Clarification of funding targets / general availability of features

[HorstBaerbel]

Your funding docs read:

Funding targets
Below is a list of funding targets. When a funding target is reached, the features that are tied to it are merged back into RaspAP and released to the public for general availability.

The next tiers seem to be $1000 and $1500 which have almost all functionality implemented. The open collective budget seems to be over $5k, the overall sum collected is over $23k. Does that mean that the two tiers mentioned above will be released to the public for general availability soon?

[billz]

The funding targets are monthly, as are the subscription tiers.

[HorstBaerbel]

Thanks for the clarification. So when the monthly subscriptions stay at the current average ~$600-700 monthly these features will never be publicly available?

[billz]

Per the docs:

Every feature is tied to a funding goal in monthly subscriptions. When a funding goal is hit, the features that are tied to it are merged back into the RaspAP public repo and released for general availability, making them available to all users. Bugfixes are always released in tandem.

If you feel this could be more clear, you're welcome to use the 'Edit this page' function (linked at top).

[HorstBaerbel]

I take that as a yes. This could mean these features, though already finished and "paid for" in development/testing/effort/work will never make it into the public release? What are the next tiers gonna be? Will they ever be reached? Just asking myself if I want to put my eggs into that basket and wait forever for something that is already there...
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for advancing a project by partly having paid developers/maintainers/infrastructure, but I don't feel like the monthly subscriptions to funding tiers model makes sense. Or I'm not getting something here maybe...

[billz]

What are the next tiers gonna be?

The next two tiers are described on the Insiders page. The nice thing is, Insiders themselves play an active role in guiding the future direction of the project (including the next tiers).

I don't feel like the monthly subscriptions to funding tiers model makes sense

That's fine, you're welcome to disagree with it. This project didn't invent sponsorware, nor is it the first to implement it. One could rightly argue that we've had mixed success thus far. However, it's a model that sustains many popular open source projects, such as Material for Mkdocs (as a single example).

GitHub sponsors and OC give us a budget that, for now, partly offsets our time contributions to the project. None of us are quitting our day jobs. It also lets us donate regularly to the Raspberry Pi foundation. Plus, Insiders is always free forever for educators, students and their staff.

[HorstBaerbel]

I think I disagree about this (an maybe this only): According to your funding docs features never make it into the public version (see the Material funding page mentioning the contrary). This is sad and very unappealing to me. There are features like WPA3 that have been working oob in the distro you're basing your software on. Features being available to the public after a couple of month I can live with, "holding back" features forever I can't. And it goes against the open-source thought too imo.
Anyways. To end on a positive note (and I mean it): Thanks for all your work and being open to discussion. This a cool project and I'd love to see it grow. All the best!

[billz]

Thanks for the kind words. To clarify one thing, features aren't held back "forever". The first tier was reached fairly quickly. We nearly reached the second tier but fell short of it. As code contributors, we're incentivized to continually improve the project to help reach its goals.

I'd love to see all these features become public, but the project still needs ongoing maintenance. There's a tremendous amount of work that goes into maintaining a project like this (see all the repos under this org, not just this one, or my personal commit history). Without basic renumeration from sponsors, this project would have been abandoned long ago. It's a nice to talk about the open source ethos, but the reality is the software world is littered with dead projects whose maintainers quit them because incentives were misaligned.

$10 is a small ask. If you don't think our software is worth this, that's fine. If there's an Insiders feature you want, but don't want to pay for, we routinely grant Insiders access to users who contribute in other ways (bug reports, PRs, etc). Usually, all someone has to do is ask nicely and we'll happily let them evaluate Insiders with zero obligations.

[jeffdoering]

@billz I’m coming across this project for the first time and found this thread because I think I had almost exactly the same confusion and concern.

I don’t think I’d even call it a disagreement much more that I’m just confused and that might hold the project back some if others are like me and seemingly @HorstBaerbel above.

I understand that a piece of software or an enhancement to an existing software product has two distinct costs; (1) upfront development of some set of new functionality (“featureset”, one or more “features” grouped together) and (2) on-going support costs maintaining that featureset over time in the form of bug fixes, incremental uptake of new versions of underlying software libraries, etc (work not strictly viewed as net-new features).

What’s unclear to me is understanding how the sponsorship model here encourages both limited-duration and indefinite on-going support. If I’m comfortable signing up for $10/month and say a 6-month minimum - I know I’d get access to currently done Insiders features for 6 months including any new ones that come along in the meantime.

If the program is growing pretty fast; great it hits the milestone goals and I’d also “keep” access to the features that were merged to the public branch.

But it’s unclear how the program or a potential supporter like me benefits from a situation where you and other contributors are incurring the support costs to indefinitely maintain already done features as Insider-only because a high-water-mark of concurrent supporters hasn’t been hit. If it’s hit and then support suddenly drops off a few months later; the features are on the public branch anyway.

Again; none of this is a complaint about the fairness or value or effort level tied to this project. More a question of whether the current process works well when a project is in growth-mode but crates disincentives for potential supporters when the project appears to be at more of a steady-state (and might need a growth boost).

In my particular case; I’m not sure if RaspAP hits close enough to my particular project goals to be a long-term interest (maybe, maybe not)… and I’m happy to provide some decent financial support to give it a try including latest and greatest features … but I’m hesitant to assume I will be actively supporting a year down the road if it’s likely that NEW features beyond current Insider ones diverge further from my needs. But I’m very happy to buy-in and see how that goes.

So mainly just confused why developing and then releasing first to insiders, later to the public doesn’t peg initial development to concurrent subscribers for some amount of time but then allow the public release to depend on total accumulated project support funding above the previous support baseline as a second metric. That way eventual public release of done features would be accelerated by anyone who will contribute but the when would depend on getting enough funding over time.

Thanks for humoring (hopefully) my long post. (I’m happy to back it up with a good-faith contribution just for taking up your time 🙃).

-Jeff