Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patreon)?

Post Reply
User avatar
taikedz
Member
Posts: 698
Joined: Sun May 15, 2016 11:11
GitHub: taikedz
IRC: DuCake
In-game: DuCake
Location: Scotland, UK
Contact:

Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patreon)?

by taikedz » Post

Hi

As per title, I was wondering whether it was of interest for the core devs of Minetest to set up and manage an Open Collective, or Patreon, account so as to accept monetary donations? For one, it would make me feel much better (egotistically) if I could fund some of the activity around Minetest, which is an awesome game, game engine, and enabler of creativity and programming learning.

But also, it would also be superb if one or two of the core devs could travel to represent Minetest at open source conferences, and expense that travel against a funding pot - of course they need the time, and that is theirs to manage, but they'd also need to pay for such things out-of-pocket, and having a funding pot would help alleviate this.

Also, I have had a couple hare-brained ideas of getting stickers, hoodies, etc for Minetest, primarily because I'd want them for myself, and I can also imagine that there would be a few people who'd proudly wear Minetest paraphernalia at events, or out and about in general. I'd certainly want to wear it at open source events and game events - Tux hoodies are a dime a dozen, but Minetest? They have a chance of generating a little "profit" as it were, and I was thinking, if someone did one of these, could the money go wholesale into such a pot?

I'm also toying with the idea of running workshops in my local community for teaching programming via Minetest, developing teaching materials, and perhaps eventually doing such workshops as pay-for/hire-able things, and if I made any money off of it, I'd feel really bad if I could not put some contribution of that profit back to the very team that allowed it to happen in the first place. If anybody else does something like this, it would also be great if they could proudly claim "we support the development of Minetest."

I had a look and found that none of the core devs seem to run a Patreon account, and there is no Open Collective or Github Sponsors presence for Minetest as far as I can find to which to direct any funds, for contributors to expense against.

I appreciate that defining "core devs" and "acceptable expenses" and "notable contributors" is an effort, not without difficulties, in and of itself, but is it undesirable?

Thoughts on the back of a napkin please.

Thanks

DuCake

User avatar
texmex
Member
Posts: 1753
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2016 21:08
GitHub: tacotexmex
In-game: tacotexmex

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by texmex » Post

Good thinking imo. Even if it’s undesirable for core developers having to split funds between them the money can be of good use when put into existing (or new!) infrastructure.

On Patreon at least rubenwardy and paramat are present. Someone might be on Liberapay as well. But an Open Collective account would be more interesting!

(The only thing I disagree upon is putting the name on more expensive merchandise. The reason is, of course, usual: The name. It’s still tremendously, horribly bad. It will always be a massive and unnecessary obstacle when spreading word. Anyone disagreeing has lost contact with the connotations the rest of the world hold, probably by using it frequently. First impression matter.)

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6972
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by rubenwardy » Post

taikedz wrote:But also, it would also be superb if one or two of the core devs could travel to represent Minetest at open source conferences, and expense that travel against a funding pot - of course they need the time, and that is theirs to manage, but they'd also need to pay for such things out-of-pocket, and having a funding pot would help alleviate this.
I have been to two open-source conferences on behalf of Minetest - Freenode Live 2017 and 2018. On my Patreon, one of my goals is to have enough monthly subscriptions to allow me to attend Fossdem - the European open source convention.

Here's some links and images about Freenode Live:

https://blog.rubenwardy.com/2017/10/29/freenode-live/

Image

Image
taikedz wrote:Also, I have had a couple hare-brained ideas of getting stickers, hoodies, etc for Minetest, primarily because I'd want them for myself, and I can also imagine that there would be a few people who'd proudly wear Minetest paraphernalia at events, or out and about in general. I'd certainly want to wear it at open source events and game events - Tux hoodies are a dime a dozen, but Minetest? They have a chance of generating a little "profit" as it were, and I was thinking, if someone did one of these, could the money go wholesale into such a pot?
I've looked into getting clothes as merch, but it's expensive to do so.

Instead, I've ordered stickers in bulk and I gave them out at the 2018 conference. I also offer them as a tier on my patreon:

Image
taikedz wrote:I'm also toying with the idea of running workshops in my local community for teaching programming via Minetest, developing teaching materials, and perhaps eventually doing such workshops as pay-for/hire-able things
This would be really cool!
taikedz wrote:I had a look and found that none of the core devs seem to run a Patreon account, and there is no Open Collective or Github Sponsors presence for Minetest as far as I can find to which to direct any funds, for contributors to expense against.

I appreciate that defining "core devs" and "acceptable expenses" and "notable contributors" is an effort, not without difficulties, in and of itself, but is it undesirable?
https://www.patreon.com/rubenwardy | https://rubenwardy.com/donate/
https://www.patreon.com/paramat | viewtopic.php?t=14935
texmex wrote:Someone might be on Liberapay as well.
I used to have liberapay before they had that crisis where they had to change how they hold money.
taikedz wrote:Open Collective
I was recently investigating this as a way of relieving pressure on celeron55, as well as increasing possibilities. I'm very much for transparency, and Open Collective is a nice way to do this.

