Re: Buck collection

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Heya,

This sounds like a further important step for Guix — Congratulations!

I for one, have now reached the stage where I get confused working on
Debian servers, wishing they were running on Guix instead :-)

I'll look forward to spreading the donate link once it's available.

Cheers,

Alex

Ludovic Courtès writes:

> Hello!
>
>   substitute: while fetching http://hydra.gnu.org/nix-cache-info: server is 
> somewhat slow
>   substitute: try `--no-substitutes' if the problem persists
>
> You’ve already seen that one, haven’t you?  :-)
>
> Hardware donations have worked fine and have allowed us to get powerful
> build machines¹.  To the point the hydra.gnu.org front-end has become
> the real bottleneck.
>
> To remedy this, we’ll start a Buck Collection Program™.  Namely, we’ll
> add Guix to the FSF’s Free Software Fund², which will allow the FSF to
> collect financial donations on behalf of the Guix project.
>
> The main goal once this is set up will be to get money for hardware and
> possibly hosting of hydra.gnu.org.  The reason is that we cannot really
> rely on hardware donations from third parties for the front-end because
> we need to make sure it’s perennial and under tight control by the Guix
> folks.  Also, as the project grows, I think it’s good a way to improve
> our infrastructure and make it hopefully more future-proof.
>
> Below is a summary of how the Free Software Fund works in practice.
> There’ll be a “committee” to decide when and how to spend money.  I’m
> thinking of having 3 people to fill that role initially: Mark H Weaver,
> Ricardo Wurmus, and myself, which makes for a good geographical
> distribution; new members can be designated based on a consensus among
> current members.
>
> Comments welcome!
>
> Ludo’.
>
> ¹ http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/donate/
> ² http://www.fsf.org/working-together/fund
>
> Overview of how the Free Software Fund program works:
>
>   0. Funds will be held by the FSF. They will be disbursed to their
>   designated projects either as reimbursements for specific expenses
>   incurred by contributors (following usual best practices like
>   providing receipts), or as outright individual contractor payments
>   for development (following usual best practices such as asking for a
>   description of what development was achieved as a result of the
>   funds, or if funding precedes the development, having a contract in
>   place specifying commitments). Expense reimbursement will be
>   available for travel, meaning that funds can be used to help get you
>   and your contributors to conferences to promote the project,
>   organize hack sessions, etc. Another example of expenses that could
>   be reimbursed would be hosting, or equipment for development.
>
>   1. The project will designate who is authorized to receive such
>   funds, and will take responsibility for letting us know about
>   changes to that. One person or legal entity will be designated as
>   the ultimate authority for this (likely the same person as the
>   primary maintainer). The project will ideally have a simple
>   governance system for deciding this -- we suggest a committee of
>   three or more people and a basic process for adding and removing
>   people on the committee (such as either consensus or majority vote).
>
>   2. Donations will be made to the project via a specific form on the
>   FSF web site, which can be linked to from wherever. We will also be
>   developing a widget for convenient use on project web sites.
>   Donations can be received natively in Euro via wire transfer, in
>   Bitcoin, Litecoin, and in USD via PayPal, credit cards, wire
>   transfers, checks, employer matching, etc -- all the same mechanisms
>   that the FSF uses to receive donations.
>
>   3. In the event the project dissolves or leaves the program, we will
>   do our best to channel remaining donations to another project in the
>   same general topic area. Failing that, they will revert to the FSF
>   general fund (this will all be made clear in our public description
>   of the program so that donors understand). Should a project decide
>   to stop working with the FSF, the donations have to remain with the
>   FSF, unless the project associates with a different 501(c)(3) -- or
>   starts its own. In that case, the balance of donations can be
>   transferred from the FSF to the other organization.
>
>   4. 10% of each donation will go to the FSF to support operation of
>   the program and shared GNU infrastructure. This includes covering
>   transaction costs charged by our payment providers (currently
>   TrustCommerce, for handling all credit cards, and PayPal). So 90% of
>   the donation will be available for the project's use. We will also
>   include your donors in our usual donor acknowledgment process, which
>   means you don't have to worry about things like thank-you letters or
>   annual tax receipts.