The financial contribution issue

[BenoitGrégoire]

Hello everyone,

Thanks to the the idea of the developer get-together which seems to have wide 
support, we finally agreed on the tip jar idea, I believe we now have a 
general consensus on financial donations to the project.  I tried to turn it 
into a coherent policy:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Policy on financial donations to the GnuCash project.

Recently many people have inquired about donating financially to the GnuCash 
project.  The GnuCash project believes that at this point in it's development 
the following policy will ensure financial donations will do the most good to 
the project.  The general idea is that:
1)Small donation go to a tip jar to pay for unavoidable expenses of the 
project, and for projects agreed upon by consensus.
2)Sizeable donations go to specific developers to help fullfill feature 
requests.
3)Thanking developers for past work will not be done through the project. 

Details and justifications:

1) Small donations
Small contributions will go towards a common fund.  Money from that fund will 
go towards either:
*Projects of general interest to most developers, and from which most 
developer can benefit.   The first such project will be paying for transport 
to make a sizeable developer meeting to be help in Boston possible.  
*Certain types of expenses incurred by a contributor, Only unavoidable 
expenses such as domain name renewals will be considered.
-Money from that fund will never go towards paying or thanking a developper 
for past work.

2) Sizeable donations (Over 500$ US)
The donator will be strongly encouraged to send his donation to a specific 
developer recommended by the project for implementing (or at least speeding 
implementation) of a specific feature request. Paying for future work is fair 
to all developers old and new, and is a good example to other financial 
backers. 
-Considering this is a volunteer effort, the developer selected is not 
normally expected to commit to a firm deliverable except if the donator's 
contribution is very significant (several thousand USD) or the feature to be 
implemented is very simple to implement,
-The donator will be pointed to the most logical person to fullfill the 
feature request (usually the developper currently working on that section of 
the code).  If there is more than one logical person, the one who never had 
such an opportunity would be favored.
-If the donator has no specific feature request, the money will go to the tip 
jar.

3) Donations with the purpose of thanking contributors for past efforts
The Gnucash project is a volunteer effort, and as such isn't in the business 
of evaluating the relative worth of the past contribution of his volunteers.  
Doing so would be destructive to the project.
-While a contributor is obviously free to give money to a developer to thank 
him for past work (or any other reason for that matter), he is expected to do 
so privately.
-When asked, the project will do his best to provide the name and email of the 
people who made significant contribution to specific features.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feel free to comment.  Among other thing, someone good with marketing should 
chime in.  The style may be a little heavy.  Once we iron out the details, 
the idea is to put this on a "Contributing to GnuCash financially" web page, 
along with whatever means we will setup to actually contribute.

NOTE TO CORE DEVELOPERS:
Unless one of you veto point 1) or 2) before tomorrow night, I'll start 
directing the people who offered money according to those two ideas.

We would need a paypal tip jar very soon.  Linas can you set one quickly with 
a @gnucash,org address?

Good night,
-- 
Benoit Grégoire
http://step.polymtl.ca/~bock/