Organisation of non-developers?

[Witch]

Sources and evidences

Witch, i'm sorry that i might have sounded a bit mean and disrespectful in previous posts, but i must make everyone understand that we can only operate on information that is at hand and that can be verified. We cannot take into account any "information" passed anonomously and that cannot be verified. Any such "information" must be completely disregarded. Exercise critical thinking please!

Taking money from EU isn't free. There has to be some kind of sacrifices. And I'm afraid ROS can't survive those sacrifices.

Why? State your sources. Please remember that the EU is a democratic entity consisting of elected officials. They have everything to gain from a fully functional free Windows-clone. Ofcourse they want to see results from the money they invest, but so do we! But ok, what if they want something else in return, what could that be and what do we absolutely not want to give away? Things that come to mind now would be the unlike event of becoming closed source or closing down the SVN for public use. Lets have a discussion about this so we could get this issue out of the way!

Sorry I don't have any sources or evidences. Only a bad feeling based on informal discussions and my cautious nature. I guess you could check this issue out of the way right there if you will only act on black and white information.

What we absolutely don't want to give away is control over the developers' time. EU is like a slave master when it comes to keeping science funded projects on time. Again I don't have any black or white sources and evidences just some gray hear sayings from I don't remember where.





Universities

Collaborating with universities might be a good idea, lets look into this further. I dont know anything about how IT-research is carried out on the universities but a lot of people here probably do.

Which universities produces qualified OS devs? - (post 11)
Vicmarcal seems to have a handle on this issue, but it's still fresh so I didn't want to bug him for a status report on the situation.





Transparent accounting procedure / ( Open-source accounting )

I think your idea about open-source accounting might be good. How do we implement this?

Well I'm no accountant so I don't expect anything specific on that level from ROS. But lets use Aeneas call for Lawyer money as an experiment. For me as a ReactOS die-hard fan who knows nothing about programming, accounting or laws. Only equipped with faith and hope for the project. I will ask myself these questions before I want my money to leave my hands...

Dear Ragnar_Darude & Witch,

Oh, yeah, another thing that came to my mind: For the EU application, I suggest ReactOS hires a lawyer with some experience in this. Should not cost all too much as it is very little work for him or her compared to "real" court proceedings (500-1000 EUR max I'd say), and it is really not the area where ReactOS can afford to "mess it up". We people here might actually help preparing the application (so the lawyer has less to do and is cheaper), and the devs will need to be quite involved (in particular in describing the technical merits), but I really think a check by a professionalist would be a good idea.

1.) Why should I give away my money for this particular task?

ReactOS needs money for a lawyer in order to fill out an EU application so that ROS can receive donations. OK sounds good to me.
* But how do I know that this task won't exceed the 1 000 EUR mark.
* How can a nobody like me who doesn't know the people behind ROS know if this contribution matters or not?
* Because I don't like the idea of merely contributing a drip of water into the ocean.


2.) If I have sent away my 1$ or 1€. How can I follow the money?

The biggest obstacle when it comes to donating money to anything for me. Is how can I make sure that my little contribution really matters.
Receivers can say:
- Thanks for your contribution you have really made a difference to the starving children.

* But how do I know that the money really has gone to the starving children?
* How do I know I'm supporting somebody who solves problems and not just somebody who asks for money every single year, solving the same problem over and over again?


3.) What happens when the guy responsible for the account dies or gets blackmailed?

* Does everything just fly away into a Swiss account never to be seen again?


4.) Time?

* Questions about time doesn't matter much, as long as the above 3 questions is answered good enough to the public.
* Then I nor most other people will really care if some developer takes 30 years to spend my 100 $ without specifying what they've done during those 30 years.



Well the point of this experiment is simply: How can I follow the money as an outsider?
How can the ReactOS people package these questions into a digestible product for regular people. Because when we start to talk about the technology of this project then less and less people will understand how to answer these 3 main questions.


.

