[00:00.000 --> 00:29.880] I hope that there will be someone here who raises their hand, and they can come, I do [00:29.880 --> 00:34.840] the talk instead of me because they know better, but unfortunately none of you. [00:34.840 --> 00:46.160] I'm going to convince myself, I'm already convinced, convince yourself that we can [00:46.160 --> 00:55.400] finance open source by small companies. We are giving one person of the income to [00:55.400 --> 00:59.640] open source project, I'm going to convince you that all of the small companies in [00:59.640 --> 01:05.200] open source can do that, and we can change, we can change much in the open [01:05.200 --> 01:14.720] source world with that. Do you know what it can be, 23.1 million? [01:17.160 --> 01:25.560] Huh? Hard question. That's the number of small companies in the European Union. Wow. [01:25.560 --> 01:32.160] How many of them do the computing science? How many of them use open source [01:32.160 --> 01:38.040] every day? How many use open source every day? I would say half probably, but how [01:38.040 --> 01:46.960] many are contributing and are constant users of open source? Way harder to ask. [01:46.960 --> 01:56.720] Are you the same that at least 5,000? Imagine now that 5,000 companies, which [01:56.720 --> 02:05.840] is not that optimistic estimate, each of them giving 1,000 euros per year. The [02:05.840 --> 02:11.680] total budget you get is 5 million. What we can do for 5 million in Europe, quite [02:11.680 --> 02:17.920] much, and 1,000 euros per company, it's not high number, it's really a [02:17.920 --> 02:26.280] pessimistic estimate, so we can do way better than that. Before we get to the [02:26.280 --> 02:31.960] details of the product smart dictionary check, we are in Europe, all of us talking [02:31.960 --> 02:38.840] about taxes, incomes, and financial things we are using our own languages, and we [02:38.840 --> 02:45.160] need to have a dictionary check when we are switching to English. So, turnover, [02:45.160 --> 02:51.760] income, gross revenue, same thing, it's all sales of a company over a period of [02:51.760 --> 02:57.320] time, usually a year, and profit, it's earning minus all of the expenses that you [02:57.320 --> 03:04.600] have. What I'm convincing you that you can give 1% of the income, so all sales [03:04.600 --> 03:12.400] is really a year. Now, my personal point of view, [03:13.400 --> 03:21.880] SysLineBit is a company running multiple economic activities under one roof, and [03:21.880 --> 03:26.120] we are helping new activities and new people to be their activities. It's a [03:26.120 --> 03:33.080] pretty specific type of a company under the French law called CEL. We are [03:33.080 --> 03:37.040] concentrating on embedded and open source, so we are strong supporters of [03:37.040 --> 03:42.520] open source. Currently, in our model, everyone is a consultant, but we welcome [03:42.520 --> 03:50.280] production, system admins, and all other types of activities. Currently, every [03:50.280 --> 03:59.720] consultant gives 1% of their income to open source project. As we hold multiple [03:59.720 --> 04:03.960] independent activities, every person decides on their own to which project [04:03.960 --> 04:10.640] they want to give, because we have different preferences, and I started that [04:10.640 --> 04:17.760] when it was a one-person show, when I started a company two years ago. A small [04:17.760 --> 04:27.600] reminder, 1% of income means 1,000 euros for every 100,000 of income. The [04:27.600 --> 04:33.160] idea of one person is not a new one. You have probably seen about one person for [04:33.160 --> 04:37.920] the planet. There have been a few initiatives of giving to open source, [04:37.920 --> 04:43.920] but I think it's good to bring the idea back, because we are always, as always, [04:43.920 --> 04:52.240] missing money in open source. Now, when the company gives a donation, what it [04:52.240 --> 05:14.000] needs? In voice! [05:14.000 --> 05:26.520] I was shouting too much, I think. When you're running company, you need an [05:26.520 --> 05:33.920] invoice for every single expense you have, and if you pay first and then wait [05:33.920 --> 05:40.360] for the invoice, you have a risk of not getting it at all, or getting after a [05:40.360 --> 05:48.440] long time. Last year, I have given to one of the organizations in open source, [05:48.440 --> 05:56.640] everyone here knows, and I'm not going to name because, and it took me like four [05:56.640 --> 06:01.800] or five months of email exchanges with a person who was very sorry that they [06:01.800 --> 06:05.000] cannot get to the person doing the invoices, they cannot give me an invoice, [06:05.000 --> 06:09.640] they are going to send them a message yet again, and I was a month again, I was [06:09.640 --> 06:16.400] sending the message again. Finally, got my voice like five months later. That is [06:16.400 --> 06:23.760] risky, I was already thinking how to explain that to my accountant. A company [06:23.760 --> 06:30.200] can go through a method used by big companies, purchase order that the [06:30.200 --> 06:36.280] company gives, then the recipient of the money gives the invoice, and then you [06:36.280 --> 06:41.640] pay. Problem, it's a burden, it's a burden organization you give, and it's a [06:41.640 --> 06:48.640] burden for the company giving the money. But that's the solution I use for [06:48.640 --> 06:55.480] bigger donations when I cannot risk of not getting the invoice. For individuals, [06:55.480 --> 07:04.920] they are all their ways to donate. If a company wants to give money to an [07:04.920 --> 07:13.000] individual, that's complicated. For the tax reasons, for the legal reasons, so we [07:13.000 --> 07:21.640] avoiding giving money directly to individuals. For cryptocurrencies, some [07:21.640 --> 07:33.960] projects accept cryptocurrencies. I leave you the question to ask your [07:33.960 --> 07:44.120] accountant, and then you need to be sure you can run away from the place. The [07:44.120 --> 07:49.320] reaction varies, but may be drastic when you talk to accountant about [07:49.320 --> 07:57.720] cryptocurrencies. So no, if you do not want to run into trouble, you do not run, [07:57.720 --> 08:05.640] you donate in cryptocurrencies when you are running a company. Now, typical [08:05.640 --> 08:09.720] open-source organizations supporting projects, what they offer for companies. [08:09.720 --> 08:17.080] Either yearly sponsoring, or even sponsoring. That is something that exists [08:17.080 --> 08:24.480] for most organizations. Typically, a sponsoring is from 1,000 to 25,000 [08:24.480 --> 08:31.960] euros depending on the level. Even sponsoring is between 500 to around [08:31.960 --> 08:41.880] 10,000 euros. Now, we compare that with what a small company can give. In a small [08:41.880 --> 08:47.200] company, I have an alternative. Either I give 1,000 euros to one project, [08:47.200 --> 08:58.120] eventually two, or I give 100 euros to way more projects. For people who live in [08:58.120 --> 09:04.240] open-source, we know that if I give to project X, someone will ask, but why you [09:04.240 --> 09:12.120] are not giving to project Y and Z, and some more, right? Because if you are [09:12.120 --> 09:19.040] going to one project, it's fair to give to all others. Opinions differ inside the [09:19.040 --> 09:28.400] company who is using which project in the products. Exactly. At the end, what [09:28.400 --> 09:36.880] happens is you want to give smaller amounts to more projects. And that is [09:36.880 --> 09:42.320] exactly not in line with what the organization supporting open source [09:42.320 --> 09:52.840] have as an offer. Our way of doing the donation is giving directly to [09:52.840 --> 10:00.880] organizations. So we establish the way of how to do the payment. So either they [10:00.880 --> 10:06.600] have an account that you can create and then donate, or you need to contact some [10:06.600 --> 10:13.960] email address and figure out the details. Things vary. And then when we have the [10:13.960 --> 10:21.160] methods set up, we have that organization now, a database, and every [10:21.160 --> 10:28.920] transaction later, it goes the same way and it works. There are other ways using [10:28.920 --> 10:36.280] aggregators, like GitHub Sponsors, Open Source Collective, or Linux Foundation [10:36.280 --> 10:42.280] crowdfunding. And there has been a talk about the subject by Wolfgang at the [10:42.280 --> 10:47.680] Open Source Summit Europe last year. He had a pretty different approach because [10:47.680 --> 10:54.480] that was from the approach of a big company with more internal difficulties [10:54.480 --> 10:59.160] of having the donations done than we have in small companies, but