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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/2/2013 1:44 AM, Mark Banner
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi Kent,<br>
<br>
On 30/11/2013 00:50, Kent James wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:5299365D.7040303@caspia.com" type="cite">I
have now put a page up on the Mozilla Wiki that describes the
donation link proposal: <br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donations_Proposal">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donations_Proposal</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
Thanks for putting this together. I've got a few comments, so I'll
just jump in with those:<br>
<br>
- I expect you'll head towards this anyway, but I would say
generally it would be better to have a clean distinct proposal
separate from personal feelings/suggestions.</blockquote>
I reread the proposal, and I don't see what you are referring to as
my "personal feelings". If there is some specific phrase that you
find objectionable, please specify.<br>
<br>
As to "personal ... suggestions", this entire effort is my "personal
suggestion" that I am trying to submit to an open process of review,
evaluation, and approval. Once again, if there are specific areas
that you think are too personal, please specify<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> - I
would certainly object to putting a donation link in the way you
describe. To me, having a permanently visible link on primary UI
feels like begging, and doesn't feel appropriate.</blockquote>
Rereading the proposal, it is not clear that the intent is that the
link would disappear after the user processed the link. The "stop
asking" option in the proposal was intended to make the link
disappear until the next major release. Does that alleviate your
concern for "permanent visible link"?<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite">
Maybe I'm a bit sensitive to donation areas but having something
you can't get rid of without doing something (or reading something
about donating) doesn't sound in keeping with something that has
always been billed as free software.<br>
</blockquote>
We are asking the user to make a decision about donating each major
release. So I would agree that this proposal moves Thunderbird away
from being "free as in beer" software to being "free as in freedom"
donationware. We need to think hard whether that is what we want.
Obviously my personal opinion is that we should move that
direction. Mitchell herself claimed to me that Mozilla does not
want to subsidize free software for businesses. Neither do I. I am
not willing to donate my time to the cause of free-as-in-beer
software for businesses, and because of that I think that
Thunderbird should try to recover costs from users in ways that
still promote "free as in freedom". Donations are one such option,
and I do not think we should be ashamed to ask for them. With
freedom comes responsibility, and we are providing structures for
our users to meet their responsibilities.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> I
would not mind links on the start page, or in other areas e.g. the
about dialog.<br>
<br>
I would also certainly prefer to start small and increase
visibility gradually, as this would allow feedback and questions
to be resolved before pushing out to a wide audience.<br>
</blockquote>
If by start small you mean in beta releases, fine. But we only get
this chance about annually, and I don't think we should wait until
2015 to make this decision. The formal community can say no, but
this is a proposal for a more visible link in Thunderbird 31.<br>
<br>
Does anyone really expect that putting a donation link on the About
page or the start page (places that the vast majority of users never
or rarely see) or some Facebook page will generate the multiple
hundreds of thousands of dollars that Thunderbird needs to be
relevant? I certainly don't. Why waste a year doing an experiment
that we all expect to fail?<br>
<br>
Yes we will receive some flak for this. But what is in the best
interest of Thunderbird users? I don't believe it is in the best
interest of Thunderbird users to protect ourselves from the flak we
will get from "free as in beer" advocates at the expense of denying
our users the innovation and stability that additional funding will
provide. The Thunderbird community should make decisions on this
proposal considering primarily Thunderbird user's best interests.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> <br>
- Hiring Contractors. I didn't get around to saying this earlier,
but I think this may be difficult to do in a fair manner, unless
you go for people who have never contributed to Thunderbird, as
otherwise there could be significant bias in who gets selected.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Restricting contractors to those who "have never contributed to
Thunderbird" is a really bad idea, and about the most unfair thing
you could do. The goal here to empower some leadership within
Thunderbird that can move the project forward, not to simply
"fairly" distribute inadequate resources to existing Thunderbird
contributors. You yourself, as I understand it, started as a
volunteer contributor. Do you think it would have been a good idea
to deny you employment on that basis? Why restrict Thunderbird to
more strict rules than Firefox or Mozilla as a whole? If anything, I
would welcome a bias in favor of existing volunteer contributors.<br>
<br>
I do agree that this is a sensitive topic that needs to be handled
well, else the Thunderbird community could find existing volunteers
dis-empowered. But this is an issue faced by virtually every
non-profit with a mix of paid staff and volunteers, so there are
well understood ways of managing it.<br>
<br>
My list of suggested uses of funds will not survive the first
