About funding and all that

[timmwille]

[...]
If we have a short timespan, I'm afraid none of these two solutions will work...

If you can use the Open Source Ecology structure, I would say funding specific developers through it might be the easiest solution. We have a team funding on https://liberapay.com/FreeCAD/ , maybe that would be a possible channel?

Thx Rus and Yorik for reaching out via PM I think I will answer some aspects publicly now to keep others informed as well. I know time is precious these days, so I hope we manage to keep this straight forward on point.

So I had another call regarding this and I think we might be able to use the OSE Germany Association to facilitate the formation of a foundation. → and news are: we could use the budget to fully fund the founding process including administration of this organisation, some Dev hours to establish the procedure. Only tricky part would be, the foundation/administration has to be based in Hamburg (we have some OSEG Members there, I'll talk to them, bit we have some time to realise this in the coming Year) and it only makes sense if really needed and the community members and main devs think of it as a real opportunity also for the future. I would offer my help in communication and moderating throughout the process, + now writing the proposal, later for paperwork I'd rather hire a book-keeper from that budget

Some real talk in dates and numbers:
- We would be sustained/have time until early 2023
- We have at least 100k€ to realise this (we can argue for more)
- We have to deliver the the concept proposal (draft is there) before 26th of March
- I have to present the general concept and get a vote for coordination/structural backbone of the OSE Germany Association on the 20th of March


Now I need feedback and some form of commitment messages here or PM or on Telegram @TimmW so I know this is something we want together, not just a fairy dream in my head. I committed to push this through, I know here are many FreeCAD heroes and I love the engaged Community and follow the development closely. Any allies to support me with this? Any suggestions? I'm open to have a jitsi call etc. on it as well. Just ping me via a message.

Do we want this to happen?

[aep]

just a quick encouragement call here. We do regularly donate to open source projects, but only to registered charitable organisations, due to tax laws. Becoming or joining some form of legal organisation will make corporate funds easier to access for you. There's also other ways to get corps to send you stacks, but all of them require correct tax accounting. So god speed, you're doing the right thing.

[kkremitzki]

This sounds really promising, though perhaps some of the community members in Germany would do best taking charge with things? Not sure what I'd need to do to help from here in Texas.

[Zolko]

Some real talk in dates and numbers:
- We would be sustained/have time until early 2023
- We have at least 100k€ to realise this (we can argue for more)
- We have to deliver the the concept proposal (draft is there) before 26th of March
- I have to present the general concept and get a vote for coordination/structural backbone of the OSE Germany Association on the 20th of March

Now I need feedback and some form of commitment messages here or PM or on Telegram @TimmW so I know this is something we want together, not just a fairy dream in my head.

I think this is great and would like to help in making it happen.

Concerning the "general concept", what are the possibilities ? Any examples we can look up ?

[Kunda1]

So who's gonna do it?

[saso]

If I can help in any way I am happy to do it

[timmwille]

So who's gonna do it?

The amount of volunteering messages I've got speaks for itself

I'll do my best in facilitating a meeting now and transform into accountable action and fingers crossed this comes to life (can't make promises for now, except I'm sure we'll do our best).

If I missed someone important key person to include in this quick action plan, please let them know (I'm quite busy the next 2 days, on wed we meet, self organize → some I informed via PM, you know best who else to add). And don't worry if you can't make it, have other priorities to handle right now, I'll try to keep this as transparent as possible.

Cheers

PS: and just that being said: if we can't commit to this right now (for whatever good reasons we might find), it won't be the last opportunity and I will have at least got to know some amazing people → so whatever the outcome of this meeting → cheers to FreeCAD, it's community and the great future ahead!

[RedBaron]

@timmwille:
Thank you for your efforts an Support!

[timmwille]

Hello everyone,

I think this is a good moment to give an update, as we just had a small online meeting with some of the community members in FreeCAD.
It is all really a bit short in time right now, so we could not meet with the devs, but we're in touch via PM and will continue the way forward.

To give a little overview of the next steps (I had to put some decisions on my side to communicate to the application team, I hope it is well received):

1. A FreeCAD foundation in Germany currently makes no sense, as it would be better to have it in a region located where some of the core devs will be available and give it time to grow → so we skip that idea for now

2. The Programme application (2021-2023) will now take a more general approach of supporting Open Engineering Software
(where FreeCAD Devs or Workbench specific work sprints could be funded as well, but now we have time to brainstorm and act about it, no reason to rush)

3. A NGO for FreeCAD might emerge in the future, might even get support out of the programme in Hamburg (open to discuss with core team)

4. The discussion started if specific Hackathons in small teams invited to Hamburg might be a nice thing to have funded (logistics, accomondation etc.)?

Here are the things we talked about additional to the overall fund opportunity:

3D solver and open cascade
solving topological naming issues,
make the FreeCAD file format git friendly for distributed development (we might have to share something with OSEG here),
associated & explicit modelling
allow 3D visualization of differences between designs,
a "native" assembly workbench,
the Path workbench for CAM, and
FreeCAD’s user interface and user experience

So maybe it would be nice to have such community meetings in the future, but we definitely will give it all a bit more time now. I'll definitely look out for further opportunities.



----
Part of the discussion also was:
What approach shall we take if we're about to discuss, what we would do with >100k€? to make the most out of it
Bringing developers together? to do what?
Bringing Community Members together? to do what?
Bringing OSH together with FreeCAD Members? to do a real prototyping?
→ not so much about the money itself, rather the impact it could create for the overall FreeCAD Mission.

Let me know in the comments, if a monthly open meeting would be something to look for or a separate Forum thread to collect some Ideas?



---
Have a great rest of the week!

[realthunder]

3D solver and open cascade
solving topological naming issues,
make the FreeCAD file format git friendly for distributed development (we might have to share something with OSEG here),
associated & explicit modelling
allow 3D visualization of differences between designs,
a "native" assembly workbench,
the Path workbench for CAM, and
FreeCAD’s user interface and user experience

Wait a minute, did you get the list from one of my post or something? It looks suspiciously familiar...