send @whit537 to Abstractions

[chadwhitacre]

There's a major software conference called Abstractions in Pittsburgh this August (cf. https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/487#issuecomment-180019705 and https://github.com/whit537/whit537.org/issues/23). Gratipay should be there! Any objections to me using Gratipay funds to buy a $250 ticket?

P.S. We have about $4,000 in the bank right now.

Update

Write-up starts here.

[kzisme]

Looks like a cool conf!

[chadwhitacre]

Yeah! It's gonna be huge. You should go, too! We can punch pennies together! :-)

[kzisme]

@whit537 I wouldn't be opposed! I'd be done with school! (Depending on when it is I might already be in town as well)

Have you attended this one before?

[chadwhitacre]

Nope! New conference this year! :-)

[kzisme]

Are you going as "Gratipay"?

I'd love to go seems awesome from skimming the speaker lineup. On Mar 10, 2016 5:09 PM, "Chad Whitacre" notifications@github.com wrote:

Nope! New conference this year! :-)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/534#issuecomment-195073887 .

[chadwhitacre]

Yeah, I intend to be there with the penny puncher making business cards, as at Platform Cooperativism. :-)

[kzisme]

I'll plan to make it as well then it is on my calendar :) On Mar 10, 2016 5:39 PM, "Chad Whitacre" notifications@github.com wrote:

Yeah, I intend to be there with the penny puncher making business cards, as at Platform Cooperativism https://medium.com/gratipay-blog/a-platform-cooperative-almost-94cd5900840f. :-)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/534#issuecomment-195082973 .

[chadwhitacre]

I had lunch with @justinxreese and @swans-one today. I'm planning to submit a proposal for a case study of our take-what-you-want compensation system (aka payroll back when we actually had it). If it's not accepted for the conference itself we may line it up as a separate Code & Supply event.

[chadwhitacre]

A brief history of Gratipay teams (https://github.com/rubygems/rubygems.org/issues/500#issuecomment-65147249):

I just did some spelunking: Gratipay's teams feature began life in this commit from April 11, 2013, reached its first point of stability a few days later, got a rewrite a couple weeks later, on May 1, and then a second rewrite to its present form two months after that, on July 1 (with a blog post two days later). This present ticket is from December 13, 2012, four months before any sort of teams feature on Gratipay. The conversation started even earlier, on August 4, 2012, seven months before teams.

[chadwhitacre]

Deep-dive on details in #552. tl;dr so far is that 300+ people took about $50,000 from 100+ teams over almost two years.

[chadwhitacre]

First crack at an abstract:

How can you introduce money into open-source without ruining intrinsic motivation? At Gratipay, we've discovered an exciting solution: take-what-you-want compensation. In this talk, we'll share our experience with 300+ people taking $50,000 from 100+ teams over two years.

And a description:

At Gratipay, we've discovered a way to distribute revenue to members of an open organization without killing intrinsic motivation: take-what-you-want compensation. This provocative new idea is not just an idea. We have two years of real-world experience with it, and it works! In this talk I'll define the model we implemented, and give an overview of how it was used by 300+ people in 100+ teams. Then we'll dive into the Gratipay team itself, which saw about 100 people participate. I'll describe when things worked smoothly—and how we handled the inevitable conflict.

This talk will be fascinating for anyone interested in the question of money and open-source, but the implications go much deeper. Come find out what the organization of the future looks like!

[chadwhitacre]

Bio:

I'm the founder of Gratipay, which provides payments and payroll for open organizations. We've moved $1M+ in four years, and currently process $5,000/mo for 150+ customers. We are bootstrapped and are pioneering an open organization in a heavily regulated industry.

[chadwhitacre]

Final draft ...

Take-What-You-Want Compensation at an Open Software Company

A Case Study in the Future of Work

Abstract

How can we distribute money in open-source without ruining intrinsic motivation? At Gratipay, we've discovered an exciting solution: take-what-you-want compensation. In this talk, we'll look at Gratipay's experience with 100+ people sharing over $20,000 in revenue over about two years.

Description

At Gratipay, we've discovered a solution to the problem of distributing revenue to members of an open organization without killing intrinsic motivation: take-what-you-want compensation. This provocative new idea—to give everyone on the team direct control over their own compensation—is not just an idea. We have almost two years of real-world experience with it, and, at a small scale, it works!

In this talk I'll briefly state the problem, explain the model we implemented to solve it, and give an overview of how our solution was used by 300+ people across 100+ teams to distribute almost $50,000 over the course of about two years. Then we'll dive deeper into the story of the Gratipay team itself, which saw over 100 people use this method to distribute over $20,000 in revenue amongst themselves. I'll describe when things worked smoothly—and how we handled the inevitable conflicts. I'll end with some thoughts on how the model might scale up.

