[Discussion][BYLAW] Changes to the funding bylaw

[Korvin Szanto]

Hi All,

We've run into some trouble with our current funding bylaw:

1. Tidelift has been purchased and is now pushing their new parent company's products more so than focusing on the original goal of raising funds for open source projects
2. We never actually were able to get Tidelift integrated into OpenCollective so we still have no funding and still are putting our Secretaries in a position where they have to pay for these things out of pocket.

In order to get around these issues and improve on our funding structure, I've put together a pull request[1] that would do the following:

1. Removes Tidelift entirely and replaces it with direct contributions to OpenCollective, with provisions that answer to my original concerns around conflict of interest and raising funds from individuals

2. Allow for repaying Secretaries that so kindly have been paying out of pocket to sustain our mission

3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag

4. Clarifies when, how, how much, and to whom we disburse overfunding as well as codifying clearly what overfunding means

These are all just ideas so please feel free to weigh in on alternative options or other improvements we can make.

[1]: https://github.com/php-fig/fig-standards/pull/1328

Best,
Korvin

[Larry Garfield]

On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:
> Hi All,
> We've run into some trouble with our current funding bylaw:
>
> 1. Tidelift has been purchased and is now pushing their new parent
> company's products more so than focusing on the original goal of
> raising funds for open source projects
> 2. We never actually were able to get Tidelift integrated into
> OpenCollective so we still have no funding and still are putting our
> Secretaries in a position where they have to pay for these things out
> of pocket.
>
> In order to get around these issues and improve on our funding
> structure, I've put together a pull request[1] that would do the
> following:
>
> 1. Removes Tidelift entirely and replaces it with direct contributions
> to OpenCollective, with provisions that answer to my original concerns
> around conflict of interest and raising funds from individuals
> 2. Allow for repaying Secretaries that so kindly have been paying out
> of pocket to sustain our mission

> 4. Clarifies when, how, how much, and to whom we disburse overfunding
> as well as codifying clearly what overfunding means

These three seem entirely reasonable.

> 3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a
> print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to
> contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I
> would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag

This is an interesting idea. I don't know how successful it would be, or what we'd use any such revenue for, but I'm open to discussing it. However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote.

--Larry Garfield

[Korvin Szanto]

I tried to very clearly define revenue disbursement in my changes, all funds regardless of source are collected into opencollective, and any funding beyond 3 years of expenses is disbursed to the approved recipients in the approved percentages yearly starting with 100% going to PHP Foundation. We don't need or want success particularly, we just want to grant individuals the ability to easily support us in a way that's beneficial to both parties while allowing the Secretaries to do it on their own time as they see fit, or to not do it at all. Also I want a PHP-FIG romper for conferences and this could make that dream come true.

> However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote.

I disagree on the separate vote concern. As I understand it our expenses are coming due this week and so we have no way to get these changes in place before those have to be paid and so there's effectively no difference whether this is fast-tracked or takes 6 months.

Thanks for the quick response!

Korvin

 

--Larry Garfield

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[Ken Guest]

I think all of this is very reasonable. including the swag shop which I would definitely support one way or the next. not so sure it needs a separate discussion tbh.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/php-fig/CANeXGWXS3XmyAbDC3Hzr1JHXvQXHPHXCrpzN5Y0Ya%2BEfu2kV6w%40mail.gmail.com.

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[Larry Garfield]

On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, at 2:40 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:

>> > 3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a
>> > print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to
>> > contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I
>> > would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag
>>
>> This is an interesting idea. I don't know how successful it would be, or what we'd use any such revenue for, but I'm open to discussing it.
>
> I tried to very clearly define revenue disbursement in my changes, all
> funds regardless of source are collected into opencollective, and any
> funding beyond 3 years of expenses is disbursed to the approved
> recipients in the approved percentages yearly starting with 100% going
> to PHP Foundation. We don't need or want success particularly, we just
> want to grant individuals the ability to easily support us in a way
> that's beneficial to both parties while allowing the Secretaries to do
> it on their own time as they see fit, or to not do it at all. Also I
> want a PHP-FIG romper for conferences and this could make that dream
> come true.
>
>> However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote.
>
> I disagree on the separate vote concern. As I understand it our
> expenses are coming due this week and so we have no way to get these
> changes in place before those have to be paid and so there's
> effectively no difference whether this is fast-tracked or takes 6
> months.

