application coming from Gratipay

[Chad Whitacre]

Hey all!

We learned about the MOSS Track 2 today, and have started putting an application together for Gratipay, a payments provider for open organizations. I figured I would drop a line here to get on your radar, since it's likely that we'll be pretty close to the wire for the May 31 deadline for this first round. :-)

You can find a first draft of our application on the GitHub ticket we're using to track this:

https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/637#issuecomment-222000408

Happy to start a conversation here or there to ensure that our application is as strong as it can be.

Thanks for running this program! :-)


chad

[Gervase Markham]

Hi Chad,

On 26/05/16 22:55, Chad Whitacre wrote:
> https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/637#issuecomment-222000408
>
> Happy to start a conversation here or there to ensure that our application is as strong as it can be.

Some questions which occur to me:

* This seems a little like a request for VC money. Is it?

* Is Gratipay's software open source? I assume it is because that's a
stated criteria, but it's not noted anywhere.

* It's not clear how $250,000 will translate into two orders of
magnitude of growth (as opposed to, say, one, three or no orders of
magnitude).

* It's not clear how $250,000 maps onto the list of tasks that need to
be done, other than that it's the maximum amount you are allowed to ask
for and there's lots to do.

* It's not clear how "take-what-you-want" works and in what context
people would use it.

* The Mission Alignment section makes many statements but doesn't back
them up very well.

* Perhaps a wiki page rather than an issue might be a better place to
collaboratively or incrementally author a document? :-)

(John Resig would be an entirely appropriate person to be an endorser.)

Gerv

[Chad Whitacre]

> * Perhaps a wiki page rather than an issue might be a better place to
> collaboratively or incrementally author a document? :-)

:-P

https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/gratipay-moss-track-1-2016

> * Is Gratipay's software open source? I assume it is because that's a
> stated criteria, but it's not noted anywhere.

I am prevented from replying with a resounding, "Yes!" by a technicality: gratipay.com itself uses the contentious CC0. Is that going to be an issue for our application?

> * It's not clear how "take-what-you-want" works and in what context
> people would use it.
>
> * The Mission Alignment section makes many statements but doesn't back
> them up very well.

Fair enough. I can work on addressing these in the application, probably in part by borrowing from this recent post:

https://opensource.com/open-organization/16/5/employees-let-them-hire-themselves

> * This seems a little like a request for VC money. Is it?
>

> * It's not clear how $250,000 will translate into two orders of
> magnitude of growth (as opposed to, say, one, three or no orders of
> magnitude).
>
> * It's not clear how $250,000 maps onto the list of tasks that need to
> be done, other than that it's the maximum amount you are allowed to ask
> for and there's lots to do.

Now we get to more fundamental questions about the nature of MOSS Track 2 and of Gratipay.

MOSS Track 1 is about funding software that Mozilla uses directly (yes?). In that case, "open-source project" is clearly adequate as a unit of inquiry, since the value of the output of a project—namely, a piece of software—is fairly straightforward to determine: does Mozilla in fact depend on the software?

For MOSS Track 2, "open-source project" may be too narrow. Mozilla itself is larger than just an open-source project, Mozilla is a mission-driven organization. The output of Mozilla as an organization is more than just Firefox and Thunderbird, it is "a better Internet."

Like Mozilla, Gratipay is a mission-driven organization; our mission is to cultivate an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love. Therefore, while Gratipay does produce open-source software, we are not just an open-source project. We think of ourselves as an open organization, and our software as a means to an end.

So I guess I'm not sure how to proceed.

I looked at the Django and Mercurial applications for Track 1. We could reframe the *outcomes* in our application along similar lines ("$X to implement Y feature"), but I'm not sure how we'd connect that to Mozilla's *mission*. Mozilla's mission is not advanced simply by having certain software exist, but by having people *use* the software. That's an organizational growth problem, not merely a software engineering problem.

Talking about organizational growth does move us into territory traditionally occupied by venture capitalists and not by open-source hackers. That's a boundary we're explicitly trying to blur with Gratipay (see http://the.gratipay.guide/), but I suppose it's a question to get clear on before proceeding further here: are open organizations fit applicants for MOSS Track 2?

[Gervase Markham]

BTW, nice to have answers here, but much better to have them in the
application text.

On 27/05/16 14:36, Chad Whitacre wrote:
>> * Is Gratipay's software open source? I assume it is because that's
>> a stated criteria, but it's not noted anywhere.
>
> I am prevented from replying with a resounding, "Yes!" by a
> technicality: gratipay.com itself uses the contentious CC0. Is that
> going to be an issue for our application?

No.

> For MOSS Track 2, "open-source project" may be too narrow. Mozilla
> itself is larger than just an open-source project, Mozilla is a
> mission-driven organization. The output of Mozilla as an organization
> is more than just Firefox and Thunderbird, it is "a better
> Internet."
>
> Like Mozilla, Gratipay is a mission-driven organization; our mission
> is to cultivate an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love.
> Therefore, while Gratipay does produce open-source software, we are
> not just an open-source project. We think of ourselves as an open
> organization, and our software as a means to an end.

Yep, all that's fair. We are still feeling our way with respect to the
scope; too wide and we'll be deluged, too narrow and we may not get anyone.

> So I guess I'm not sure how to proceed.
>
> I looked at the Django and Mercurial applications for Track 1. We
> could reframe the *outcomes* in our application along similar lines
> ("$X to implement Y feature"), but I'm not sure how we'd connect that
> to Mozilla's *mission*. Mozilla's mission is not advanced simply by
> having certain software exist, but by having people *use* the
> software. That's an organizational growth problem, not merely a
> software engineering problem.
>
> Talking about organizational growth does move us into territory
> traditionally occupied by venture capitalists and not by open-source
> hackers. That's a boundary we're explicitly trying to blur with
> Gratipay (see http://the.gratipay.guide/), but I suppose it's a
> question to get clear on before proceeding further here: are open
> organizations fit applicants for MOSS Track 2?

We're working this out just as you are. Put some of these thoughts and
comments in the application, and send it in :-)

Gerv

[Chad Whitacre]

> Put some of these thoughts and comments in the application, and
> send it in :-)

Sounds good. Thanks, Gerv! :-)

[ch...@zetaweb.com]

For the record, we weren't able to pull an endorsement together before the deadline, so we didn't apply. Good luck with the first round of applications!

[Chad Whitacre]

Gerv, et al.,

I rewrote Gratipay's MOSS Mission Partners application yesterday ... and then learned about the new quarterly deadline ... which we just missed. D'oh! :-)

In case you're interested to see how our application has progressed, here it is: http://bit.ly/2cWuX7b.

If you're willing to consider our application out of band, we'd be happy to submit it. Otherwise we'll check back in late November to see about the next quarter.

Either way, thanks again for running this program! All the best! :-)


chad