This talk will be fascinating to anyone interested in the question of money and open-source, with implications that go much deeper. Come find out what the future of work could look like!

Bio

Chad Whitacre—I'm the founder of Gratipay, which provides payments and payroll for open organizations. We've moved $1M+ in four years, and currently process $5,000/mo for 150+ customers. We are bootstrapped and are pioneering an open organization in a heavily regulated industry.

[chadwhitacre]

Submitted! I tried to make the talk public on PaperCall.io but I don't think it worked:

https://www.papercall.io/talks/3297 ← abstract class https://www.papercall.io/talks/3297/children/3298 ← Abstractions instance

[chadwhitacre]

It's okay if you've procrastinated. You're not alone. But today is last chance to submit. http://abstractions.io/cfp

Caught red-🙌ed! Just submitted "Take-What-You-Want Compensation at an Open Software Company" https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/534#issuecomment-204071412

https://twitter.com/Gratipay/status/715613059214155780

[chadwhitacre]

Yessssssssssss! 💃 🎆

Congratulations Chad Whitacre!

Your talk, Take-What-You-Want Compensation at an Open Software Company: A Case Study in the Future of Work, has been selected for Abstractions.

We are really excited to have you speak and we think your talk will really help make Abstractions amazing.

Can you please confirm that will still be able to attend by visiting the link below and letting us know whether you can or can not still attend?

[]

If you accept we will reach out to you later with further details.

Thank you again for you submission and we really hope that you will accept our invitation to speak.

Sincerely,

Abstractions Organizers

[chadwhitacre]

For Monday or Tuesday:

We're excited about @abstractionscon! We'll be sharing our "take-what-you-want" story https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/534#issuecomment-204071412 and learning from many others.

[justinxreese]

Hmm that email text is wrong.

You got accepted. Don't worry about that. But there should be more text in there about promotion and stuff - glad you log everything. Notified me of the problem so I can remedy it.

[chadwhitacre]

Looks like I'm scheduled for Friday afternoon (the 19th).

[kzisme]

Awesome @whit537 !!! :dancer:

[chadwhitacre]

Talk outline (based on https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/556#issuecomment-234779832):

1. Intro [ants]
   1. I love work! Fortunately for me, there's infinite work in the world.
   2. _I love sharing work._ Yay open source! Communities of work!
   3. I love money! It's a really neat way to thank others for their work.
2. Problem [ants]
   1. Imagine we're an open source project, and [Googbook] thanks us to the tune of $50,000.
   2. How are we gonna split it up?
3. Solutions [ants]
   1. Boss decides.
   2. Algorithm decides.
   3. Peers decide.
   4. We each decide for ourselves!
4. Pilot Project [chart]
   1. $50,000 over two years from 100+ organizations to 300+ individuals.
   2. Two organizations comprised the bulk of the volume.
   3. Drupal distributed $13,000 to 22 people.
   4. Gratipay distributed $20,000 to more than 100 people.
   5. A few folks depended on their take from Gratipay as a primary (though meager) source of income.
5. Implementation Details [screenshot]
   1. Weekly distribution.
   2. Everyone sets their own take.
   3. Last added is first to take.
   4. What happens when things go wrong?
   5. Takes are throttled.
   6. Manager can add or remove, but not set.
6. Lessons from three "stress tests" [screenshot]
   1. Takes are information.
   2. One in 77 just won't get it.
   3. It works!
7. Conclusion—Why?
   1. "Everyone should set their take to balance their internal guilt and resentment."
   2. Ladder of Love

[chadwhitacre]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gnilenkov/5512015846/

[chadwhitacre]

[chadwhitacre]

First stacked bar chart! 💃

[chadwhitacre]

Showing Gratipay, Drupal, and Other:

[chadwhitacre]

Here's the code (diffed from 1981) I used to produce the above. I've screenshotted what I need for this presentation.

[chadwhitacre]

[chadwhitacre]

[chadwhitacre]

[ghost]

Looking good! Is your talk streamed/recorded?

[chadwhitacre]

I don't know about streaming, I strongly expect it'll be recorded.

[chadwhitacre]

I mean, I hope so! :-)

[chadwhitacre]

Okay! Talk happened! :-)

They were definitely recording so hopefully we'll get a video in a week or two.

https://twitter.com/bitcapulet/status/766701747255533572

[chadwhitacre]

Also today: Richard Stallman punched a penny! He said he didn't think it was an improvement on an unpunched penny, as he doesn't really like hearts and couldn't spend it once punched. I asked if he'd rather have an unpunched penny and he accepted ... which means I now HAVE A GRATIPENNY THAT WAS PUNCHED BY RICHARD STALLMAN!!!!!!!!!!!

