Who pays for all this?

[Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d]

I've been a member of the D community for about 13 years now, and I'm
impressed with how much has happened over that period of time with the
language and community. However, I wonder who pays for all of this?
I feel like a lot of the infrastructure is taken for granted, and
provided ad-hoc by members of the community and/or Walter Bright from
his non-D ventures.

Might it be time for a formation of a D Programming Language Foundation
to which people can donate and funds some of the hosting, and possibly
pay for some time of the various heavy contributors?

-Shammah

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

I've been a member of the D community for about 13 years now, and I'm impressed
with how much has happened over that period of time with the language and
community. However, I wonder who pays for all of this? I feel like a lot of
the infrastructure is taken for granted, and provided ad-hoc by members of the
community and/or Walter Bright from his non-D ventures.

Yes, lots of us contribute things that cost money. For example, David Held
recently donated 8 rack servers to power the autotester. Brad Roberts has
financed the rest of the autotester and its ongoing expenses. Vladimir is
hosting the D forums and keeps them running smoothly. Lots more have stepped up
as needed.

Might it be time for a formation of a D Programming Language Foundation to which
people can donate and funds some of the hosting, and possibly pay for some time
of the various heavy contributors?

We're not really limited by lack of funds, but more by lack of focussed effort.
If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably the best use would be to add bug
bounties for bugzilla issues that they find to be neglected. The bounties don't
really compensate at professional rates, but they do work as a nice "thanks" to
those who donate their valuable time.

[Etienne via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
We're not really limited by lack of funds, but more by lack of focussed
effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably the best use would
be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues that they find to be
neglected. The bounties don't really compensate at professional rates,
but they do work as a nice "thanks" to those who donate their valuable
time.

Programmers cost money, it would be nice to have a D Foundation where
companies can donate and maybe eventually use the funds to pay for
professional staffing rather than relying only on contributors. The D
foundation can eventually grow towards having engineers on the phone to
reassure some about development bottlenecks in the low-level software.
Examples would be Mozilla foundation or Wikimedia foundation but with an
Oracle or IBM type of service for support. It's an easily missed
requirement in corporate decisions for reliance on software.

[Sean Kelly via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Etienne via Digitalmars-d
Programmers cost money, it would be nice to have a D Foundation
where companies can donate and maybe eventually use the funds
to pay for professional staffing rather than relying only on
contributors. The D foundation can eventually grow towards
having engineers on the phone to reassure some about
development bottlenecks in the low-level software. Examples
would be Mozilla foundation or Wikimedia foundation but with an
Oracle or IBM type of service for support. It's an easily
missed requirement in corporate decisions for reliance on
software.

Boost consulting comes to mind as well. Though I honestly
couldn't say how practical this is for D today.

[Brad Anderson via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Sean Kelly via Digitalmars-d

Post by Etienne via Digitalmars-d
Programmers cost money, it would be nice to have a D
Foundation where companies can donate and maybe eventually use
the funds to pay for professional staffing rather than relying
only on contributors. The D foundation can eventually grow
towards having engineers on the phone to reassure some about
development bottlenecks in the low-level software. Examples
would be Mozilla foundation or Wikimedia foundation but with
an Oracle or IBM type of service for support. It's an easily
missed requirement in corporate decisions for reliance on
software.

Boost consulting comes to mind as well. Though I honestly
couldn't say how practical this is for D today.

Well, Boost Consulting is no more so, given D's much smaller user
base, I suspect it wouldn't be very sustainable for D either.

[Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
We're not really limited by lack of funds, but more by lack of focussed
effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably the best use
would be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues that they find to be
neglected. The bounties don't really compensate at professional rates,
but they do work as a nice "thanks" to those who donate their valuable
time.

I've placed a couple of anonymous bounties, but I personally think it's
a bad way to get directed focused effort. A democracy of people trying
to get what they individually want done through small donations?

There are many languages which have grown more quickly than D (despite
being less interesting) because they have a foundation where people can
donate, or some company, which provides for the core developers. I'm
not saying that having a non-profit will magically generate money, but
there are a few companies who use D out there who just might be willing
to donate non-trivial sums of money to further development if there was
a non-profit to see that the money was put to good use.