still his [10:59.160 --> 11:11.600] analysis of the ways you can donate is pretty interesting. Now, is it hard to [11:11.600 --> 11:19.800] donate to an open source project by a company? Financially, the amount of [11:19.800 --> 11:26.880] money, one person, if you compare it to different expenses you have in a company, [11:26.880 --> 11:36.280] accounting, rent, internet access, electricity of whatever you have, it will [11:36.280 --> 11:43.000] be in the small things that you have on the company bill. So it's not really [11:43.000 --> 11:50.520] that hard to do. What is a little bit more complicated is the organization. And [11:50.520 --> 11:57.640] what I found out is most complex is actually deciding to which project you [11:57.640 --> 12:06.800] want to give, even in a company when everyone agrees, we want to give. A lot [12:06.800 --> 12:12.800] of discussions and a decision-making on how to do that. And then important thing, [12:12.800 --> 12:17.000] collect and document the payment procedure if you're not going through an [12:17.000 --> 12:34.240] aggregator. Important thing. Now, you would ask why? Project work as they can. And when [12:34.240 --> 12:38.400] you are already doing open source, you can say that you are already contributing [12:38.400 --> 12:46.880] and there's a kind of donation you are already doing, right? I would say that [12:46.880 --> 12:51.880] this is an addition to the work you are doing because you cannot take [12:51.880 --> 12:57.600] a maintenance in every single project you are using in your product. That is just [12:57.600 --> 13:05.240] not possible. And this is the maintenance work, infrastructure, all those hard to [13:05.240 --> 13:13.160] sell us new features that need financing the most. In my opinion, that works [13:13.160 --> 13:17.480] easiest with the money because you can just pay someone spending their time on [13:17.480 --> 13:27.640] doing those tasks. And then, a subject related to the presentation before. [13:27.640 --> 13:34.760] Currently, quite many organizations I was involved with, they in reality [13:34.760 --> 13:42.280] depend on donation from a small number of big companies with a part of [13:42.280 --> 13:48.920] individual donations that they receive. So, if you can break that dependency and [13:48.920 --> 13:57.640] make sure that those projects have more stable and more diversified way of [13:57.640 --> 14:04.160] getting the income, that is going to improve the stability and at the end is [14:04.160 --> 14:12.520] going to improve the quality of the code we all depend on. So, are you ready to [14:12.520 --> 14:18.960] try it out with your company? Or do you have any questions, subjects for [14:18.960 --> 14:30.280] discussions? In the meantime, we try to fix the microphone and so take a bit of [14:30.280 --> 14:44.880] time to question them. Okay, there we go. What can open source projects do to make [14:44.880 --> 14:50.040] this easier? Like for example, something that I run a scientific open source [14:50.040 --> 14:53.960] project, we're looking at trying to incorporate as a non-profit because we [14:53.960 --> 14:56.760] think that will be more attractive and we're trying to figure out where to do [14:56.760 --> 15:00.440] that and deal with all of the international stuff and it's a whole thing. [15:00.440 --> 15:05.880] So, I guess, what do you see from the small business perspective as to what [15:05.880 --> 15:11.880] projects can do to make you're giving us money easier? [15:15.960 --> 15:21.120] Yeah, so hold on. Maybe we collect some questions first and then in between we [15:21.120 --> 15:26.520] can fix the mic issue. Would it be fine for you? So, that's why maybe we collect [15:26.520 --> 15:34.480] some questions or is it okay? Okay, the question the question is how the [15:34.480 --> 15:41.240] project how a project can make it easier. For me, it's very simple. Have a legal [15:41.240 --> 15:52.280] entity that can create invoices or any legal proof of payment for the [15:52.280 --> 16:01.840] amount and make this make it easy for a company to do that. So, make it easy in [16:01.840 --> 16:11.120] such a way that when you get a message that we want to give you 500 euros, we [16:11.120 --> 16:17.760] get a response rapidly that increase confidence that's going to work. [16:17.760 --> 16:31.360] And then you can, if you are ready to send an invoice