To be clear, I'm quite friendly to the idea of official PSR-8 shirts. :-) But this is expanding our revenue streams to another venue we've never considered before. That's a very different matter from "oops, our fiscal agent sold out so we need to change the paperwork."

It's not a question of timeline, it's a separation of concerns question. Like, there's a discussion of whether we want to instruct the Secretaries to do so, or if they need CC approval to pick a vendor, if there's kinds of swag we especially want/don't want, and so on. That question should be totally distinct from the s/Tidelift/OpenCollective/ question, which should be largely perfunctory.

--Larry Garfield

[Andreas Heigl]

Hey all.

Am 09.06.25 um 23:30 schrieb Larry Garfield:

> On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, at 2:40 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:
>

[snip]

>
> To be clear, I'm quite friendly to the idea of official PSR-8 shirts. :-)

I have no issue in moving
https://my-store-1f58a8.creator-spring.com/listing/new-implements-psr-8?product=2&variation=566
over to some FIG store...

The number of shirts sold in the last few years was ... true, without
much promotion ... manageable...

Though... A PSR-8 mug ... 🤔

Cheers

Andreas

PS: Earnings from that store so far went to OSMI! Didn't make a cent
from it!
--
,,,
(o o)
+---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+
| Andreas Heigl |
| mailto:and...@heigl.org N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |
| https://andreas.heigl.org |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
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+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Vincent de Lau]

On Monday, June 9, 2025 at 9:21:33 PM UTC+2 Larry Garfield wrote:

On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:

<snip>

> 1. Removes Tidelift entirely and replaces it with direct contributions
> to OpenCollective, with provisions that answer to my original concerns
> around conflict of interest and raising funds from individuals
> 2. Allow for repaying Secretaries that so kindly have been paying out
> of pocket to sustain our mission
> 4. Clarifies when, how, how much, and to whom we disburse overfunding
> as well as codifying clearly what overfunding means

These three seem entirely reasonable. 

+1

I'm a bit surprised that repaying out-of-pocket expenses would not be allowed already. It might be a bit of a too strict interpretation of the current bylaws.

 

> 3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a
> print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to
> contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I
> would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag

This is an interesting idea. I don't know how successful it would be, or what we'd use any such revenue for, but I'm open to discussing it. However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote. 

I'm wondering if the effort is worth the hassle. Instead of doing this ourselves, maybe we should allow the promoting others who raise funds for PHP-FIG. For instance, we could point people to Andreas' store and have him donate the money via OpenCollective.

The biggest challenge at the moment, IMHO,  is not having a way to receive funds. I think that opening up the OpenCollective page for donations will help solve our direct financial needs quickly. I believe there are enough people here on the list that would gladly donate a couple of dollar. For instance, I would consider changing my standing donation to the PHP Foundation over to the FIG, knowing that any excess would end up there anyway.

--

Regards,

Vincent

[Korvin Szanto]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 4:43 AM Vincent de Lau <vin...@delau.nl> wrote:

On Monday, June 9, 2025 at 9:21:33 PM UTC+2 Larry Garfield wrote:

On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:
<snip>
> 1. Removes Tidelift entirely and replaces it with direct contributions
> to OpenCollective, with provisions that answer to my original concerns
> around conflict of interest and raising funds from individuals
> 2. Allow for repaying Secretaries that so kindly have been paying out
> of pocket to sustain our mission
> 4. Clarifies when, how, how much, and to whom we disburse overfunding
> as well as codifying clearly what overfunding means

These three seem entirely reasonable. 

+1

> I'm a bit surprised that repaying out-of-pocket expenses would not be allowed already. It might be a bit of a too strict interpretation of the current bylaws.

The bylaw is currently quite clear in my mind:

- PHP-FIG SHALL NOT pay individual contributors to PHP-FIG standards or other personnel, like Core Committee members, Secretaries, Project Representatives or working groups.

 and I don't think it's wise to start loosely interpreting things when it comes to money, it's easy enough to amend the bylaw to handle the case clearly.

