Clarify values

[vladh]

We should clarify:

1. What principles the board commits to following when deciding which Open Source projects will receive funding, or when creating the tools/mechanisms for deciding this.
2. What principles the board will stick to in running the Endowment as an organisation.

[vladh]

I'll give an example of how we can clarify this language using the changes I made for #31.

I changed this text:

To this:

The reasoning for changing “Inclusive and Diverse Governance” is:

• I don't think we can reasonably claim to be “inclusive” if what we mean by “community” is “people who can donate $1k+”.
• It's not clear how “diverse” our community of donors really is. Eg diverse along which characteristics? We can't say that they're diverse because there's a lot of them.
• The board is not really sharing “governance” if the board ultimately decides. That's consultation, not shared governance.

Basically, I agree that “Inclusive and Diverse Governance” sounds nice, but I don't think we can say that if we're not actually doing it, especially if it will read as a commitment.

So we can just say “Community Consultation”, and explain that we will:

1. Give our community of donors the ability to shape decisions.
2. Consult with the Open Source community.

[vinogradovkonst]

Please change it back to Inclusive & Diverse Governance - it is a section about principles, not methods. Community Consultation is one of many methods by which we implement this principle. And we clearly commit to follow this principle.

Inclusive

1. Essentially, all adults working in the tech industry have $1,000. They decide how much to donate to OSS, and it is totally fine if they donate less than $1,000 — people have different priorities and limited resources.
2. Everybody can become our member and thus be included in the governance. Unlike in some other nonprofit foundations, OSE members have legally defined rights - they are part of the organization, not a marketing term.
3. We welcome all donors, regardless of their background, identity, or abilities. Tech industry workers have equal access to the opportunity to become a member. However, it is a matter of personal choice if they exercise this opportunity.
4. We are making the foundation repo public soon and already have a public model repo. Everyone can raise issues and comment there, even without being a donor. Board members are very accessible, and most members are as well.
5. To succeed in the long term, OSE governance must be based on people with skin in the game - members. Board directors can only be "pulled" from the members' group. Members also have a right to "push" their own board directors from the group. Members are included in strategic discussions - like the first community call we had regarding the model.
6. It would be irresponsible to have people who can't personally donate $1,000 to the cause or people outside of the tech industry managing a multi-million-dollar community fund focused on solving a pretty niche industry problem. Otherwise, the endowment ends up being as efficient as a typical government! 🙂

Diverse

1. We have a very diverse group of donors from about 15 countries, with many outside the US and Europe. They come from all kinds of backgrounds, including tech founders with billion-dollar exits, software developers, and nonprofit workers.
2. Our inclusive approach means this community will keep becoming more diverse. Everyone is welcome, even if not everyone decides to join — and that's perfectly fine.
3. We target diversity in areas that can help solve the OSE's target global problem more effectively. For example, having donors who are developers from California, Germany, and India is very helpful. In other dimensions, OSE roughly represents the tech community it is part of.

[vinogradovkonst]

In the future, we could add an FAQ section "Principles" with 6 questions, where we clarify why and how specifically we follow these principles, based on this discussion. But we should not overload people with details on the homepage—donors are mostly interested in other topics. These questions are not frequently asked.

The board commits to following these principles. Its key "tools" are the members' club and advisors, which help to iteratively improve the funding model and other important OSE aspects. It is a very early stage, and we need to be flexible to try various approaches and end up having a few really good working ones—then they can be fixed in governance docs.

While principles might seem abstract, they are clearly "falsifiable" and meet Popper's criterion. One can easily come up with hypothetical cases where the board does not follow these principles. Some principles are even formulated like "this, but not that". It is easy to test if the board is not doing "that", and that's clear accountability.

[vladh]

Sounds like you've made up your mind, so I've reverted the changes you referred to (245f1ab).

I'll leave this issue open for potential further discussion on values.

[vinogradovkonst]

I am happy to continue explaining the thinking that led to these principles and am very open to debating them and their implementation. However, it should be done in the context of how specifically such practices help OSE fulfill its mission in the most efficient way.

As an org, we are not pursuing global, neutral, diversity, etc., for their own sake — we follow these principles because we believe they lead to designs that help OSE succeed in achieving its long-term goal. And they should be interpreted in the context of this pragmatic goal, not as abstract notions.

Otherwise, a purist can always find a counterargument — for instance, why do we dare to claim to be "global" but won't fund, let's say, OSS maintainers in North Korea? Well, we made an obvious design choice to comply with U.S. laws because it helps to better achieve OSE's goal. So such countries are excluded from our context-specific "global" definition.

[vinogradovkonst]

One more point about affordability, which I don't think we discussed. Our threshold for membership is $1000/year, which is $83/month – it does not look like much in this format, does it?

Especially given that the global average salary of a software engineer is $5,906/month, so the OSE membership would require donating ~1.4% of gross income. This is fully in line with the 1-2% of income that an average U.S. individual donates every year, and we are targeting more experienced engineers, not the average ones.

[jring-o]

If the question is what looks better on a page, I like $1000/mo. I view this donation as a one time activity and not a monthly subscription (there are no ongoing benefits that would warrant the month-to-month view).

Are you asking that, or whether or not the $1000/mo is the right price for membership?

[vinogradovkonst]

We require $1000/year for the membership. My point that it is affordable for an average software engineer. No need to increase :)