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author | Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> | 2021-02-21 15:26:33 +0100 |
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committer | Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> | 2021-02-21 15:29:07 +0100 |
commit | cf9a5db9bca7af3665c78c071cff49d36214481b (patch) | |
tree | f563aa9b80bbe6407f6753ba59b11c83367a3d37 | |
parent | 572d5a1dadb398d0b7d27468230f186f72987b3b (diff) | |
download | numpy-cf9a5db9bca7af3665c78c071cff49d36214481b.tar.gz |
NEP: add Spending NumPy Project Funds draft - NEP 48
-rw-r--r-- | doc/neps/nep-0048-spending-project-funds.rst | 421 |
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diff --git a/doc/neps/nep-0048-spending-project-funds.rst b/doc/neps/nep-0048-spending-project-funds.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..20c960a49 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/neps/nep-0048-spending-project-funds.rst @@ -0,0 +1,421 @@ +.. _NEP48: + +===================================== +NEP 48 — Spending NumPy Project Funds +===================================== + +:Author: Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> +:Author: Inessa Pawson <inessa@albuscode.org> +:Author: Stefan van der Walt <stefanv@berkeley.edu> +:Status: Draft +:Type: Informational +:Created: 2021-02-07 +:Resolution: + + +Abstract +-------- + +The NumPy project has historically never received significant **unrestricted** +funding. However, that is starting to change. This NEP aims to provide +guidance about spending NumPy project unrestricted funds, by formulating a set +of principles about *what* to pay for and *who* to pay. It will also touch on +how decisions regarding spending funds get made, how funds get administered, +and transparency around these topics. + + +Motivation and Scope +-------------------- + +In its 16+ year history, the NumPy project has only spent on the order of +$10,000 USD of funds that were not restricted to a particular program. Project +income of this type has been relying on donations from individuals and, from +May 2019, recurring monthly contributions from Tidelift. By the end of 2020, +the Tidelift contributions increased to $3,000/month, and there's also a +potential for an increase of donations and grants going directly to the +project. Having a clear set of principles around how to use these funds will +facilitate spending them fairly and effectively. Additionally, it will make it +easier to solicit donations and other contributions. + +A key assumption this NEP makes is that NumPy remains a largely +volunteer-driven project, and that the project funds are not enough to employ +maintainers full-time. If funding increases to the point where that assumption +is no longer true, this NEP should be updated. + +In scope for this NEP are: + +- Principles of spending project funds: what to pay for, and who to pay. +- Describing how NumPy's funds get administered. +- Describing how decisions to spend funds get proposed and made. + +Out of scope for this NEP are: + +- Making any decisions about spending project funds on a specific project or + activity. +- Principles for spending funds that are intended for NumPy development, but + don't fall in the category of NumPy unrestricted funds. This includes most of + the grant funding, which is usually earmarked for certain + activities/deliverables and goes to an Institutional Partner rather than + directly to the NumPy project, and companies or institutions funding specific + features. + *Rationale: As a project, we have no direct control over how this work gets + executed. In some cases, we may not even know the contributions were funded + or done by an employee on work time. (Whether that's the case or not should + not change how we approach a contribution). For grants though, we do expect + the PI and funded team to align their work with the project's needs and be + receptive to feedback from other NumPy maintainers and contributors.* + + +Principles of spending project funds +------------------------------------ + +NumPy will likely always be a project with many times more volunteer +contributors than funded people. Therefore having those funded people operate +in ways that attract more volunteers and enhance their participation experience +is critical. That key principle motivates many of the more detailed principles +given below for what to pay for and whom to pay. + +What to pay for +``````````````` + +1. Pay for things that are important *and* otherwise won't get done. + *Rationale: there is way more to be done than there are funds to do all + those things. So count on interested volunteers or external sponsored work + to do many of those things.* +2. Plan for sustainability. Don't rely on money always being there. +3. Consider potential positive benefits for NumPy maintainers and contributors, + maintainers of other projects, end users, and other stakeholders like + packagers and educators. +4. Think broadly. There's more to a project than code: websites, documentation, + community building, governance - it's all important. +5. For proposed funded work, include paid time for others to review your work + if such review is expected to be significant effort - do not just increase + the load on volunteer maintainers. + *Rationale: we want the effect of spending funds to be positive for + everyone, not just for the people getting paid. This is also a matter of + fairness.