 

> 3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a
> print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to
> contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I
> would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag

This is an interesting idea. I don't know how successful it would be, or what we'd use any such revenue for, but I'm open to discussing it. However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote. 

 

> I'm wondering if the effort is worth the hassle.

This merch store is not a mandate as written, it's up to the Secretaries to decide if it's worth the hassle for them given that they'd be the ones on the hook to do the work. 

> Instead of doing this ourselves, maybe we should allow the promoting others who raise funds for PHP-FIG. For instance, we could point people to Andreas' store and have him donate the money via OpenCollective.

Allowing others to use and sell our logo in swag introduces conflicts of interest, licensing, and oversight issues that I'd prefer we avoid.

> The biggest challenge at the moment, IMHO,  is not having a way to receive funds. I think that opening up the OpenCollective page for donations will help solve our direct financial needs quickly. I believe there are enough people here on the list that would gladly donate a couple of dollar. For instance, I would consider changing my standing donation to the PHP Foundation over to the FIG, knowing that any excess would end up there anyway.

Like I mentioned above, we can't expedite this process fast enough to get ahead of the expenses since they were due last week to my knowledge. Given that we'll certainly reach our funding goal immediately once we open it up, and that we haven't been able to accept money at all up until this point, I'd prefer not expediting the process without a clear reason to do so. 

 

--

Regards,

Vincent

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Best,

Korvin 

[Vincent de Lau]

On Monday, June 16, 2025 at 7:59:31 PM UTC+2 Korvin Szanto wrote:

On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 4:43 AM Vincent de Lau <vin...@delau.nl> wrote:

> I'm a bit surprised that repaying out-of-pocket expenses would not be allowed already. It might be a bit of a too strict interpretation of the current bylaws.

The bylaw is currently quite clear in my mind:

- PHP-FIG SHALL NOT pay individual contributors to PHP-FIG standards or other personnel, like Core Committee members, Secretaries, Project Representatives or working groups.

 and I don't think it's wise to start loosely interpreting things when it comes to money, it's easy enough to amend the bylaw to handle the case clearly.

Apparently, this needs clarification and I agree that we should be cautious. In my interpretation, reimbursing someone for payments they did on behalf of the FIG is not the same as paying someone. The money is not intended for the individual, the money is ultimately spend directly to the benefit of the FIG. I would support a bylaw change that makes that explicit.

I would also support an additional change or decision to retroactively reimburse expenses made on behalf of the FIG since the last funding bylaw change. These expenses have been approved by the CC, but for whatever reason we still relied on the personal wallets of our secretaries.

 

> 3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a
> print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to
> contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I
> would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag

This is an interesting idea. I don't know how successful it would be, or what we'd use any such revenue for, but I'm open to discussing it. However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote. 

 

> I'm wondering if the effort is worth the hassle.

This merch store is not a mandate as written, it's up to the Secretaries to decide if it's worth the hassle for them given that they'd be the ones on the hook to do the work. 

> Instead of doing this ourselves, maybe we should allow the promoting others who raise funds for PHP-FIG. For instance, we could point people to Andreas' store and have him donate the money via OpenCollective.

Allowing others to use and sell our logo in swag introduces conflicts of interest, licensing, and oversight issues that I'd prefer we avoid.

Fair enough. I would only guard that selling swag is considered the only way to solve this funding issue, while there might be simpler solutions that require lower effort.

> The biggest challenge at the moment, IMHO,  is not having a way to receive funds. I think that opening up the OpenCollective page for donations will help solve our direct financial needs quickly. I believe there are enough people here on the list that would gladly donate a couple of dollar. For instance, I would consider changing my standing donation to the PHP Foundation over to the FIG, knowing that any excess would end up there anyway.

Like I mentioned above, we can't expedite this process fast enough to get ahead of the expenses since they were due last week to my knowledge. Given that we'll certainly reach our funding goal immediately once we open it up, and that we haven't been able to accept money at all up until this point, I'd prefer not expediting the process without a clear reason to do so. 