Just to name a few:

Python: https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
Node.JS: http://www.joyent.com/
Perl: http://www.perlfoundation.org
Linux Core Developers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
Ruby Core Developers: https://www.heroku.com (A subsidiary of Salesforce)

-S

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d
There are many languages which have grown more quickly than D (despite
being less interesting) because they have a foundation where people can
donate, or some company, which provides for the core developers. I'm
not saying that having a non-profit will magically generate money, but
there are a few companies who use D out there who just might be willing
to donate non-trivial sums of money to further development if there was
a non-profit to see that the money was put to good use.
Python: https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
Node.JS: http://www.joyent.com/
Perl: http://www.perlfoundation.org
Linux Core Developers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
Ruby Core Developers: https://www.heroku.com (A subsidiary of Salesforce)

C++ also has a foundation since 2012:
http://pocoproject.org/blog/?p=671. It paid for CppCon 2014, which was
very successful.

I believe a foundation would help D. Unfortunately, setting one up is
very laborious, and neither Walter nor I know anything about that - from
what I understand it takes a _lot_ of work. If anyone is able and
willing to embark on creating a foundation for D, that would be a great
help to the language and its community.


Andrei

[Edwin van Leeuwen via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 04:09:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu

Post by Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d
I believe a foundation would help D. Unfortunately, setting one
up is very laborious, and neither Walter nor I know anything
about that - from what I understand it takes a _lot_ of work.
If anyone is able and willing to embark on creating a
foundation for D, that would be a great help to the language
and its community.

An alternative is to join an umbrella organisation that has
experience setting up foundations for open source projects. To
name a couple:
Software Freedom Conservancy (Boost), Software in the Public
Interest, and the Outercurve Foundation. As far as I understand
it these organisations will help you with the paperwork, but you
have full autonomy outside of that.

See http://lwn.net/Articles/561336/ for some more
suggestions/ideas.

Edwin

[Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d]

On 06/10/14 09:12, Edwin van Leeuwen via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[
]

Post by Edwin van Leeuwen via Digitalmars-d
An alternative is to join an umbrella organisation that has
experience setting up foundations for open source projects. To name
a couple: Software Freedom Conservancy (Boost), Software in the
Public Interest, and the Outercurve Foundation. As far as I
understand it these organisations will help you with the paperwork,
but you have full autonomy outside of that.
See http://lwn.net/Articles/561336/ for some more
suggestions/ideas.

SCons used to have a USA-based foundation, but it lapsed. The various
opinions sought indicate that reapplying would be too costly and too
much of a burden. The current plan is to follow Buildbot and be a
foundation under the umbrella of Software Freedom Conservancy. Thus
this might be the best route for a D Foundation.

I am writing this from memory rather than consulting the various email
threads, so details lacking: there are some significant downsides to
the Software Freedom Conservancy route, but the Buildbot folk decided
it was worth it and this is a significant factor for SCons. I suspect
SCons will be a member as soon as a couple of legal issues are
resolved wrt cash and copyrights.

- --
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder t: [phone] voip:
sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road m: [phone] xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 04:09:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu

Post by Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d
I believe a foundation would help D. Unfortunately, setting one
up is very laborious, and neither Walter nor I know anything
about that - from what I understand it takes a _lot_ of work.

By "foundation", do you mean "non-profit organization"? Would it
be any simpler as far as you are concerned to set up an
organization without initially worrying about its non-profit
status?

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d
I believe a foundation would help D. Unfortunately, setting one up is
very laborious, and neither Walter nor I know anything about that -
from what I understand it takes a _lot_ of work.

By "foundation", do you mean "non-profit organization"? Would it be any
simpler as far as you are concerned to set up an organization without
initially worrying about its non-profit status?

I don't know. -- Andrei

[Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d]

On 06/10/14 12:19, Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[
]

Post by Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d
By "foundation", do you mean "non-profit organization"? Would it
be any simpler as far as you are concerned to set up an
organization without initially worrying about its non-profit
status?