* + +When considering development work, principle (1) implies that priority should +be giving to (a) the most boring/painful tasks that no one likes doing, and to +necessary structural changes to the code base that are too large to be done by +a volunteer in a reasonable amount of time. + +There are also a large amount of tasks, activities, and projects outside of +development work that are important and could enhance the project or community +- think for example of user surveys, translations, outreach, dedicated +mentoring of newcomers, community organization, website improvements, and +administrative tasks. + +Time of people to perform tasks is also not the only thing that funds can be +used for: expenses for in-person developer meetings or sprints, hosted hardware +for benchmarking or development work, and CI or other software services could +all be good candidates to spend funds on. + +Whom to pay +``````````` + +1. All else being equal, give preference to existing maintainers/contributors. +2. Consider this an opportunity to make the project more diverse. +3. Pay attention to the following when considering paying someone: + + - the necessary technical or domain-specific skills to execute the tasks, + - communication and self-management skills, + - experience contributing to and working with open source projects. + +It will likely depend on the project/tasks whether there's already a clear best +candidate within the NumPy team, or whether we look for new people to get +involved. Before making any decisions, the decision makers should think about +whether an opportunity should be advertised to give a wider group of people a +chance to throw their hat in the ring for it. + +Compensating fairly +``````````````````` + +Paying people fairly is a difficult topic. Therefore, we will only offer some +guidance here. Final decisions will always have to be considered and approved +by the group of people that bears this responsibility (according to the +current NumPy governance structure, this would be the NumPy Steering Council). + +Discussions on employee compensation tend to be dominated by two narratives: +"pay local market rates" and "same work -- same pay". + +We consider them both extreme: + +- "Same work -- same pay" is unfair to people living in locations with a higher + cost of living. For example, the average rent for a single family apartment + can differ by a large factor (from a few hundred dollar to thousands of + dollars per month). +- "Pay local market rates" bakes in existing inequalities between countries + and makes fixed-cost items like a development machine or a holiday trip + abroad relatively harder to afford in locations where market rates are lower. + +We seek to find a middle ground between these two extremes. + +Useful points of reference include companies like GitLab and +Buffer who are transparent about their remuneration policies ([3]_, [4]_), +Google Summer of Code stipends ([5]_), other open source projects that manage +their budget in a transparent manner (e.g., Babel and Webpack on Open +Collective ([6]_, [7]_)), and standard salary comparison sites. + +Since NumPy is a not-for-profit project, we also looked to the nonprofit sector +for guidelines on remuneration policies and compensation levels. Our findings +show that most smaller non-profits tend to pay a median salary/wage. We +recognize merit in this approach: applying candidates are likely to have a +genuine interest in open source, rather than to be motivated purely by +financial incentives. + +Considering all of the above, we will use the following guidelines for +determining compensation: + +1. Aim to compensate people appropriately, up to a level that's expected for + senior engineers or other professionals as applicable. +2. Establish a compensation cap of $125,000 USD that cannot be exceeded even + for the residents from the most expensive/competitive locations ([#f-pay]_). +3. For equivalent work and seniority, a pay differential between locations + should never be more than 2x. + For example, if we pay $110,000 USD to a senior-level developer from New + York, for equivalent work a senior-level developer from South-East Asia + should be paid at least $55,000 USD. To compare locations, we will use + `Numbeo Cost of Living calculator <https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/>`__ + (or its equivalent). + +Some other considerations: + +- Often, compensated work is offered for a limited amount of hours or fixed + term. In those cases, consider compensation equivalent to a remuneration + package that comes with permanent employment (e.g., one month of work should + be compensated by at most 1/12th of a full-year salary + benefits). +- When comparing rates, an individual contractor should typically make 20% more + than someone who is employed since they have to take care of their benefits + and accounting on their own. +- Some people may be happy with one-off payments towards a particular + deliverable (e.g., hiring a cleaner or some other service to use the saved + time for work on open source). This should be compensated at a lower rate + compared to an individual contractor. +- When funding someone's time through their employer, that employer may want to + set the compensation level based on its internal rules (e.g., overhead rates). + Small deviations from the guidelines in this NEP may be needed in such cases, + however they should be within reason. +- It's entirely possible that another strategy rather than paying people for + their time on certain tasks may turn out to be more effective. Anything that + helps the project and community grow and improve is worth considering. +- Transparency helps. If everyone involved is comfortable sharing their + compensation levels with the rest of the team (or better make it public), + it's least likely to be way off the mark for fairness. + +We highly recommend that the individuals involved in decision-making about +hiring and compensation peruse the content of the References section of this +NEP. It offers a lot of helpful advice on this topic. + + +Defining fundable activities and projects +----------------------------------------- + +We'd like to have a broader set of fundable ideas that we will prioritize with +input from NumPy team members and the wider community. All ideas will be +documented on a single wiki page. Anyone may propose an idea. Only members of a +NumPy team may edit the wiki page. + +Each listed idea must meet the following requirements: + +1. It must be clearly scoped: its description must explain the importance to + the project, referencing the NumPy Roadmap if possible, the items to pay for + or activities and deliverables, and why it should be a funded activity. +2. It must contain the following metadata: title, cost, time duration or effort + estimate, and (if known) names of the team member(s) to execute or coordinate. +3. It must have an assigned priority (low, medium, or high). This discussion + can originate at a NumPy community meeting or on the mailing list. However, + it must be finalized on the mailing list allowing everyone to weigh in. + +If a proposed idea has been assigned a high priority level, a decision on +allocating funding for it will be made on the private NumPy Steering Council +mailing list. *Rationale: these will often involve decisions about individuals, +which is typically hard to do in public. This is the current practice that +seems to be working well.* + +Sometimes, it may be practical to make a single funding decision ad-hoc (e.g., +"Here's a great opportunity plus the right person to execute it right now”). +However, this approach to decision-making should be used rarely. + + +Strategy for spending/saving funds +---------------------------------- + +There is an expectation from NumPy individual, corporate, and institutional +donors that the funds will be used for the benefit of the project and the +community. Therefore, we should spend available funds, thoughtfully, +strategically, and fairly, as they come in. For emergencies, we should keep a +$10,000 - $15,000 USD reserve which could cover, for example, a year of CI and +hosting services, 1-2 months of full-time maintenance work, or contracting a +consultant for a specific need. + + +How project funds get administered +---------------------------------- + +We will first summarize how administering of funds works today, and then +discuss how to make this process more efficient and transparent. + +Currently, the project funds are held by NumFOCUS in a dedicated account. +NumFOCUS has a small accounting team, which produces an account overview as a +set of spreadsheets on a monthly basis. These land in a shared drive, typically +with about a one month delay (e.g., the balance and transactions for February +are available at the end of March), where a few NumPy team members can access +them. Expense claims and invoices are submitted through the NumFOCUS website. +Those then show up in another spreadsheet, where a NumPy team member must +review and approve each of them before payments are made. Following NumPy +bylaws, the NumFOCUS finance subcommittee, consisting of five people, meets +every six months to review all the project related transactions. (In practice, +there have been so few transactions that we skipped some of these meetings.) + +The existing process is time-consuming and error-prone. More transparency and +automation are desirable. + + +Transparency about project funds and in decision making +``````````````````````````````````````````````````````` + +**To discuss: do we want full transparency by publishing our accounts, +transparency to everyone on a NumPy team, or some other level?** + +Ralf: I'd personally like it to be fully transparent, like through Open +Collective, so the whole community can see current balance, income and expenses +paid out at any moment in time. Moving to Open Collective is nontrivial, +however we can publish the data elsewhere for now if we'd want to. +*Note: Google Season of Docs this year requires having an Open Collective +account, so this is likely to happen soon enough.* + +Stefan/Inessa: at least a summary overview should be fully public, and all +transactions should be visible to the Steering Council. Full transparency of +all transactions is probably fine, but not necessary. + +*The options here may be determined by the accounting system and amount of +effort required.* + + +History and current status +-------------------------- + +The NumPy project received its first major funding in 2017. For an overview of +the early history of NumPy (and SciPy), including some institutions sponsoring +time for their employees or contractors to work on NumPy, see [1]_ and [2]_. To +date, NumPy has received four grants: + +- Two grants, from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Gordon and Betty + Moore Foundation respectively, of about $1.3M combined to the Berkeley + Institute of Data Science. Work performed during the period 2017-2020; + PI Stéfan van der Walt. +- Two grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation to NumFOCUS, for a combined + amount of $335k. Work performed during the period 2020-2021; PI's Ralf + Gommers (first grant) and Melissa Mendonça (second grant). + +From 2012 onwards NumPy has been a fiscally sponsored project of NumFOCUS. +Note that fiscal sponsorship doesn't mean NumPy gets funding, rather that it +can receive funds under the umbrella of a nonprofit. See `NumFOCUS Project +Support <https://numfocus.org/projects-overview>`__ for more details. + +Only since 2017 has the NumPy website displayed a "Donate" button, and since +2019 the NumPy repositories have had the GitHub Sponsors button. Before that, +it was possible to donate to NumPy on the NumFOCUS