[Aeneas]

As to developers, c'mon, it IS possible, I mean just look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KolibriOS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MenuetOS

I tested them a year or two ago, was impressive. Apparently, even the dark arts of assembler are not quite lost generally - as another example:

http://board.flatassembler.net/

So there is a lot of untapped potential just waiting for a challenge.

As to the accounting thing: sorry, but I guess you will have to trust. You anyway ALWAYS have to trust. From time to time, normally at each quarter of the financial year, major checks are made as to whether a company is doing well... and yet, from time to time you have Enron scandals. The question only is whether your trust will be rewarded, and that is why initial contacts are done with small steps.

[Witch]

As to the accounting thing: sorry, but I guess you will have to trust. You anyway ALWAYS have to trust. From time to time, normally at each quarter of the financial year, major checks are made as to whether a company is doing well... and yet, from time to time you have Enron scandals. The question only is whether your trust will be rewarded, and that is why initial contacts are done with small steps.

There's not much trust left in this world. People don't even trust their banks how can they trust some organization without a real office where the police can apprehend suspects just by walking in. And not have Interpol travel around the world in order to find suspects when some Enron affair takes place.

If we continue to do business the olden way then nothing much will happen. Trust doesn't come cheap.

[RaptorEmperor]

Please remember that the EU is a democratic entity consisting of elected officials. They have everything to gain from a fully functional free Windows-clone. Ofcourse they want to see results from the money they invest, but so do we! But ok, what if they want something else in return, what could that be and what do we absolutely not want to give away? Things that come to mind now would be the unlike event of becoming closed source or closing down the SVN for public use. Lets have a discussion about this so we could get this issue out of the way!

I agree with Ragnar Darude. I imagine there are probably some non-Americans who aren't fond of having to pay an giant American corporation to use a computer for any practical use. I'm an American and I get irritated sometimes.

In regards to organization, perhaps we could organize committees or something, like having a Developer's Committee, a Tester's Committee, a Forum Admin Committee, a User's Committee, etc. That way we could have better communication between different people in the organization. Say there are multiple bugs in ReactOS at any point in time, and the devs want to know which one is more urgent to fix. They could ask the members of the Tester's Committee which bug they've encountered most in testing, so it can get fixed first. That way when the next major release is out, any people trying ReactOS for the first time won't run into a bug so quickly. The Forum Admin Committee could take note on any hot topics in the forum that may need addressing or should be looked into. Membership in the committees wouldn't be rather fluid, so any tester could join and give input, but it would serve as a means of giving a single voice between different groups in the project to streamline development.

[Aeneas]

ABOUT MEETING ON IRC:

Alexey Bragin answered as follows:

"Certainly I would be interested in talking with you. You're welcome to join IRC at any time, I'm available generally throughout the day and in the evening. Just come to #reactos-dev and leave me a private message. I'll respond if I'm around and we can have a chat with developers."

So, people, it generally means it depends on you! I am generelly overworked of late, so as I never really "have" time, I am I guess at liberty to "make" time. I think I would be available any late afternoon and evening.

And you, the other posters? When would it be suitable for you? I see many great ideas in this thread, it would be nice if we all could chat about them!

[Aeneas]

BINGO! THAT is the kind of institution I was looking for, ALL THE TIME:

http://www.forschungsrahmenprogramm.de/beratung.htm

Apparently the people responsible for our area are in Cologne, possibly in Berlin as well:

http://www.forschungsrahmenprogramm.de/nks.htm#IKT

- For those who do not speak German, this is the German advisory service for the FP7 programme!

[Haos]

You should also catch Colin_Finck on IRC and discuss it with him. He is one of the german ReactOS foundation organizers.

[Ragnar_Darude]

- For those who do not speak German, this is the German advisory service for the FP7 programme!

