(crowd)Funding SuperCollider development?

Development
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This is a complex topic, especially for open-source communities. The biggest problem is accountability and contracts, but that’s not an impossible task to tackle. Some open source projects were partly funded through crowdfunding and it worked well. Personnally, I would be glad to contribute to the development of SuperCollider by giving some money on a per-project, but not on a monthly basis.

There are a lot of universities and music institutions using SuperCollider almost everyday for some of their projects, as well as a substantial amount of musicians / teachers / artists / scientists. I think that many of us, and some of these institutions, would be willing to invest some money in funding SuperCollider’s development.

The problem is that doing such a thing and asking for crowdfunding would be a huge energy drain for quite some time, at least in the beginning: creating the right organisational structure, getting things right, convincing the community of devs and users, etc… I suppose that launching such an initiative would be very hard to do right, but could be done with a lot of determination/will/diplomacy, etc…

I hope that this topic will attract more people. It’s a nice topic to think / discuss about!

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As mentioned here:

Open collective is designed to allow a community to accept and apportion funds without having to be an official org with a bank account etc

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Hi there,

I wanted to be sure I’ve understood the idea behind this topic.

It means in the next years anyone who want to use the latest build of SC have to pay something like Ardour;

Or that if I want to contribute to dev. effort I can, if I want, make a donation for a specific SC dev. area that I want to speed up ?

As a young composer that want to choose a computer music system for the long run I think its legitimate to know what will happen in term of potential future constraints due to some kind of (crowd)Funding.

Looking forward to reading you !

All the Best,
ChB

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Hi ChB.
I was similarly concerned so I sat in on a dev meeting.

Everything is fine. No need for alarm. The devs assured me that they feel comfortable.
I really got the sense that they are happy working for the good of the community.

This thread and the other one drummed up a lot of anxiety for me but after sitting in on that dev meeting I feel confident that nothing bad will happen to my absolute favourite music making tool in the future.

Be at peace. All is well.

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Thank you !

I really hope if it had to happen one day it were more the “if I want to make a donation” option than the subscription or per-project “tax”…

But maybe should not we make all our life SC dependent by using both FAUST for kind of “more future-proof and portable DSP work with no dependencies” and SC for the rest ?

Don’t know …

Best,

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The only idea mentioned here is funding, never tax (which is also virtually impossible and surely repudiated. Even the discussion about using SC whithin commercial systems is quite problematic Commercial licensing (again) )

The main idea of this topic is to discuss, in general, funding options to boost SC development. This came up scattered by some users at this topic Supercollider 4 first thoughts, in which specially suggested that we fund individual upgrades that are too demanding for the current team.

Personally, I think Ardour’s model is neither a good developing model nor the most appropriate one for SuperCollider.

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@yaxu mentioned Open Collective

I second it.

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I think the misunderstanding that crowdfunding = reduced access is interesting… Crowdfunding has become synonymous with having a paying insider group that gets priority access, often with tiers so people with the most money get the most back. This seems more like a commercial project then than a free/open source community one, and crowdfunding platforms like patreon can push you in this direction quite aggressively.

Personally I’ve had really great results from crowdfunding without getting into that model. “Pay as you feel” or “pay what you can” schemes work well in my experience, and don’t exclude people without spare cash, or who live somewhere with a disadvantageous exchange rate if people can choose a £0 / $0 / €0 option and get the same access as everyone else.

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Open Collective maintains a sense of alignment with the overall aesthetic.

I imagine it single tier, any & all amounts, crediting Supporters in the same key of AUTHORS

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It means in the next years anyone who want to use the latest build of SC have to pay something like Ardour

Ardour was a very bad example, It’s a coercive software model using free software as branding. Apologies for the disruption but it pisses me off. Use Reaper, which is not free software but much more open and honest, for a decent daw. I will be very happy if people can make money with sc but don’t get mean. Like “don’t be evil”, “don’t get mean” would be a good slogan for music software developers.

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I also think as far as responsible accountabilty goes…

I am very at ease, and perhaps a vote may reveal unaniminity, if Josh and Marcín were to have full access to all forms of funding, and without necessarily having to consult the senate, congress, and the commander-in-chief… free of excess in process, if only transparency remains present.

Also worthy of a quick mention… the proposal, or implications involving righteous blacklisting, were in no way intended or directed towards anyone currently involved in this project, or this community, at large… it’s only… sometimes, it strikes a deeply rooted concern, that someone from beyond could potentially ruin, all we may cherish, & hold as sacred, in some way.

I would also further appreciate, and open to everyone’s discretion, if … James, could watch the vault, and perform the role of moderator / admin… James and James specifically.

At the same time, I don’t want him to be swamped with work, or, be excessively consulted… or in any way shape or form, the process to become difficult, convoluted, etc., for anyone of us… and I don’t believe any of the aformentioned (legendary…) should be forced into production, when anyone here could do so very easily.

However, I still feel we (all) would all be a lot more comfortable, with James having the master key, so to speak… the power to decline or retract funds, at sole discretion, and also, without necessarily having it as a requirement upon his approval or consult… so that the head of the dev team can move more freely, with all operations running smoothly.

It’s difficult enough in it’s suggestion, while treasuring all things with deep concerns, I’m sure the three of you can decide upon some sort of agreement, that works for everyone & involving.