just at the moment of [16:31.360 --> 16:39.120] payment, that helps. If you have a system that generates invoices, it's even [16:39.120 --> 16:45.280] better. You can use online invoice generation systems that exist. If you can [16:45.280 --> 16:50.440] use it, it's even easier for everyone. But it's a really, really simple fast [16:50.440 --> 16:58.000] reaction time and getting the invoice easily. If I have those two, I will be [16:58.000 --> 17:06.440] willing to donate again. Okay, so we have another question over here, two [17:06.440 --> 17:16.840] ones. So, mainly the perspective on us was by a company's perspective. And this [17:16.840 --> 17:20.960] topic has been discussed by the Node.js technical theory committee just [17:20.960 --> 17:26.840] recently as I'm part of that. And Node.js is a part of the OpenJS foundation [17:26.840 --> 17:31.960] and money is actually not an issue. That's not the main problem. What we need [17:31.960 --> 17:39.440] is actually people donating their time and effort into projects. And that is way [17:39.440 --> 17:45.360] more valuable as such. So, if a company, instead of investing money, because it's [17:45.360 --> 17:49.160] really difficult, even like for an organization, you know, you have to [17:49.160 --> 17:53.400] decide who's actually going to get that money. Do we pay someone? What is with the [17:53.400 --> 17:58.120] others who contributed? It's a really tough question to answer. If it's not a [17:58.120 --> 18:04.760] single contributor to this open source project, and therefore, just if you [18:04.760 --> 18:12.040] pay someone from your company to work on that project, that is mostly really, [18:12.040 --> 18:23.680] really valuable. Thank you. So, that was a pretty important subject when in a [18:23.680 --> 18:32.320] situation when the money is not really an issue, people are an issue. And my answer [18:32.320 --> 18:39.760] here will depend on the type of the development we are on. In my case, for [18:39.760 --> 18:48.400] most of the projects, we donate small amounts like 100 euros per year, 200 [18:48.400 --> 18:52.800] euros per year. That amount of money doesn't allow you to hire anyone to work [18:52.800 --> 19:00.520] on the project. What would be possible would be to donate to an organization [19:00.520 --> 19:06.960] that will hire that person, and have multiple companies donate to that person [19:06.960 --> 19:14.800] and then hire. Also, hiring someone for a small company, it's an important risk if [19:14.800 --> 19:22.000] you do not have funding. Hiring someone for me is more of an approach. Either you [19:22.000 --> 19:27.280] have a business model closely related with the project, if you are really doing [19:27.280 --> 19:32.840] money with that specific project, then it makes sense. Or if you are a company of [19:32.840 --> 19:39.640] like 50, then you can probably allow that. For small companies, I think it's a [19:39.640 --> 19:45.600] little bit more complicated, unfortunately. Also try to... [19:45.600 --> 19:52.120] We have another question over there. I'd like to highlight a service by a small [19:52.120 --> 19:56.720] NGO from Berlin. It's called the Center for Cultivation of Technology, which is [19:56.720 --> 20:03.000] like a back-end to open-source projects. They're registered non-profits in Berlin, [20:03.000 --> 20:09.040] and if you are a small open-source project which doesn't have a company [20:09.040 --> 20:14.680] somewhere or a legal name to it yourself, you can go there and say, [20:14.680 --> 20:19.960] hey, I'm an open-source project, and they could act as a trustee. They [20:19.960 --> 20:26.320] receive donations and they can hold that for your project, so companies can get [20:26.320 --> 20:32.560] invoices or checks that the money has been sent there, and the software [20:32.560 --> 20:37.520] devs don't have to care about all the financial stuff for that. There is [20:37.520 --> 20:41.720] a back-end to support open-source projects and to make invoicing more [20:41.720 --> 20:51.760] easier and at no cost. You want to respond to that? A small comment for that. Thank you [20:51.760 --> 20:56.840] for doing this, and if you could send me the test of the foundation, I would be [20:56.840 --> 21:03.320] interested in all initiatives that allow that aggregating payments for [21:03.320 --> 21:14.480] different projects. My question