Great! I was also thinking of getting into contact with swedish politicians (i'm a swede) before i checked this forum and saw that you, again, was way ahead of me! I'm assuming you can work something out with that (my german is very rusty )

[Ragnar_Darude]

I have noted one issue when looking around at different websites about grants. They all ask for a complete name of the organization as well as a real address (physical). I cant seem to find one here on the website, but dont mind yet as i am not that far in the process as that is necessary, but i only ask: Do ReactOS have an official address and what is it? Im guessing Alekseys home-address here, but if youre setting up a foundation filial in germany, and as it seems, most developers are from germany and not russia (sorry Aleksey), wouldnt an official address be there instead? Just a quick thought (at 02:00 in the morning )

[vicmarcal]

There is an address in mother Russia, since any organization has to have one .This is one of the most basic things that you were asked in order to create a valid organization. And (Russian) ReactOS Foundation has one as far as i know. The issue is that maybe to apply for any European Help an European Address is needed, in this case we will need the German ReactOS Branch Address. But right now, and as far as i know the German Branch is still not created(German buro-crazy) but it is near.
As i have read,maybe i am wrong, the Framework plan has been created to have an space of inter-developing between different entities. Really i dont know if we can ask for a Framework plan for a project with ReactOS Russia Foundation and German ReactOS Branch as partners, as they are the same entity but in different places.Or which entities do you want to be in the Framework?

Maybe we can use the Framework to develop one of the most ancient ideas: the University-ReactOS collaboration, but now under the Framework, which can help these Universities to join more easily.I have contacted with a legal University Association which has 10 PCs+hundred of different ancient hardware(tons of NICs,tons of mobos,tons of graphic cards,etc..) which could join this Framework to help in testing on Real Hardware.The money motivation seems to work. So maybe contacting with University Associations is another nice way to reach IT students.

[Ragnar_Darude]

Ok, i got an OK from Aleksey to form a "official" sponsorship/financing team/council. Who wants to join us?

Some things to put on the agenda:
- Naming of the "team"
- How its going to be organized, its not a good idea IMO to have it rely on someone specific as people tend to come and go
- Where can we centralize all the information we gather? People already have made some research on this issue before, and its a shame anything would have to be done all over again.

Budgetting:
- How much money are we out to get? Both Aleksey and I agree that too little money wont have much effect, especially if the plan is to hire people full-time (as is what i am thinking about). Somewhere around 50 000 euro and upwards would be reasonable, but a more precise number could be worked out where we for example look at the median salary for a software developer within the european union and multiply that with the number of developers we want and the timeframe we're looking at.

Public financing:
- What do we know of EU financing and the likes? Maybe individuals from different countries could contact their own representatives (like i already contacted a swedish government agency) and see what we could do that.

Private/corporate financing
- Aleksey suggested that corporate funding would be much more realistic alternative. He mentioned Intel and IBM. We should look into that.

Other alternatives?

How the financing would work
- What is the ReactOS foundation, how does it work and how is are the accounting going to work? Witch mentioned transparent accounting?

How would we hire (if we get the money to do so) someone to work with the project?
- "In-house" recruiting? How do we determine who that would be?

Maybe a mailinglist?

[Aeneas]

Well done. So I assume things are clarified with the developers and ReactOS wishes to expand. That being clear, we can proceed.

I would not mind a mailing list, but... after all, is that much different to a forum thread?? - Other than that, yes, I think a mailing list would be very reasonable.

I will gladly participate, whatever solution you implement.

I think it is a bit too early for a wiki, because so far, we frankly speaking do not have a lot, and some of the things are not suitable for a wiki ("getting support from corporation X" will not really fit as an entry).

First thing to do: clarify the representation. There should be someone through whom our applications are officially handled, someone with the authority to speak for ReactOS in public and represent it in the affairs which our entity is about to handle. (You know, if I say A and you say B, it does not help much.) Who thinks he can do that? - And which entity precisely shall be represented? - A hard-copy document would not be bad. - This person should not belong to the poeple who "come and go", it should be one of the main developers - because it is these guys who will mainly benefit through any donations.

Second step: Try to establish initial contact to corporations. This is nice in so far as rejection does not really matter. If IBM rejects, we will ask HP, we can ask Cicso, we can ask Oracle, we can ask Google, we can ask Apple (why not? ), etc. I think this is like looking for a job, really: You search until someone is interested in what you have to offer. From this step, we can get some constructive criticism and ideas as to how to do accounting. I mean, if IBM and Intel shall give us money, they can as well state how they want it to be traced, right?

