For around 5 years TiddlyWiki has accepted donations via OpenCollective. Our account currently stands at a very respectable $5,641.96 USD.
Our OC account was set up (along with talk.tiddlywiki.org) by Boris Mann, a huge TiddlyWiki supporter, at a company called Fission. The way that OC works is that projects need a “financial host” in order to accept donations. Fission have performed that role for us but are now shutting down. With the help of @kjharcombe we have now opened a UK bank account for TiddlyWiki, enabling us to be our own financial host, and so have direct access to the funds.
So, the question that now arises is what we should do with the money. The first thing to say is that I don’t think I should have any of it. I’ve long nailed my livelihood to TiddlyWiki consultancy work, which while it remains a struggle I am still already earning money from my work on TiddlyWiki,. I think these donations should go to others in the community.
I’d like to hear people’s ideas about how to proceed. We have a responsibility to the people who have generously given this money, and I think we need to decide things collectively.
It would be worth checking the different buckets these funds were contributed to on OpenCollective assuming we still have access. Some of it was intended by the contributors to support community infrastructure, or core development, or specific plugins. That may help guide our efforts in fairly disbursing these funds.
I assume we still to support our infrastructure, and in specific the server that runs this forum.
The current talk.tiddlywiki.org server is still paid for by Fission. The running costs of the new server will come from project funds, but should only be $20-$30 per month.
I am confident there are cost effective solutions to this. I have a white label hosting solution which is low cost. I expect anyone of a number of us have cost effective solutions available, and at cost. Perhaps an informal tender?
My $0.02 - if we can’t use the funds for hosting (or if they’d be too much for hosting), could they be used as bounties for TiddlyWiki feature work?
I think that 5.4.0 sets the project up for great things that will help TiddlyWiki reach more people. For instance, a new WYSIWYG editor, or a new default page layout. It’d be great to use these funds as “bounties” for implementing these features.
I also think using these funds to accelerate TiddlyWiki development through an agentic coding subscription would be a good use of them.
We absolutely can use the funds for hosting, but the funds we have would cover ~15 years of hosting costs. So the issue is indeed what (if anything) we do with some proportion of the remaining funds.
Yes, I think so. I’d like to understand how well it works for other projects. It is not clear how we’d choose which features get bounties, nor how we’d assign the work to a contributor; I don’t like the idea of contributors competing to be first to implement a feature and claim the bounty.
Another approach is a gift approach, it has being suggested for pharmaceutical development as well. Basically you award the result after the event, when the item so developed becomes popular, treasured or is inspiring. It gets done in retrospect, and you can give awardees the choice of redirecting the gift as they see fit.
This means you choose after the event, possibly even via a poll.
The idea is that it leaves the problem/solution to those that build something, rather than driving from the top down, but you could also set some top priorities or goals to reach but this may drive competition rather than collaboration. perhaps have a big list, from which people can select to solve a problem, and after the event award it, you can also have runners up, wooden spoon and other humorous awards.
This approach needs more thought and research but when I heard about it, it made a lot of sense.
Perhaps the voting for top places is only open to donors, and a peoples choice award gift as well?
I wouldn’t spend much time/effort worrying about how to manage this 5k budget.
The bounties this fund allows can’t compete with the compensation a skilled developer might obtain selling their hours so, whenever someone contributes to TW is mostly because they already developed a feature to solve a personal need and, don’t mind to share the work done.
Probably this funds might serve to sustain TW legal infraestructure and secure long run continuity?
Anyways, I wouldn’t spend much effort worrying about that
That’s not the point. There’s also the prestige and recognition someone gets for their contribution.
Just like no one spends their whole life studying fruit flies just because they hope to get the Nobel Peace Prize. But it gives a little boost to hundreds of scientists and others working in dozens of different fields, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they’ll get that nod.