Indeed D Foundation would be a non-profit company.

The non-profit status is, I believe, somewhat important since without
it the organization is required to be driven by increasing shareholder
value, this is not entirely consistent with being holder of IP for a
FOSS project and handling donations from other organization (profit,
non-profit, or other). The legal issues are minor compared to the
marketing ones: donors want to know that their donations are going to
be used to move the projects forward not profit.

Obviously though creating a company and then going for non-profit
status is a resonable strategy. But the role as custodian of the
project should only be taken on once the non-profit status is in place.
- --
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder t: [phone] voip:
sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road m: [phone] xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder

[Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d
There are many languages which have grown more quickly than D (despite
being less interesting) because they have a foundation where people can
donate, or some company, which provides for the core developers. I'm
not saying that having a non-profit will magically generate money, but
there are a few companies who use D out there who just might be willing
to donate non-trivial sums of money to further development if there was
a non-profit to see that the money was put to good use.
Python: https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
Node.JS: http://www.joyent.com/
Perl: http://www.perlfoundation.org
Linux Core Developers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
Ruby Core Developers: https://www.heroku.com (A subsidiary of Salesforce)

http://pocoproject.org/blog/?p=671. It paid for CppCon 2014, which was
very successful.
I believe a foundation would help D. Unfortunately, setting one up is
very laborious, and neither Walter nor I know anything about that -
from what I understand it takes a _lot_ of work. If anyone is able and
willing to embark on creating a foundation for D, that would be a great
help to the language and its community.
Andrei

I'm willing to put in the work if Walter is on board also. I don't
want to do all that work to end up being a DPL Foundation in name only.

-Shammah

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

I'm willing to put in the work if Walter is on board also. I don't want
to do all that work to end up being a DPL Foundation in name only.

That's very generous of you, thanks! We'll discuss this. From what I
read at http://lwn.net/Articles/561336/, my understanding is that we'll
need significant ongoing expenses in additional to the initial setup
expenditure of time and money. Anyone who knows more about this please
chime in. -- Andrei

[Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d

I'm willing to put in the work if Walter is on board also. I don't want
to do all that work to end up being a DPL Foundation in name only.

That's very generous of you, thanks! We'll discuss this. From what I
read at http://lwn.net/Articles/561336/, my understanding is that we'll
need significant ongoing expenses in additional to the initial setup
expenditure of time and money. Anyone who knows more about this please
chime in. -- Andrei

I'll start doing some research. To be forward, I am 100% ignorant of
the process at the moment as well.

-S.

[Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d]

On 06/10/14 03:28, Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[
]

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d
I've placed a couple of anonymous bounties, but I personally think
it's a bad way to get directed focused effort. A democracy of
people trying to get what they individually want done through small
donations?
[
]

Conversely, Groovy has become a major language in the Java-verse
without a foundation. Historically it grew simply as a community FOSS
project but then as the major "applications" (Grails and Gradle being
the two main ones currently, but there are others), it became clear
that consulting companies could be profitable because there was
traction in the market. G2One was formed which was very quickly bought
by SpringSource which was bought by VMWare which got spawned off as
part of Pivotal. Pivotal do not own Groovy (though they do imply they
own Grails, which is fine) but they do fund three full-time employees
on the Groovy project. Also Gradleware was formed to consult about
Gradle use and managed to get Maven replaced by Gradle as the primary
build tool for Android (and also there was a shift from Eclipse to
IntelliJ IDEA as the basis of the primary IDE). Add to this the Spock
test framework which is rapidly gaining traction over TestNG and
JUnit4, and Groovy is actually in a very good position even without a
foundation.

Conversely to that a foundation is nonetheless being considered simply
as an organization to own the "product" (as PSF owns Python). However,
the USA is looking increasingly the place *NOT* to set up a
foundation. It is allright for existing ones, such as Python, but the
hurdles to create new ones are becoming astronomical.