In the meantime, we can try to find out more about the FP7 subject.

[Ragnar_Darude]

I got an e-mail back from Lars Ilmoni at the swedish agency for growth (Tillväxtverket, they facilitate swedish applications for the FP7) who i e-mailed today. He thought that ReactOS seemed interesting and wanted me to call him up on thursday because he wanted to ask me some questions. I would like to know everything before i call him that he might ask. Im guessing all the "official" info might be important like the official address of the ReactOS Foundation, its organization number, what type the organization is (is it a non-profit?), if the sourcecode is GPL'ed (it is right?), what ties we have or will have with the universities, who people are who is working on the project (i don't think he will be so impressed with online nicknames, and which ones are active) aswell as other things that i dont come to think of now but you probably do.

[Ragnar_Darude]

A hard-copy document would not be bad.

I think this is one of the first things we need to work on, a document/documents presenting the project to any potential financiers. Maybe a small one (like 5 pages) and a big one, maybe even a powerpoint...

[vicmarcal]

Ragnar_Darude:

Naming of the Team: Seems this belongs to the "PR ReactOS Team", which hasnt been created yet in an Official way
This Team should be the one who carries the Public and Relations, which means: Planning events,Finding support, Fighting against papers, Media communication,Users comunication(Blogging,Forum,etc),etc...A big group of tasks which are the nexus between ReactOS project and the Outside world. Of course, as Developers do when coding, each one inside the PR ReactOS Team can focus in the Area he wants more and develop there his own skills.I think we should create this Team in an Official Way with Aleksey Support and under Aleksey surveillance.

How to be Organized: I think the Top PR coordinator should be Aleksey, in the same way the Top Devs coordinator is Aleksey. Aleksey when coordinating devs points them to the needs ReactOS has, but doesnt force them to do the things. He delegates the Working code to the Devs and also he codes(because he is a Dev too).In the same way Aleksey could work inside the PR Team, he delegates in trusted people and he also can make some PR work(in the same way he is doing actually). Also Project Coordinator figure not tends to come and go.
Maybe some internal structure is needed as: Events, Users Communication, Finding Support.
These blocks resumes the different tasks inside a PR Team with different skills needed.And each one could have its own Coordinator.

Where sending all the Info gathered: This info should be send in an internal way, i dont think having or sending our comments in a Public way is the best thing currently(it will show we are quite unorganized, something normal in this early stage) and any discussion can be thrown to our faces. So i propose a Private Mailing List(as Ros-priv is) or a Private SubForum inside this Forum(not needed to create a new forum,neither new users).

Budgetting: Well,let´s ask for any possible money.Is there a limit?Let´s not limit ourselves, let´s read if any limit is set when asking for money.After knowing how much money we can use, then we will try to find the most quantity of Developers hirable with that money.

Private/Corporate financing: Well, i dont mind where the money come from. I reallly dont know if would be easier to try to contact with Private or Public entities. You can see that Russia were trying to find a GPL OS to use and replace Windows (this is Public), also Brazil is pushing a lot about open source code(Public entity), but at the same time IBM which is Private has some internal agreements with MS which cant help ReactOS. So Private or Public?Again, dont limitate ourselves. We will contact and we will find money sources.This project is quite incredible and i´m sure some doors will be open soon.Private doors?Public doors?Again: Just Money.

Financing: Financing is managed nowadays by ColinFinck and ReactOS Foundation, i think they should continue with this task.Maybe it is going to be much more time-consuming and maybe they will need help.But that would mean that there is a lot of devs being paid and a lot of code done.

Hiring: I think we should try to give the opportunity to the actual Devs. They have been working for free for a lot of time,and i think we should give some money to them.But not all of them are going to become Full paid devs, since they have their own jobs(and maybe they dont want to leave them).With those devs that doesnt want to become Full Paid devs i will begin with the CFI, so they will get paid by their work developed.