[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] financial sustainability Plan A (SPI)

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi all

Many developers no longer live with their parents.
The subject of financial sustainability has come up many times and also
increasingly each year

This is financial sustainability Plan A (SPI)
ATM SPI has like 150k $, we do not activly seek donations, we do not currently
use SPI money to fund any development. SPI money is ultimately controlled by
the FFmpeg community and everything is transparent and public.

1. We should fund some FFmpeg development with SPI-FFmpeg money
2. We should activly seek more donations for SPI-FFmpeg

To help 2. we should favor flashy, cool development that can bring in more
donations

How much we can fund with donations over SPI is hard to predict ...
So what can you do ?

* If you have some flashy FFmpeg project you want to work on with a cost of
  between 5-15k $ then propose it on the mailing list, make yourself ready for
  some paperwork complexities and some public debate as thats the first time we
  try this, there will be extra issues likely. And once the community approves
  it and stefano with you double checks with SPI if we will be able to fund it.
  Then you can start working on it

* Propose some news entry for our homepage, some tweet, anything else that is
  intended to increase awareness of the possibility, use and need of donations

If you do neither, then dont complain about money. SPI atm is a bit a chicken
and egg problem. Theres not that much money in SPI so people are hestitant to
ask for any. And as we dont use most the money theres no need to ask for more
or companies (or people) to donate more.

Break the cycle and do something! <------

Thanks
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

"You are 36 times more likely to die in a bathtub than at the hands of a
terrorist. Also, you are 2.5 times more likely to become a president and
2 times more likely to become an astronaut, than to die in a terrorist
attack." -- Thoughty2

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/attachments/20231026/6799f938/attachment.sig>