UK, France and Germany are currently being investigated as places to
set up a "non profit". For the UK, the issue is for a company to
become a registered charity so as to be able to handle funds without
incurring corporation tax. There are other alternatives in the UK and
it is currently being checked whether one of these is a good route to
a full on charitable status company. The issue is whether conversion
of the originating organization to a company with charitable status
can be achieved as a single action. Sadly for us just now lawyers
opinions cost money

- --
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder t: [phone] voip:
sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road m: [phone] xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 02:24:45 UTC, Shammah Chancellor

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
We're not really limited by lack of funds, but more by lack of
focussed effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably
the best use would be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues
that they find to be neglected. The bounties don't really
compensate at professional rates, but they do work as a nice
"thanks" to those who donate their valuable time.

I've placed a couple of anonymous bounties, but I personally
think it's a bad way to get directed focused effort. A
democracy of people trying to get what they individually want
done through small donations?

Yes, that is the way democracy works, what is the problem? The
only benefit from a foundation is that they can make decisions
for the community that individual donors may not have the
information to make, including a co-BFDL like Andrei with his
specific expertise. Well, if you want to follow Andrei, just add
on to each of his bountysource bounties, and if you want to
follow the community, just randomly add to existing D
bountysource bounties or to all of them. It would be nice if the
wiki had links to the D bountysource projects though:

https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/383571-d-programming-language
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/283332-ldc
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/455080-gdc

I notice that the top issue is at $1k now, not bad.

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d
There are many languages which have grown more quickly than D
(despite being less interesting) because they have a foundation
where people can donate, or some company, which provides for
the core developers. I'm not saying that having a non-profit
will magically generate money, but there are a few companies
who use D out there who just might be willing to donate
non-trivial sums of money to further development if there was a
non-profit to see that the money was put to good use.
Python: https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
Node.JS: http://www.joyent.com/
Perl: http://www.perlfoundation.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
Ruby Core Developers: https://www.heroku.com (A subsidiary of
Salesforce)

I agree with you that a company would help, though I don't see
much gain from a non-profit, especially if it's as much work to
set up as Andrei says. If you want your money "put to good use,"
I don't see how your bounties on bountysource would be abused.
Those bounties or individually contacting Andrei or Iain about
funding the project expenses they've detailed strikes me as a far
more direct way to contribute to the community than throwing
money at a foundation and forgetting about it. Yes, you won't
get to deduct tax from your contribution, but that's the least of
our concerns.

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d
Might it be time for a formation of a D Programming Language
Foundation to which
people can donate and funds some of the hosting, and possibly pay for some time
of the various heavy contributors?

We're not really limited by lack of funds,

whaaa

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
but more by lack of focussed
effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably the best use would
be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues that they find to be
neglected. The bounties don't really compensate at professional rates,
but they do work as a nice "thanks" to those who donate their valuable
time.

A $150 monthly contribution would cover our hosting costs. $1000 per
month would cover the yearly basic costs for DConf. $500 more per month
would add A/V for the conference. We've had DConf partially sponsored,
but it's good to have autonomy. Some more couple thousands would buy us
things like a web designer. $2000 or more per month would possibly get
us a person to put on things that are urgent and important.

We're very much limited by the lack of funds.


Andrei

[Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d]

On 6 Oct 2014 05:05, "Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d" <

Post by Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d

Post by Shammah Chancellor via Digitalmars-d
Might it be time for a formation of a D Programming Language
Foundation to which
people can donate and funds some of the hosting, and possibly pay for some time
of the various heavy contributors?

We're not really limited by lack of funds,

whaaa

Post by Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
but more by lack of focussed
effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably the best use would
be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues that they find to be
neglected. The bounties don't really compensate at professional rates,
but they do work as a nice "thanks" to those who donate their valuable
time.

A $150 monthly contribution would cover our hosting costs.

Around $18 monthly would cover the cost of hosting costs for everything on
gdcproject.org.

Saying that, I have been slowly collecting donations of hardware and having
a location to host the kit to be set-up as build/port boxes would be nice.
Currently have a PPC server, an ARM box, and an Epiphany board. In the next
months expecting a MIPS board and an IA-64 server.

Iain
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