website. The sum total of +donations from individuals to NumPy for 2017-2020 was about $6,100. + +From May 2019 onwards, Tidelift has supported NumPy financially as part of +its "managed open source" business model. From May 2019 till July 2020 this was +$1,000/month, and it started steadily growing after that to about $3,000/month +(as of Feb 2021). + +Finally there have been other incidental project income, for example some book +royalties from Packt Publishing, GSoC mentoring fees from Google, and +merchandise sales revenue through the NumFOCUS web shop. All of these were +small (two or three figure) amounts. + +This brings the total amount of project income which did not already have a +spending target to about $35,000. Most of that is recent, from Tidelift. +Over the past 1.5 years we spent about $10,000 for work on the new NumPy +website and Sphinx theme. Those spending decisions were made by the NumPy +Steering Council and announced on the mailing list. + +That leaves about $25,000 in available funds at the time of writing, and +that amount is current growing at a rate of about $3,000/month. + + +Related Work +------------ + +See references. We assume that there are other open source projects having +published guidelines on spending project funds, however we don't have concrete +examples at this time. + + +Alternatives +------------ + +*Alternative spending strategy*: not having cash reserves. The rationale +being that NumPy is important enough that in a real emergency some person or +entity will likely jump in to help out. This is not a responsible approach to +financial stewardship of the project though. Hence, we decided against it. + + +Discussion +---------- + + + +References and Footnotes +------------------------ + +.. [1] Pauli Virtanen et al., "SciPy 1.0: fundamental algorithms for scientific + computing in Python", https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-019-0686-2, + 2020 + +.. [2] Charles Harris et al., "Array programming with NumPy", https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2649-2, 2020 + +.. [3] https://remote.com/blog/remote-compensation + +.. [4] https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/compensation/#how-do-you-decide-how-much-to-pay-people + +.. [5] https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/help/student-stipends + +.. [6] Jurgen Appelo, "Compensation: what is fair?", https://blog.agilityscales.com/compensation-what-is-fair-38a65a822c29, 2016 + +.. [7] Project Include, "Compensating fairly", https://projectinclude.org/compensating_fairly + +.. [#f-pay] This cap is derived from comparing with compensation levels at + other open source projects (e.g., Babel, Webpack, Drupal - all in + the $100,000 -- $125,000 range) and Partner Institutions. + +- Nadia Eghbal, "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital + Infrastructure", 2016 +- Nadia Eghbal, "Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open + Source", 2020 +- https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand +- Daniel Oberhaus, `"The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of Open Source + Developers. Is That Sustainable?" + <https://www.vice.com/en/article/43zak3/the-internet-was-built-on-the-free-labor-of-open-source-developers-is-that-sustainable>`_, 2019 +- David Heinemeier Hansson, `"The perils of mixing open source and money" <https://dhh.dk/2013/the-perils-of-mixing-open-source-and-money.html>`_, 2013 +- Danny Crichton, `"Open source sustainability" <https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/23/open-source-sustainability/?guccounter=1>`_, 2018 +- Nadia Eghbal, "Rebuilding the Cathedral", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS6IpvTWwkQ, 2017 +- Nadia Eghbal, "Where money meets open source", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjAinwgvQqc&t=246s, 2017 +- Eileen Uchitelle, ""The unbearable vulnerability of open source", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdwO3LQ56oM, 2017 (the inverted triangle, open source is a funnel) +- Dries Buytaert, "Balancing Makers and Takers to scale and sustain Open Source", https://dri.es/balancing-makers-and-takers-to-scale-and-sustain-open-source, 2019 +- Safia Abdalla, "Beyond Maintenance", https://increment.com/open-source/beyond-maintenance/, 2019 +- Xavier Damman, "Money and Open Source Communities", https://blog.opencollective.com/money-and-open-source-communities/, 2016 +- Aseem Sood, "Let's talk about money", https://blog.opencollective.com/lets-talk-about-money/, 2017 +- Alanna Irving, "Has your open source community raised money? Here's how to spend it.", https://blog.opencollective.com/has-your-open-source-community-raised-money-heres-how-to-spend-it/, 2017 +- Alanna Irving, "Funding open source, how Webpack reached $400k+/year", https://blog.opencollective.com/funding-open-source-how-webpack-reached-400k-year/, 2017 +- Alanna Irving, "Babel's rise to financial sustainability", https://blog.opencollective.com/babels-rise-to-financial-sustainability/, 2019 +- Devon Zuegel, "The city guide to open source", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80KTVu6GGSE, 2020 + blog: https://increment.com/open-source/the-city-guide-to-open-source/ + +GitHub Sponsors: + +- https://github.blog/2019-05-23-announcing-github-sponsors-a-new-way-to-contribute-to-open-source/ +- https://github.blog/2020-05-12-github-sponsors-is-out-of-beta-for-sponsored-organizations/ +- https://blog.opencollective.com/on-github-sponsors/, 2019 +- https://blog.opencollective.com/double-the-love/, 2020 +- https://blog.opencollective.com/github-sponsors-for-companies-open-source-collective-for-people/ + + +Copyright +--------- + +This document has been placed in the public domain. |