meeting of the "Finance and Operations" group who will make their
own decisions regardless of this list. The goals of the list is 1)
answer the question "Why does Thunderbird need money at all"? and 2)
make it clear that this plan is not subject to the restriction of
"... paid-for development should not be considered. Instead,
contributions of development resources should be encouraged" that
occurred in the original "New Release and Governance Model" document
(albeit in a slightly different context). I realize this is likely
to be controversial. You seem to be arguing against supporting
developers. BenB seems to argue that this should be the main focus
of donations. The proposal states, as I feel it should, that this is
one of several possible uses. It is clearly the one though that is
capable of consuming several hundred thousand dollars per year,
should such funds be available.<br>
<br>
(Just for the record, I cannot currently foresee circumstances in
which I myself would be a contractor under this proposal, Mesquilla
is much more likely to be a net contributor than a net benefactor
here. I am no longer an independent volunteer contributor.)<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> <br>
- "
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
Support for ongoing expenses of possible server-based innovations"
- I think this may be better described as "Support for external
projects directly related to Thunderbird innovation". As really I
think what you describe would be external projects, and so we
should just be up front about that.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
This is not important to the overall plan, and since BenB also
flagged this perhaps I should just remove it, unless there are
lingering doubts about whether Thunderbird can profitably use
additional resources. "Support for external projects directly
related to Thunderbird innovation" is not really what I had in mind,
but it is not worth the effort to clarify.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> <br>
- As I've mentioned in the past, I still believe that the existing
module owners & peers group could do a lot more than what we
currently do, especially wrt to decision making/direction setting.
Some of this could easily be managed via the weekly meeting, but
I'm not sure I'm seeing the questions/discussions around what
people should do or be focussing on. <br>
<br>
There's a two-way process here, of setting what the focus is, and
then contributors acting on that. We tried this before last year,
and it didn't seem to work. Did we do any analysis as to why?<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I think that the most common analysis seems to be some variation of
"we did not do an adequate job of marketing outselves to attract
developers". I hope that people who know me understand that I do not
agree with that analysis. To me, the primary issues are leadership,
governance, and resources. We do not have a compelling vision or
strategy, and even with that we are unlikely to succeed on
volunteers alone. The essence of this "donation link" proposal are
1) broaden the overall project leadership beyond the narrowest
"Thunderbird module owners" or Mozilla staff, 2) focus that broader
group on making a few big decisions, which includes delegating to a
smaller "Finance and Operations" team, and 3) empower that smaller
team with some resources, as well as the responsibility to set and
implement goals.<br>
<br>
The other part of a broader plan is to have a parallel commercial
team that follows a "Freemium" strategy with the community-driven
Thunderbird as the free part, and a commercial product that wraps
the core Thunderbird with addons and support as the premium piece.
That is not part of this proposal however.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> <br>
- Quoting an assumption for amount of funds available doesn't
actually appear to help or benefit the proposal.<br>
</blockquote>
The point of that (if your are mentioning the $100,000 number) is
that the governance structure is likely to be different if $10,000,
$100,000, or $1,000,000 per year is available, so there are some
scale assumptions in setting up the proposal.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> <br>
- The expanded groups for decision making doesn't actually seem
that useful. It feels more like a formal way to detail what I
mentioned earlier where module owners already take feedback from
other groups.<br>
</blockquote>
From my perspective, sitting here as someone trying to move the
Thunderbird community into making some important strategic
decisions, that group plays such an important role that I thought it
necessary to specifically define who that is in the proposal.
Without that group, the only people who can make decisions for the
"Community" are Standard8 and sometimes JB.<br>
<br>
Or are you objecting to the expansion of that group? I feel it is
really important that people who clearly play a significant role in
the current Thunderbird yet do not appear in any of the formal
module peers lists, are formally recognized as being part of the
team that makes decisions. If you are contributing significant
effort into Thunderbird as a volunteer (or as a company), then you
deserve a seat at the table. It is also empowering to give them a
formal voice.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:529C567B.1010907@mozilla.com" type="cite"> <br>
It is unclear who or what the finance group would consist of, or
who it operates and I think that is one of the critical parts of
the proposal.<br>
</blockquote>
You are correct that it is critical. I expect that group to be
nominated by the overall module owners and peers group, with
approval by the existing Mozilla module management structures.<br>
<br>
:rkent<br>
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