Open mjtamlyn opened 8 years ago
This came up in a discussion with @jackiekazil at DjangoCon US - and based on that discussion, it might not be as much of a pipe dream as you think.
There are often existing grant programs available with existing funding pools. Yes, you need to get into the competitive bidding process for those funds, but you don't have to convince a politician that funding is needed at all, because the funds have already been allocated.
A key point here - the US Govt is a user of Django; it's easier to sell the "maintaining the infrastructure you're using" argument.
To be honest I actually would argue that the existing funding pools aren't specialised enough, at least from what I could find the UK. There is no "software engineering research council" - and the bodies which you could apply to are specialised towards scientific research. If there was say, $5m available in a year for just OSS development, there would already be an enormously competitive process for that money just between OSS projects - speculative and pre-existing. And I don't know much about non-web dev projects which would be after that cash.
I want to convince the politicians that this is work prioritising along side things like "materials research" - it should have it's own department/body/etc not be lumped in with general science.
+1 on the main idea, a lot of governments are slowly switching to open-source and also donating money for various reasons to various people.
Similar, but more incremental on existing frameworks: Treat R&D tax credit applications in IT sector in more positive light if contributions are clearly open sourced.
@tomchristie Now that is an interesting idea. It's obviously something that is going to need a lot of multinational lobbying to make it happen, but it's also something that should be easy to make the case - it's worth government giving an R&D Tax credit, because society as a whole will benefit from the investment made by a company.
EU is already doing that, e.g. pypy got quite a bit of R&D money from EU few years back. It's also problematic in the same sense as funding academic projects is problematic - a lot of paperwork, bureaucracy and connections to academia necessary
My humble contribution will be invite @fperez to share his knowledge on the subject, being a key player in the IPython/jupyter's financial success.
It's also problematic in the same sense as funding academic projects is problematic
@fijal - Indeed. For v small companies it may be too much of a burden, but certainly an incentive for mid-larger companies already using or considering R&D applications.
EU is already doing that, e.g. pypy got quite a bit of R&D money from EU few years back.
Even a slight change in the wording of the policy could make an impact. eg broadening the polices to treat open sourced software as a qualifying factor in itself. (Rather than the existing situation where OSS work is judged against the same criteria as closed software)
it's worth government giving an R&D Tax credit, because society as a whole will benefit from the investment made by a company.
Exactly, yes. Broadly the same rationale for the credits in the first place. Assessing qualification could be a bit fuzzy, (not obv that simply making a repo public should be deemed "qualifying" - possible require evidence of engagement) but that's also true if the existing credits system (some co's are good at milking it, others should be applying but don't)
It'd also be a huge incentive for new companies to take an OSS-first approach (Eg sentry) which would be a huge societal benefit.
Good to know the EU is supporting projects like Pypy - the problem is at present that it's bundled out of academic funding. Open source organisations aren't academic institutions, and they need different processes.
We also need to find out what the processes for applying for this kind of funding are, and make sure they'e well known in the community.
Speaking of tax credit: http://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2015/S161
@olasitarska I'm torn. On the one hand, nice to see legislatures getting behind open source as an idea; but on the other - $200? Don't spend that all at once... :-)
The Alaska UBI (oil tax credit) is at a similar scale, $1000-2000 per year. A nice starting point, but not actually useful for living.
@hpk42 gave a talk at CCC this year with the title Hacking EU funding for a decentralizing FOSS project
FOSS and hacker culture meeting the EU buereaucracy. What can possibly come out of that? We'll discuss what is involved for FOSS projects and other interested parties to get $$$ funding by the European Union. Hackers deal with rule systems and their execution. And the European Union issues a lot of rules which are executed by the "commission" and its employees. Within the Horizon2020 framework programme 80.000.000.000 Euros will be distributed towards research projects across Europe between 2014-2020. Shouldn't some of that money go to purposes deemed useful by 32c3 attendants?
https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7300-hacking_eu_funding_for_a_decentralizing_foss_project#video
An idea I've had knocking around for a while is governmental funding for OSS. Obviously this would be a hard one to manage, especially given the global nature of the projects, but there's actually a pretty strong political case here - investing money in open source projects helps power business in a profitable and growing sector, keeping the costs down for new (and large!) tech companies. Most companies put billions into funding science for the greater good, why not OSS as well?
Below is the content of an email I sent to my local MP (and minister for tech industry) yesterday.
This is obviously a bit of a long shot pipe dream, and would require political campaigning and effort to get it to happen. However, it has a lot of strong points. For example:
Biggest drawback? Involves dealing with politicians ;)