and run customer-facing services through a partner. Basically, I think some combo of OpenProducer and service providers could help in every area you've listed. If you're interested in exploring options, we'll need to figure out the best format for working out the details. |
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Here's the deal with Open Producer platform needs - First off, the platform is essentially Newspack, maintained and funded by https://automattic.com/ + Radio Station and a couple of additional WordPress plugins. (see OpenProducer/newspack-platform#11). Newspack itself is powered by the Newspack plugin that downloads all the dependencies, configuration, and demo content. We're still trying to figure out what we'd need to replicate this plugin, but with our own dependencies, configuration, and demo content. OpenProducer/newspack-platform#11 My best guess is the only thing we'd need to develop and maintain would be a fork of the Newspack plugin. It that's the case, there should be relatively little time needed to develop and maintain. All of the other core features are developed, maintained, and paid for by somebody else. We do need someone to develop and maintain the fork and maybe a PM to coordinate and identify any other needs. I'm hoping @majick777 and @tonyzeoli from Netmix might be able to assume those roles. If not, possibly find folks who develop or work with Newspack. Either way, I'd like to collaborate and potentially partner with Newspack/Automattic on this endeavor. Other than that we might need help with docs, fundraising, and frontline support. I'm estimating 10-20 hr/month would be needed for each role. With regards to coming up with funds to pay core team members a competitive rate... I think a combo of fundraising https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/issues/9 + revenue from related services https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/issues/17 should bring in enough to sustain the core team. And considering the platform is WordPress and is associated with its makers, there should be plenty of opportunities to onboard and collaborate with contributors from the global community. |
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Considering we're no longer supporting our own branded fork of Newspack our resource needs have been scaled back. Since we're not developing and maintaining a fork, the only work will be contributing to plugins, themes, patterns, and other addons we'd like to include in Newspack 'branches' we maintain. Currently the focus is the radio branch and the Radio and Podcast support we've been discussing in OpenProducer/newspack-platform#27 and OpenProducer/newspack-platform#25 Because we're not developing and maintaining projects ourselves, our main role will be to support the projects we'd like to include. |
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Ok - so I tried to add some more detail to the issue description based on feedback so far. #4 (comment) Please comment accordingly if I got some of team members and roles wrong. I'll add budget goals and refine people needs from additional comments and discussions. Generally speaking, it looks like most projects priority needs are in support areas like community management/support, technical writer/docs, fundraising, & bizdev/outreach. It would be good if everybody could provide a monthly time estimate for each role. Including core team members...i.e. maybe a range of time you're currently spending - how much time/month you could spend if paid. Maybe I'll just add detail to the wiki so anyone can just edit https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/wiki/Projects |
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I updated the wiki, so team members should be able to add more detail and edit https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/wiki/Projects Quick thoughts on budget goals - I think creating or improving fundraising campaigns and messaging will help. It would be great if we could work on that together sometime next week. The real challenge is the active fundraising and sponsor wrangling. Ideally, we could find one person who does this well to work across all projects. Related services or sales of paid versions of OSS software provide the most direct route to a budget. It would be good to spend some time next week collaborating on that end. |
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Referencing what I posted in Open Collective's Slack as it's related to what we've been discussing here. @tonyzeoli @paddatrapper @BusterNeece I'd like to know how many of y'all would like to get to the point where your open source project/collective could hire you (and/or other key contributors). Assuming your collective is a ways off from generating enough revenue to cover employment costs, how many folks would be interested in providing services on behalf of OpenProducer (already set up to provide employment and benefits via OCF)? Also would like to know your current needs and priorities. For the latter, you could provide an update in this discussion or just edit https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/wiki/Projects (if you're able). Once everybody has a chance to provide an update, I'll put the call out for contributors in the appropriate groups and channels in the growing Open Collective ecosystem https://discover.opencollective.com/ Thanks! |
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One of our primary goals is to support open source projects in the broadcasting/media/music verticals. To do this we need to get a better sense of the goals and needs of each project.
Based on that we can
Roles
Starting with just a boilerplate, these roles will evolve based on feedback from projects.
Projects
We'll refine this section as project leads provide input regarding goals and needs in the comments.
AzuraCast
LibreTime
Newspack/Radio platform
Radio Station plugin
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