I agree this should not be rushed, but we should also strike the iron while its hot. These kind of discussions have a tendency to fade out of everyone's attention, only to be rekindled too late for the next cycle.

Regards,

Vincent

[Navarr Barnier]

On Monday, June 23, 2025 at 7:18:13 AM UTC-4 Vincent de Lau wrote:

Fair enough. I would only guard that selling swag is considered the only way to solve this funding issue, while there might be simpler solutions that require lower effort.

I'm in full agreement with Vincent, and to underline this particular point - this is exactly what happened the last time our domain needed to be renewed - we started this conversation and it fizzled.  We all need to be mindful to work out the details so that we can hopefully resolve this before we return to this situation.

I've also requested that while we're updating this we perhaps add the potential forecasted inflation cost increase (10% YOY) into the financial reserves calculation before it is considered overfunded, but would still approve without it, of course.

[Korvin Szanto]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2025 at 4:18 AM Vincent de Lau <vin...@delau.nl> wrote:

On Monday, June 16, 2025 at 7:59:31 PM UTC+2 Korvin Szanto wrote:

On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 4:43 AM Vincent de Lau <vin...@delau.nl> wrote:

> I'm a bit surprised that repaying out-of-pocket expenses would not be allowed already. It might be a bit of a too strict interpretation of the current bylaws.

The bylaw is currently quite clear in my mind:

- PHP-FIG SHALL NOT pay individual contributors to PHP-FIG standards or other personnel, like Core Committee members, Secretaries, Project Representatives or working groups.

 and I don't think it's wise to start loosely interpreting things when it comes to money, it's easy enough to amend the bylaw to handle the case clearly.

Apparently, this needs clarification and I agree that we should be cautious. In my interpretation, reimbursing someone for payments they did on behalf of the FIG is not the same as paying someone. The money is not intended for the individual, the money is ultimately spend directly to the benefit of the FIG. I would support a bylaw change that makes that explicit.

I would also support an additional change or decision to retroactively reimburse expenses made on behalf of the FIG since the last funding bylaw change. These expenses have been approved by the CC, but for whatever reason we still relied on the personal wallets of our secretaries.

I believe the change allows for this as it sits. I'd potentially accept a suggestion that adds clarification if you think it's needed.

 

 

> 3. Grants the ability for Secretaries to create and maintain a
> print-on-demand swag shop if they so choose to allow individuals to
> contribute while spreading the PHP-FIG mission in their communities. I
> would definitely be in the market for PHP-FIG swag

This is an interesting idea. I don't know how successful it would be, or what we'd use any such revenue for, but I'm open to discussing it. However, this is a much larger question than just cleaning up the Tidelift situation so it should be kept to a separate discussion and separate vote. 

 

> I'm wondering if the effort is worth the hassle.

This merch store is not a mandate as written, it's up to the Secretaries to decide if it's worth the hassle for them given that they'd be the ones on the hook to do the work. 

> Instead of doing this ourselves, maybe we should allow the promoting others who raise funds for PHP-FIG. For instance, we could point people to Andreas' store and have him donate the money via OpenCollective.

Allowing others to use and sell our logo in swag introduces conflicts of interest, licensing, and oversight issues that I'd prefer we avoid.

Fair enough. I would only guard that selling swag is considered the only way to solve this funding issue, while there might be simpler solutions that require lower effort.

I hear your argument that, in this proposed change, gathering opencollective funding is contingent on this idea that we could sell swag, but I would point out that the bar is not "selling swag", we'd simply be _granting permission_ for the secretaries to sell swag if they ever choose to do so in the future. They may never sell swag, or perhaps setting up a swag shop could be something that a potential secretary runs on in the future.

> The biggest challenge at the moment, IMHO,  is not having a way to receive funds. I think that opening up the OpenCollective page for donations will help solve our direct financial needs quickly. I believe there are enough people here on the list that would gladly donate a couple of dollar. For instance, I would consider changing my standing donation to the PHP Foundation over to the FIG, knowing that any excess would end up there anyway.

Like I mentioned above, we can't expedite this process fast enough to get ahead of the expenses since they were due last week to my knowledge. Given that we'll certainly reach our funding goal immediately once we open it up, and that we haven't been able to accept money at all up until this point, I'd prefer not expediting the process without a clear reason to do so. 