While trusting whom it should be apparent in poessing greater judgement, and never failing everyone’s discretion, I feel compelled to warn against relying heavily on automated processes, or… processes involving large amounts, over purely inter-networked devices and interfaces… and furthermore… I feel equally compelled to say, and only from an equally deep and shared concern, it may still be an understatement, to suggest that one may be wise to maintain, & with ideally the utmost precision in understanding, that everything can be managed as some sort means to an end, the latter potentially absent of reflecting lies within.

Thank you for what you do for this.

Best,

,

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My apologies - I haven’t followed this too closely but I saw my name and thought it important to reply.
I think there are ways to do this to support new development.
I could never take money for this. I am getting more involved again, but really, I am the last person here who needs funding. (I do need time… that’s all I’m short of!).
I would honestly love to see this be the kind of thing where the funding could help support working artists and to help mentor new developers.
Since I don’t have an economic state in things (and I don’t think I’m the only one) I could see there being a few people in a similar situation as me who can help direct tasks / code review / etc.
Finally - in terms of paying developer rates, dev hours are expensive (which is why I’m privileged enough to say, because of my day job and a few other reasons that I couldn’t take compensation). Any sort of funding model would need to recognize this fairly and globally. And the actual numbers that would go into equating features and cost are not small, if we were to do this without exploitation … as open source mad community contribution, these lines are different than when compensation comes into play. I’m not saying it can’t be done right, but I’m many ways I think we’d also want to consider someone who plays a role as project manager and feature estimator. I know that sounds like a lot of red tape, but it also protects a number of people (from contributors to developers and users).
Thanks for the nod Rainer!

/*
Josh Parmenter
www.realizedsound.net/josh
*/

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Hey Josh, what’s up,

Respect.

To be clear, I thought you guys would be in charge, of exactly who to pay, or bring in, to tackle specific issue / upgrades.

Is it off key… to… trust combined instinct, wisdom, power, the dev team, trust know who/what to trust, offer, reject… when how if not or discuss amongst ourselves… funds growth safe advance & at right front, careful pay solo expert dev at module size rate, out steps in, gets through the difficult, clean modular + comments, a week or a weekend, paid, exits, enter dev team studies, learns, discuss, adapts, absorbs, in-pursuit, empowering not only SC, but our skills & within, advancing not just SC, but our ourselves.

?

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everything can be managed as some sort means to an end, the latter potentially absent of reflecting lies within.

That’s not quite right in my experience, the “end” will be burning inside out. I’m certainly concerned with some statements in this thread. In any case, there should have to be some kind of, preferably rational, institutionalization following established laws and social consensus that foresee and prevent the consequences that cause your irrational fears that lead you to act by preventive verbal punishment and, ambiguous enough, resignation to what “lies within”. [Edited bad redaction] I simply do not agree that the end justifies the means because, in fact, it defines them. Take it easy, think more positively.

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I think the GSoC model works well. A relatively low-cost internship, where the mentor is a volunteer, and the student (for GSoC, they have to be a student) gets paid work for a couple of months while getting valuable experience and contributing to a free/open source project. It relies upon mentors who can work for free, or whose time is sponsored by a company/institution. Using Open Collective for this would bypass having to deal with google itself.

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More and more this sort of discussion (as well as other issues) make me think it might be time to think about a foundation for SC. This would provide at least provide a structure for accountability, transparency, etc.

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How do foundations work in projects similar to SC? I can only think of the processing foundation, but I don’t know anything about the specifics.

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I’ve tried but could not find clear/historical organized info about this…

I would like to understand how the size of the project impacts this issue. Regarding software for creative usage, I would like to understand how Blender, Processing and OpenFrameworks manage their funding and development, since all of them seem to adopt utterly different models.

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It would be really a shame to make this a very complicated matter open to power struggles.

I’m happy to contribute to some floss projects through OpenCollective - like OwnCast for example. I also donate to Ardour via their subscription. I actually don’t care who gets the money, as long as it’s “people involved with the project one way or another”. Also financial support/donation is not shopping - in my view. I also don’t get people who are upset about getting or not getting perks when they subscribe to someone on Patreon. Either support the artist/project or don’t. Period.

I guess there are important nuances in different projects, - how they are run, how fluid they are in terms of devs comming and going…

It might be useful to look at how FunkWhale project is being run. They setup some form of coop/association/non-profit, they are using Loomio for collective decisions, and they receive some funding via OpenCollective but they also got funding from another fundation for a year and a half - I think. They main dev is slowly stepping down.

What seems to make developments like this ful of drama are different expectations. I personally don’t expect to have a specific bug fixed if I donate to a floss project. So expectations of those who donate, and expectations of devs - perhaps somebody who wants to really dedicate a lot of time to fixing bugs or writing/fixing documentation should be really clear about their expectations if and how would they receive a portion of funding. Also there are different needs and levels. Some people don’t need any pay for their contribution, while for some a financial compensation would mean a huge difference in their lives.

I think these things should be tackled with a lot of patience and clarity in communication.

I would personally wish for transparent, accessible, cooperative organisation structure with democratic governance, that would stay simple (as much as possible) and would be resilient to takeovers by single actors. maybe also Debian project and its governance can be an interesting example?

* also, I would wish folk would not use the term blacklisting, but rather blocklist or denylist. [1]

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