Gnucash Foundation

Christian Stimming stimming@tuhh.de
Wed, 11 Dec 2002 13:35:07 +0100


Linas Vepstas wrote:

> Ughh, after that other email exchange, I sure feel funny going on
> with this.  But no matter.


Oh well. *Please* go on with this and don't be too bothered with that 
stupid Karl guy.

Thanks for starting this idea in the first place.

>>>With e.g. cstim's help, could we set up a tip jar in Germany, for
>>>European donors?
>>>
>>If requested, I can open a specific bank account (EUR 4 monthly fee though). A 
>>German bank account then can receive money from inside Germany for virtually 
>>zero transaction fee.
> 
> OK, lets hold off on this for now.


Ok.

>> What is going to happen with that tip jar? 
> 
> As hinted in the earlier email, I suggest sending it out as a 
> reward/prize/gift to one or more "important contributors"  (I want
> to include translators and email-list-question-answer-ers as
> possible recipients, and not just developers).


Yes, that sounds good.

>>Who decides this?
> 
> I was envisioning an informal, semi-public, semi-private process of
> soliciting for nominations, 


Hm... I am wondering what you mean by this. Do you mean something like 
"sending proposals to you and/or gnucash-devel, you collect and count 
the proposed recipients, and present the resulting possible recipients"? 
Although I personally would be quite satisfied with this kind of 
decision process, I am a bit afraid that it doesn't scale at all.

I mean, I would definitely propose *you* as a recipient for the first 
$200 that come into the tip jar. But as soon as the amount to be 
distributed grows a little bit larger, I'm not really sure how a 
decision process works that gives all participants enough time to voice 
their opinions, in case someone feels that to be necessary. In some 
sense we just run again into the same problem that each 
mailing-list-managed project has: It isn't clear how a decision process 
starts or (more important) how it ends. Now this doesn't really matter 
if the discussion is about coding details, since really something 
important seldomly are at stake. But I'm afraid that without a more 
formal process wrt to money distribution some people might feel uneasy 
with it... and that's why I'm still asking for having a bit more 
formality here.

> and picking recipients by some rough
> consensus.  Of course, I was also envisioning that the kitty is
> small, under $500 or so.  If its significantly bigger than that,
> then, of course, the whole affair is much more serious, and we will
> need a more formal process.


Ok, if the amount is small anyway I would actually propose something 
like this: Let the tips be collected by whatever means you are able to 
set up. Then calculate a statement of that tip jar every two months (or 
three or one month as appropriate, but decided on beforehand). If the 
tip jar account of that period is anything lesser than or equal to $100, 
I'd propose that it is simply given to you (Linas), and the account 
starts again at zero. How to divide up amounts greater than that remains 
to be decided by the yet-to-announce process...

As for who's going to be able to vote on this: I think the guys with CVS 
access should definitely be involved, and maybe a few people more. Maybe 
you can set up another (closed?) mailing list 
(gnucash-funds/gnucash-tipjar/...) for the discussion of how to 
distribute tips?

> As I'm the one setting this up, I guess I have to ask you to trust me
> to do the right thing.  If you don't think you can grant this trust,
> now is the time to say so.  Offhand, I don't see a better way that
> doesn't involve considerable extra overhead, which isn't worth it if
> the number of donations are (embarassingly) low.


I definitely trust you to do the right thing, in the way you've proposed 
the tip jar idea so far. Please go on with this. Thanks a lot.


Christian