is, well, I thank you for mentioning fiscal [21:14.480 --> 21:17.440] sponsorship organizations, and I want to give a yes, software freedom [21:17.440 --> 21:20.400] conservancy is a fiscal sponsor organization as well as there are many [21:20.400 --> 21:26.400] others, and I know that several of us are very interested in making sure that the [21:26.400 --> 21:31.800] projects we accept and therefore take donations for are have great governance, [21:31.800 --> 21:36.360] and so there can be trust as far as making sure that funds they're donated [21:36.360 --> 21:42.240] or used for the project and are used wisely. How do you evaluate governance for [21:42.240 --> 21:48.720] these donations, or do you not because there's smaller donations? I think we [21:48.720 --> 21:54.440] are trying to test. It's working. Okay, the question was how we evaluate that the [21:54.440 --> 22:01.680] money is going to be well spent. I'm taking a shortcut. We are donating to the [22:01.680 --> 22:08.560] projects we know very well. So that's easy. We know the governance. We know how [22:08.560 --> 22:19.880] they work. So the check is easy. Donating to projects that we know less, I would [22:19.880 --> 22:25.720] definitely agree that getting to a project that is in some aggregator that [22:25.720 --> 22:35.800] has policies on the governments, that's an additional plus something point for [22:35.800 --> 22:41.200] this project to actually donate it. Then to a project that we just absolutely [22:41.200 --> 22:46.680] do not know how they work, what's going to happen, the answer to an email after a [22:46.680 --> 22:51.440] month, and things like that. That's definitely a bonus point for that [22:51.440 --> 22:57.440] project to getting a donation. Absolutely. Okay, so we have another question over [22:57.440 --> 23:10.320] here. So coming back to what you said earlier, like at least when you're a [23:10.320 --> 23:15.320] computer company, then you can definitely let someone work at least part [23:15.320 --> 23:19.520] time on open source. That would be something really valuable again. I [23:19.520 --> 23:24.880] encourage people in my company that are working to work on open source and we [23:24.880 --> 23:30.160] have dedicated time that they may invest into that. Even as a small [23:30.160 --> 23:37.280] company, I was able to work on open source because we used open source and we [23:37.280 --> 23:42.400] ran into bugs, for example, while developing things. Then I discussed [23:42.400 --> 23:47.360] that with the leadership at that point of time. Instead of having a workaround [23:47.360 --> 23:51.320] built into the application that we are currently building as a closed source, [23:51.320 --> 23:56.120] hey, why am I not going to fix that bug in that open source library that we are [23:56.120 --> 24:00.000] currently using, and that's what I did. [24:03.440 --> 24:10.840] You want to write? Yeah, very good. I think you have my mic. I have my mic. [24:10.840 --> 24:18.040] Sure. I completely agree. The money part for me is an addition to all the [24:18.040 --> 24:25.160] other open source work you do. We as an open source company, we propose to our [24:25.160 --> 24:31.480] customers to upstream the code. We tell them we can upstream the patches [24:31.480 --> 24:37.280] that you have, the fixes that you have. We can help you with working with [24:37.280 --> 24:45.280] the open source work for your project. The money part is an addition to that. [24:45.280 --> 24:53.360] If you are already open source citizen, that's already great. But what I [24:53.360 --> 25:01.280] found out is that quite many projects I'm involved in Yocto. I have a [25:01.280 --> 25:06.160] lot of experience in that. That's the maintenance part that requires time and [25:06.160 --> 25:13.520] convincing customers to have people working and maintain us. It's even a [25:13.520 --> 25:19.760] problem for the Linux kernel. Yeah, so it's a bigger problem and I think that [25:19.760 --> 25:26.400] without financing people separately from that, I'm not really going to happen. It [25:26.400 --> 25:30.360] already happened with different funding for different open source projects for [25:30.360 --> 25:36.720] the maintenance part. If you can go forward with that, that's going to [25:36.720 --> 26:01.720] help. Time's up. But we're happy to discuss with all of you in the corridors.