I put it in a little baggie with a label cut out of the conference schedule. This is what I should've done with Guido and Matz ... also Larry and Joe yesterday (rather than making them take the penny). Now we know! :-)

A pic from @keenzai of Stallman considering his handiwork:

A much worse picture from @oakes that I'm posting so he doesn't feel bad (also @seanstrom on the left!):

[oakes]

Haha, my cheap android phone may not have the best camera but that photo totally captures his complete disappointment in you.

[chadwhitacre]

This photo totally captures THE GRATIPENNY THAT RICHARD STALLMAN PUNCHED. 😳

[chadwhitacre]

A collage:

[chadwhitacre]

Alright, I bailed a little early. I went for the morning of the third day but didn't stay through lunch, because I wasn't feeling the energy and decided to head home and hack! Or at least clear out my inbox ... 😶

I feel pretty good about yesterday's session on take-what-you-want. I'm curious to watch it on video; I think it will be a good addition to our roundup.

I was able to apologize to a few more folks in person for #319 (cf.)—though I realized too late that @seanstrom was the one involved in kicking off #319 in the first place! Thanks and sorry, @seanstrom! 🙀

I met Corey, partner program lead at GitHub with a focus on integrations. I learned a bit about the internal structure at GitHub. It sounds like Nadia (#471) is indeed the best person to keep in touch with there as we try to build momentum again within the open-source community. I guess I see a risk here for us in that GitHub could roll their own tipping (or bounty, or grant ...) implementation (cf. YouTube's) and nip any momentum we might have in the bud. As I think out loud here I think one goal for us vis-a-vis GitHub at this point would be to prevent that if at all possible. :-) I mentioned the old Pledgie integration to Corey. He didn't know of any similar things in the works, and in fact thought he may have noticed Gratipay's name in their partnerships@ backlog. I might follow up with him to see what that was about—I don't remember! :-) I sent a gratipenny with Corey to give to Nadia—actually, a gratikroner! Props, @timothyfcook. :-)

I caught up with Konstantin from Travis. "Travis is a much different company than the last time we met." That would've been at Steel City Ruby ... 2012, probably? Maybe 2013? They have about 40 employees now (a couple of whom work with @kaguillera and I at Catapult, btw). Go, Travis! 💃

Both Konstantin and, later on, @joelmccracken, asked something along the lines of, "So is Gratipay still open to the max?" It's nice in person to have more bandwidth to explain that we're actually pretty sophisticated and nuanced about our openness (Ladder of Love, #411, etc.). Seems like there's some lesson here to learn about media and how to tune a message, since obviously "Gratipay has a nuanced and responsible approach to openness" doesn't seem to be what has taken root. 😁

Another conversation I found myself having was about strategy for cracking corporate giving to open-source, which I lump under #755. Hmm, actually ... I may need to head back down this eve. Boaz Sender reached out yesterday, I should really try to connect with him ... /me sends text ... /me hears back! Sounds like I'm heading back down! Okay, more to come! 💃

!m *

[chadwhitacre]

P.S. I'm taking the card to dinner tonight with Boaz, because a) it feels like it could be a sales meeting, in which case we should pay, and b) https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/777#issuecomment-241002454 😁 .

[finkiki]

[mattbk]

Some results: https://twitter.com/chobberoni/status/766691250095337472

[chadwhitacre]

Okay! Turns out that Bocoup is not our next &yet (i.e., a consultancy giving lots of money to open source through Gratipay; &yet was our top giver back in the day, giving over $1,000 per week). Bocoup supports a ton of open source, but more directly—they don't really pay projects, they do projects. Boaz mostly reached out because of https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/534#issuecomment-241174247. Consequently, we talked a lot about #319, but did also touch on some #755, and in general just got to know one another and had a good time. :-)

I did manage to pick up the tab, which was $86.69 (at Apteka).

[chadwhitacre]

I think we're good? Closing. First one to notice a video link, post it here! :-)

[keenzai]

More like disinterest. Much better than disappointment. Sorta...

On Friday, August 19, 2016, Zach Oakes notifications@github.com wrote:

Haha, my cheap android phone may not have the best camera but that photo totally captures his complete disappointment in you.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/534#issuecomment-241174796, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFBTSscwzVRqrUc3pGUMblGxbfD6SDFCks5qhm0QgaJpZM4Hrtow .

Matthew T. Keener, MD mattkeener@gmail.com

~"I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter" Blaise Pascal