I agree this should not be rushed, but we should also strike the iron while its hot. These kind of discussions have a tendency to fade out of everyone's attention, only to be rekindled too late for the next cycle.

By this logic, stripping things out of this change would cause those things to fade out of everyone's attention. I would offer the best way to strike while hot would be to discuss the substance of the change, or call a vote if there's nothing more to discuss.

Regards,

Vincent

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Thanks,

Korvin 

[Larry Garfield]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2025, at 12:03 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:

>>> > The biggest challenge at the moment, IMHO, is not having a way to receive funds. I think that opening up the OpenCollective page for donations will help solve our direct financial needs quickly. I believe there are enough people here on the list that would gladly donate a couple of dollar. For instance, I would consider changing my standing donation to the PHP Foundation over to the FIG, knowing that any excess would end up there anyway.
>>>
>>> Like I mentioned above, we can't expedite this process fast enough to get ahead of the expenses since they were due last week to my knowledge. Given that we'll certainly reach our funding goal immediately once we open it up, and that we haven't been able to accept money at all up until this point, I'd prefer not expediting the process without a clear reason to do so.
>>
>> I agree this should not be rushed, but we should also strike the iron while its hot. These kind of discussions have a tendency to fade out of everyone's attention, only to be rekindled too late for the next cycle.
>
> By this logic, stripping things out of this change would cause those
> things to fade out of everyone's attention. I would offer the best way
> to strike while hot would be to discuss the substance of the change, or
> call a vote if there's nothing more to discuss.

I still hold that a swag shop discussion should not be "tucked in" to a cleanup around the changes at Tideways. We can have multiple updates, each with their own vote. We're not Congress, we don't need Big Beautiful Bills. :-)

The scope should be cleaning up the Tideways situation, and clarifying things we've found need clarifying (like reimbursing personal outlays for FIG, which I'm fine with). The rest simply doesn't belong here. It belongs in another thread and another PR, where the other questions raised (licensing, trademarks, etc.) can be discussed properly.

--Larry Garfield

[Larry Garfield]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2025, at 3:19 PM, Larry Garfield wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 23, 2025, at 12:03 PM, Korvin Szanto wrote:
>
>>>> > The biggest challenge at the moment, IMHO, is not having a way to receive funds. I think that opening up the OpenCollective page for donations will help solve our direct financial needs quickly. I believe there are enough people here on the list that would gladly donate a couple of dollar. For instance, I would consider changing my standing donation to the PHP Foundation over to the FIG, knowing that any excess would end up there anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Like I mentioned above, we can't expedite this process fast enough to get ahead of the expenses since they were due last week to my knowledge. Given that we'll certainly reach our funding goal immediately once we open it up, and that we haven't been able to accept money at all up until this point, I'd prefer not expediting the process without a clear reason to do so.
>>>
>>> I agree this should not be rushed, but we should also strike the iron while its hot. These kind of discussions have a tendency to fade out of everyone's attention, only to be rekindled too late for the next cycle.
>>
>> By this logic, stripping things out of this change would cause those
>> things to fade out of everyone's attention. I would offer the best way
>> to strike while hot would be to discuss the substance of the change, or
>> call a vote if there's nothing more to discuss.
>
> I still hold that a swag shop discussion should not be "tucked in" to a
> cleanup around the changes at Tideways. We can have multiple updates,
> each with their own vote. We're not Congress, we don't need Big
> Beautiful Bills. :-)

To clarify this, since it seems it was taken differently than intended: This is not a jab at Korvin, or the idea of a swag store. It's a jab at Congress and its propensity for bills too big for any human to understand; Trump's bill is just the latest in a long line of examples, including, like every budget resolution in the last decade.

I'm not against a swag store; I just think even the authorization of it deserves a separate discussion from the rest of this, which is mostly mundane, uncontroversial cleanup.

--Larry Garfield

[Korvin Szanto]

I have removed the swag aspect of my PR, I'll let one of the Secretaries reintroduce that if they feel like they'd have the time to implement it.

Best,

Korvin

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