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Folks, <br>
<br>
I would like to make sure we're not going into false assumptions. I
hear from many conversations saying there is a need to fund
Thunderbird activities and would like to offer my perspective on the
subject.<br>
<br>
The thread started by Anne-Marie yesterday was meant to openly
discuss <br>
1 - _why_ do we think we need money, in other words, to what
purpose would this money be used. <br>
2 - identify possible revenue sources to support those needs. <br>
<br>
Under the new governance model, Mozilla will fund a sufficient
enough team of Mozilla employees to ensure Thunderbird <br>
1) is maintained safe and secure <br>
2) can receive community contributed innovations and integrate
them in new releases. <br>
Mozilla is not going to recruit additional people in this team,
regardless of how much revenue can be generated by Thunderbird, if
any. <br>
[As a side note, the list of Module Owners must evolve to better
reflect contributors participation and competencies. As this time,
there are too many Module owners are employees: I am sure they are
willing to step down in favor of volunteers, provided that there are
recognized by their peers as competent for the mission.]<br>
<br>
However, additional resources can be contributed by volunteers to
maintain and evolve the product, at their own will, where they see
fit for the project and entirely graciously: no compensation can be
expected from Mozilla in return of those contributions. <br>
But we all understand the limits of volunteering and that possibly,
individual contributors need to be compensated for the time spent in
contributing. Let's be clear: this is no longer volunteer work, but
rather paid-for contributions. And we're interested in discussing
this because they might benefit Thunderbird evolution and encourage
contributions. <br>
<br>
<br>
So from my perspective, this brings us down to two different kinds
of paid-for contributions: <br>
<br>
- Own initiative: Contributor is compensated for his/her
contribution <br>
One example is paid addons (and Anne-Marie is offering her help to
explore distribution, transaction platforms...). Professional
services such as support & deployment can be in this category.
There might be other examples of own initiatives compensations but
they don't spring to my mind. Thunderbird governance bodies (Module
Owners & Release Drivers team) have no need to be involved in
this, nor have they a say. <br>
<br>
- Sponsored contribution: a certain feature development gets funded
<br>
a) To start with, let's say some community members (group of users,
enterprise, government...) want to have a certain feature developed,
and have managed to get funding for it. They might contract with
Thunderbird developer(s) directly or through third party to develop
it.Maybe there is a way for this group to contract with MoFo
(Gerv?).
Or, they may simply mobilize their own resources (in the case of
governments or corporate contributions). <br>
If the feature is to be contributed to Thunderbird core code,
Thunderbird governance bodies (Module Owners & Release Drivers
team) must be involved in their corresponding assignments. <br>
b) Another situation may arise if the feature request comes from
Thunderbird Governance bodies. I then assume they should be able to
tap into the pot and contract with developer(s), in the same way as
above. <br>
<br>
<br>
That brings us talking about the pot and where does the money comes
from (note: the pot is not used to fund Own Initiatives).<br>
<br>
- In-app revenues: <br>
Thunderbird has several partnerships in place designed to compensate
commercial products distribution: Search, Email account provisionner
and Filelink. For administrative reasons, as well as taking into
consideration that since we're with these features we lack
visibility on the revenue potential, this money must stay in Mozilla
Corporation and kept aside for Thunderbird engagement activities:
meetups, gears...<br>
<br>
- Donations: <br>
As Gerv confirmed, it is fairly easy to open a Thunderbird donation
line at the Mozilla Foundation level. This money could be controlled
by the Thunderbird Governance bodies (details tbd) and be used for
Engagement and Sponsored contributions, as described above.<br>
<br>
<br>
I hope this clarifies things and helps moving forward. As usual,
this is open for discussion, questions and comments.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Jb<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 04/10/12 17:19, Anne-Marie Bourcier
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:506DA917.30405@mozilla.com" type="cite">
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Hello,<br>
<br>
The discussion about money around Thunderbird is not closed yet
and time flies. By consequence, I've tried to regroup the
questions/discussions to help moving forward on this particular
topic. <br>
<br>
The major question stays <u>"What do we need money for?" </u>and
until we can answer this clearly, we will not find any
straightforward directions amongst revenue sources described
below.<br>
<br>
Once we have collectively figured this out, there are 3 potential
revenue sources: <br>
<br>
A) In app: the Community could generate revenues directly <u>within</u>
Thunderbird and options are:<br>
<ul>
<li> do a crowd-funding campaign leveraging Thunderbird
property with a dedicated tab or from the start page</li>
<li> doing an engagement campaign on Facebook, Twitter, our
blog, via press announcement.... </li>
<li> or both</li>
</ul>
=> not that difficult to implement but where the money should
go? Mozilla Foundation or external organization... Community will
have to be clear upfront about the usage of this generated revenue
in order to craft the right crowd-funding message/commitment.<br>
<ul>
<li>Develop partners opportunities/affiliation programs ala
YouSendIt</li>
</ul>
=> we know that the money goes to Mozilla Corp and will be
allocated to future TB Engagement programs accordingly, but we
don't know WHO will be the lead on this biz dev initiative.<br>
<br>
B) Outside funding (revenue or resources): we can address large
organizations like French Government (leveraging the recent Prime
Minister commitment to help Open Source initiative) or IBM in
Germany that have equipped large part of public organizations with
Thunderbird...<br>
<ul>
<li>either we will get $$</li>
<li>or we could get "sponsored manpower"</li>
</ul>
=> This option might bring significant resources to the
Community but will require patience and dedication. If
contribution is money, the question of what will it be used for
has to be determined now. If this is manpower, we should avoid
that it will only be manpower that will address specific large
organization topics but rather work on Community agreed projects.
<br>
<br>
C) Facilitating some contributors long term engagement: the
Community is thinking about funding its own efforts by getting
revenue from its work<br>
<ul>
<li>Get revenue from add-ons: it means setting-up a different
market place</li>
</ul>
=> it should be do-able, solutions can be evaluated in a
reasonable timeframe.<br>
<ul>
<li>Get revenue from features development, support or specific
QA test tools development: Community could set-up a
developers' market place that would be accessible to large
organizations.</li>
</ul>
=> it should be do-able, solutions can be evaluated in a
reasonable time-frame but the question of "what kind of features
should be funded, when to release, level of quality required to
pass the drivers test...." all of this has to be determined asap.<br>
<br>
Let me know if you see different forms of money generation but it
would be nice to start focusing on the "what do we need money for"
then moving forward on one or two solutions will be easier...<br>
<br>
AM<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anne Marie Bourcier
Mozilla Thunderbird</pre>
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