A big problem with this is how to decide what to spend funds on. It's probably best to keep money out of minetest until that is solved
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
texmex
Member
Posts: 1753
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2016 21:08
GitHub: tacotexmex
In-game: tacotexmex

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by texmex » Post

rubenwardy wrote:A big problem with this is how to decide what to spend funds on. It's probably best to keep money out of minetest until that is solved
How about my suggestion of only spending it on infra for the time being?

User avatar
runs
Member
Posts: 3225
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2018 08:32

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by runs » Post

I would like a t-shirt, white and with minetest logo on front.

Why not in the official website a tab fo buy it???

User avatar
taikedz
Member
Posts: 698
Joined: Sun May 15, 2016 11:11
GitHub: taikedz
IRC: DuCake
In-game: DuCake
Location: Scotland, UK
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by taikedz » Post

@rubenwardy thanks for the rundown ; I was aware of Paramat's post, not sure how I managed to forget to looking them up for a patreon acct directly.

Regards what to spend money on for a shared funding pot - indeed, that would be the main item to address. Partly my question also was around that - has the core team tried to figure this out before, was there an explicit decision to defer, or even not do this...? (is the "core team" sufficiently defined for this kind of purpose?) I don't want to be too leading on ideas, but paying for build servers, hosting, maybe some (ethical) advertising drives, etc....?

FOSDEM - I went in 2014, it was really crowded, but also quite fun. Would definitely want love a chance to come hi-five some minetesters in-person :-)

Any chance anyone will be at Oggcamp 2019 in Manchester, UK? Same hi-fives will be given there too :-p

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6972
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by rubenwardy » Post

taikedz wrote:Any chance anyone will be at Oggcamp 2019 in Manchester, UK? Same hi-fives will be given there too :-p
No plans for this! From a quick look, there doesn't appear to be any exhibitor space for this - just talks and workshops. I suppose running a workshop could be viable, but not sure I'm the best person

Did a little investigation: providing I stay in an AirBnB, it would probably cost just over £300 to go to Brussels for FOSDEM, which is much less than I originally estimated. I've reduced the goal on my Patreon for this in that case
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
TumeniNodes
Member
Posts: 2941
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2016 19:49
GitHub: TumeniNodes
IRC: tumeninodes
In-game: TumeniNodes
Location: in the dark recesses of the mind
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by TumeniNodes » Post

If only I still had my equipment, I could come give Minetest tattoos 8^)
A Wonderful World

ShadMOrdre
Member
Posts: 1118
Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2014 08:07
Location: USA

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by ShadMOrdre » Post

Taikedz and texmex,

In regards to how to spend the money, or priorities, I do agree that infrastructure should be the first consideration. There isn't currently much, besides the websites, and maybe some of the PR that devs like Krock and Rubenwardy are doing. I'd advocate, based on Rubenwardy's comment about FOSDEM, that maybe the best way to send funding to the devs might be on a bounty basis. Not to encourage competition or foster ill will, but simply to encourage certain areas that devs may not want to dive into, even if they are critical issues. Honestly, I do think the devs can always figure out who gets what task, assigning bounties amongst themselves, if this is even desireable.

I'd like to encourage you to look at the model that was used by the Opensim community some years back. As the project gained traction, a non-profit was put in place to manage the code and brand, as well as, the "test" server. After a time, the "test" server, ie OSGrid, became it's own non-profit, or somehow was otherwise integrated, but that the non-profits work in tandem to ensure the brand and code, as well as, to fund a single server on which anyone can join.

I like this idea of a non-profit organization, to help protect the brand, cover expenses, perhaps fund development, and well, anything else that should be covered under this type of setup.

If celeron55 can be convinced, this is possible. We need his approval, but I think a community based organization, instead of a single, overworked, individual, can help protect the rights of all involved.

Shad

User avatar
Linuxdirk
Member
Posts: 3216
Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:21
In-game: Linuxdirk
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by Linuxdirk » Post

On another project I work on they have a bank account for team activities like going to conventions, etc. Everyone can send money to that account using bank transfer or PayPal and accounting information is publicly available.

I think that is a better solution than individual people having different ways for donations or payment.

User avatar
runs
Member
Posts: 3225
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2018 08:32

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by runs » Post

I don't like the idea of raise for conventions, because they are to promote (cool) and also paying others for a ¿pleasure? trip. People might get pissed off if then they watch pics in the web of people having a drink or having a good time or enjoying the hotel swimming pool. I'm not saying that those who have already gone do it. But people are usually very sensitive when it comes to money matters.

I propose to do campaigns. For example collect money to replace default textures with better ones by hiring a graphic designer.

The bounty idea for the developers is cool too, in my opinion.

User avatar
TumeniNodes
Member
Posts: 2941
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2016 19:49
GitHub: TumeniNodes
IRC: tumeninodes
In-game: TumeniNodes
Location: in the dark recesses of the mind
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by TumeniNodes » Post

Even if a professional individual GD or group were hired, and paid... it is never a guarantee that everyone will be pleased with the results... so IMO spending a deal of $ on such a thing is a bit foolish and even a waste.

Having a donation bin to be used for advertising and the maint. of the entire project are prime example of spending wisely (the latter most importantly)
Those who take their time and the trouble to go to certain events, deserve to be compensated for some of the cost... such as the cost to have products made, and then aspects of getting too and from, etc...
That aspect of contributing involves more then being at home and doing coding, designing, or artwork at your own leisure.

Bounties for certain and specific features are ok, and individual devs having personal paypal etc I see as a perfect set up.
The one con which can come from people donating, is they can sometimes feel it means they should have a certain power or control over how the donations are used, and get rage when they don't.
And as far as all donations being pooled into one acct, another bad idea... because then it becomes a bickering cycle.

In my opinion, one of the best people one could contact for some advice related to working with donations for a project such as this would be Clem over at Linux Mint.
Or even to really look over how other more successful groups have managed their donations.
But the biggest piece of the puzzle is... to have donations coming in, on an almost regular and predictable basis, which is tough to accomplish, even for groups who've been in action for quite some time
Last edited by TumeniNodes on Tue Jul 23, 2019 21:19, edited 1 time in total.
A Wonderful World

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6972
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by rubenwardy » Post

runs wrote:I don't like the idea of raise for conventions, because they are to promote (cool) and also paying others for a ¿pleasure? trip. People might get pissed off if then they watch pics in the web of people having a drink or having a good time or enjoying the hotel swimming pool. I'm not saying that those who have already gone do it. But people are usually very sensitive when it comes to money matters.
I disagree with using central/general money to fund this, as there are more important things, but doing fundraising campaigns for that specific cause would be fine
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
runs
Member
Posts: 3225
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2018 08:32

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by runs » Post

rubenwardy wrote:
runs wrote:I don't like the idea of raise for conventions, because they are to promote (cool) and also paying others for a ¿pleasure? trip. People might get pissed off if then they watch pics in the web of people having a drink or having a good time or enjoying the hotel swimming pool. I'm not saying that those who have already gone do it. But people are usually very sensitive when it comes to money matters.
I disagree with using central/general money to fund this, as there are more important things, but doing fundraising campaigns for that specific cause would be fine
Yes, that would be right.

User avatar
taikedz
Member
Posts: 698
Joined: Sun May 15, 2016 11:11
GitHub: taikedz
IRC: DuCake
In-game: DuCake
Location: Scotland, UK
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by taikedz » Post

Hm OK I see the problem with using funds in some of the ways I suggested.

Remains a question of wanting to have a central pot for keeping the lights on ..?

Setting up and running an actual non-profit requires leg work, paperwork, and so on, so probably not great at that level - but that's where Open Collective comes in... or org, no bank, just expenses that can be filed and re-imbursed for (again, running site and build/test servers, and perhaps creation of any merch for an event.

(I completely forgot, I am missing a prime moment for shameless plug - I'm co-organising a meetup event in Edinburgh next week Thursday, topic being.... "Funding our Open Source Projects" - would be a propos if anyone was in this neck of the woods and was interested in coming.)

Re: Oggcamp I'm about to go discover how this works too, I imagine there's a bunch of tables up for grabs to organise workshops on the day... In terms of Minetest, that'd probably amount to a bunch of laptops around a LAN server+monitor? :-p Write code, deploy to server, step on toes :-p

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6972
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by rubenwardy » Post

taikedz wrote:Re: Oggcamp I'm about to go discover how this works too, I imagine there's a bunch of tables up for grabs to organise workshops on the day... In terms of Minetest, that'd probably amount to a bunch of laptops around a LAN server+monitor? :-p Write code, deploy to server, step on toes :-p
I'd be interested in coming up to run a workshop there with someone, but I'm not particularly inspired on what the workshop would be about
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
taikedz
Member
Posts: 698
Joined: Sun May 15, 2016 11:11
GitHub: taikedz
IRC: DuCake
In-game: DuCake
Location: Scotland, UK
Contact:

Re: Funding Minetest Coredevs with Open Collective (or Patre

by taikedz » Post

You could take it in a beginner/educational direction and have it about mod coding etc, with a showcase of the possibilities vs ease-of-modding... but that feels a little pedestrian for this kind of event...

A thing which would be more in keeping (but beyond me personally) would be using a combination of railcarts, mesecons, pipeworks and the likes running on a local server, combined with a Pi on-desk with some wiring, to build some in-world system that does something interacting with the real world.... like I dunno, running a railcart in-game would cause lights on a desk to illuminate....? Or activate a coffee pot....?

EDIT: We're getting off-topic, here's an Oggcamp thread

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests